Alliance of International Production Houses

The cis-binary gender normative, which only recognises the categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ and defines these in terms of external gender characteristics, denies trans*, inter and non-binary people their existence as identities beyond these categories on a daily basis. Not accepted in their identity, excluded from historiographies, unrecorded in statistics, ignored by medicine and legally disadvantaged, they fight for visibility every day; at the same time, they are confronted with hyper-visibility in public and media spaces: as ambiguous, their bodies are charged with clichés, fetishised and exoticised, marginalised and demonised – and experience discrimination and violence on a daily basis: 4,690 murders of trans* people have been registered in the past 15 years, most of them of trans women of colour. In 2024, 65% of trans* women in Germany stated that they had been discriminated against because of their trans* identity. The life expectancy of trans* people worldwide is just 35 years.

The thematic focus LIMINALITIES brings together performances, discourse formats, workshops and club formats by trans* and non-binary artists and activists who focus on their struggles for visibility and recognition, report on transition experiences, rewrite and celebrate their cultural work in history. At the same time, it opens up spaces of shared experience, solidarity and development that stand against the political backward trend.