Against anticipation, or, camp reading as reparative to the trans feminine past: A microhistory in Nazi‐Era Vienna

Abstract

Whether trans people – especially trans women – were persecuted by the Nazi regime remains a contested yet under‐researched topic. But the wider political backdrop (including the culture wars and Holocaust memorialisation practices) steers this historical question with a monolithic value: victimisation. This hyper‐focus on victimisation is underpinned by a ‘paranoia’ that pre‐empts tragic historical narratives. Trans histories that do not neatly map onto tragic narration are therefore deemed unthinkable and remain absent from the nascent literature. In a move against paranoid anticipation, this article puts forward an argument for a ‘Camp reading’ practice that embraces ‘insincere’ and ironic material to recalibrate which trans stories are deigned to be given a history. The microhistory of Bella P. in Nazi‐era Vienna acts as a case study in divesting from the politics of victimhood, that challenges the historian's anticipatory impulses, offering the trans feminine past under National Socialism a ‘reparative’ entry into the historical canon on its own terms.

Introduction: Affective Histories of Queer and Trans Activism

“…In queer and trans studies, both affect and emotion have been essential concepts in theorizing and exploring the histories of queer and trans lives (e.g. Gammerl 2016;Love 2007;Malatino 2022;Nunn 2023;Stryker 1994) and the causes and effects of queer and trans activism (e.g. Alasuutari 2023;Gould 2009;Juvonen et al 2022;Vähäpassi 2021) an "affective curve into the emotional turn" of social movement studies, Gould makes a strong argument for focusing on the affective/emotional states to understand activism and its political horizons (Gould 2009, 23).…”