Meet Berlin gay groups

The Meeting of Berlin Gay Groups (TBS) was a voluntary monthly and publicly meeting committee in West Berlin in the 1980s , to which gay and lesbian groups of the Second Gay Movement could send one or more representatives, but which also included private individuals. Over the years numerous meetings were prepared by the activist Thomas Brüggemann in a leading role; The meeting place was the club rooms of the General Homosexual Working Group at Friedrichstrasse 12 in Berlin-Kreuzberg .

Numerous projects were launched during the sessions, which were not very formalized and sometimes chaotic. The TBS coordinated / organized the Christopher Street Day West Berlin in the 1980s . Various groups were supported with the income from the CSD parties and the monthly magazine Siegessäule , which was initially published in black and white from 1984, was founded / financed. Furthermore, a telephone advice center was founded (reusing the abbreviation TBS), which was later renamed Mann-O-Meter . Work on anti- AIDS , anti- raids and anti- pink lists was bundled , calls for reparation for Nazi injustice against gays coordinated - under the leadership of Joachim Müller - and numerous political, social and cultural actors were brought to one table. When the then Tuntenhaus got into trouble in 1982, the monthly meetings were temporarily moved from the AHA to Bülowstrasse and a declaration of solidarity was passed in a critical phase. At the initiative of the committee, Stefan Reiss moved to the West Berlin House of Representatives in 1985 as the first openly gay elector for the Alternative List .

Among the participants were representatives of gay and lesbian party groups, trade union groups, university groups (including FU , TU , HdK ), publishers, radio stations, social advice centers, anti-AIDS groups, self-help groups and squatter groups.

In the early 1990s, the TBS disbanded.

Anecdotal

Thanks to the moderation of Thomas Brüggemann, the meeting of Berlin gay groups was also given the benevolent, derisive name of Thomas Brüggemann Show (TBS).

Motivated by the misunderstanding that the meeting of Berlin gay groups was an influential institution, the Nuremberg Indian Commune stormed a meeting in the mid-1980s to make political demands public and to enforce them.

Documents

• Political program of the meeting of Berlin gay groups. Verlag Das Treffen, Berlin 1988. 7 pages (including University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries)
• The logs are in the archives of the Gay Museum secures

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Jörg Bressau: AIDSmemorial.nl - Thomas Brüggemann. aidsmemorial.nl, accessed on March 7, 2014 : “When Thomas joined us, there were already a few groups. But there were few. The means and possibilities were modest. [...] / Bringing you all around one table was the goal of Thomas and the gay department. Together you would not only be obnoxious, but also stronger. What sounds simple turned out to be extremely difficult. Everyone wanted their own head in a different direction and through the wall. During the discussions - often in the old Prinz Eisenherz bookstore on Bülowstrasse - the tatters flew and no one gave the other anything. / But Thomas' initiative succeeded. The Berlin Gay Group Meeting (TBS) emerged from these very different groups. Thomas would not have been Thomas if the meeting he initiated had only been about what could be called "consensus talks" in modern German today. With care and tenacity, Thomas managed to enforce what he recognized as the correct point of view. And that meant: yes, we have to team up so that we are perceived as gays in public at all. But not at the price of synchronization and adaptation! Together, yes, but in diversity and each while preserving their own identity. Every gay man has his own gay facon. [...] From the meeting of the Berlin gay groups (TBS) a telephone advice center grew. We were convinced that Berlin - like San Francisco and New York - needed a gay switchboard and called it a bit old-fashioned “telephone advice center”. So you could continue to use the abbreviation "TBS" introduced and discreetly refer to its wearer. [] She later moved to Nollendorfplatz and changed her name to Mann-O-Meter. [...] Because the "Victory Column" emerged from the meeting of the Berlin gay groups. " 
2. ↑ Ken B: Out of the Closet into the Streets! In: kenb.org. January 30, 2007, accessed on March 7, 2014 : “I helped to organize the CSD Berlin from 1987–1990 (responsible for the evening event in the Tempodrom), but at that time everyone was still doing voluntary work and afterwards there was over 20,000 DM every year for to distribute the gay clubs and culture from the TBS / meeting of Berlin gay groups! " 
3. ↑ TBS also appeared as the publisher, see the journal register ( Memento of the original from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Center for Gay History 
4. ↑ Berlin's first address for gay life. In: aidshilfe.de. Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, August 25, 2011, accessed on March 7, 2014 : "The project was developed by the" Treffen Berliner Schwulengruppen "(TBS), in which all the main gay organizations in West Berlin were united at the time." 
5. ↑ Andreas Salmen: Berlin - memories of a house full of queens . In: Pink Lilac . 45 (February / March). Nuremberg 1986, p. 22 ( excerpts from Tuntenhaus-Berlin.de [accessed on March 7, 2014]).
6. ↑ Urania Urinowa: Tuntenhaus Bülowstrasse. In: etuxx.com. May 20, 2013, accessed on March 7, 2014 : “Police raids in the house and fear of eviction were probably one of the reasons that in 1982 the residents turned more outward. [...] The "Meeting of Berlin Gay Groups" met monthly in the house and passed a declaration of solidarity, the Prinz Eisenherz-Buchladen and Rosa von Praunheim took over sponsorships for the Tuntenhaus. The first queer house was clearly anchored in the moving part of the gay scene at the time. " 
7. ↑ Micha Schulze: Germany's most embarrassing gay MP. Column “Message from Micha” about Gerwald Claus-Brunner. In: queer.de. May 17, 2012, accessed on March 7, 2014 : “In 1985, Stefan Reiss, the first openly gay elector, moved into the (West) Berlin House of Representatives, as a non-party for the Alternative List - at the initiative of the meeting of Berlin gay groups. That was how democratic it was back then! " 
8. ↑ Hin Van Tran: Subcultures of the GDR. (PDF) Article 088. (No longer available online.) In: Ding-Dong.ch issue 5 “Gegenwelten”. Bern University of the Arts, Department of Design and Art, Head of Department GK: Barbara Mauck, April 17, 2013, p. 15 , archived from the original on March 7, 2014 ; accessed on March 7, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.