Inviolable

This is the translated version of a text I wrote last year.

Note: The term "Human dignity is inviolable" is the first sentence in the German constitution.

I'm sitting in the audience at a concert. The theme of the evening: “I am what I am.”

I am greeted with a cheerful “Dear ladies, dear gentlemen, dear children and everyone in between and beyond”.

Between the music pieces, there are always little speeches. Relaxed, funny. Some of the speakers are probably part of the LGBTQI+ movement themselves. A man in a glittering jacket praises our constitution. He quotes the first lines, emphasizing how lucky we are to live in Germany, because other people elsewhere are not allowed to enjoy the same basic rights.

After the next music piece, a woman explains how everyone is part of diversity, not just people from the queer movement. People of color, for example. There are people of different origins, different body shapes and different ages in the orchestra. Quite colorful.

Yes, anyone who does no harm to others, is added. I feel sick. I know who that means.

I feel like I've been caught out and I suddenly and painfully realize that it means everyone. Everyone except me. I feel first disappointment, then bitter disillusionment and finally anger building up.

I'm not hurting anyone by being the way I am. And yet I know that an exception would be made here. I want to raise my hand, I want to ask. I want to shout. But of course I don't.

Instead, passivity. I refuse to applaud after the speech, but I feel as if I'm not even allowed to and as if this brazen rudeness only confirms how wrong my existence is.

Part of the show is a trans woman and I'm actually pleased to see how normal this has become. No drama at all - just a woman. But I can't get over the bitter aftertaste.

I feel excluded from society in the country where I grew up and which I have admired for its values all my life. I feel lied to.

Why am I not allowed to talk about how I feel about this? How can it be that I have to be afraid of police visits, of psychological or even physical violence if I break the silence? How can it be that I am not allowed to be who I am, that I have to hide, that I am not allowed to show myself? Who has universally decided that my values and my behavior does not count, but only how I was born?

And why is my dignity the only one that is violable?