Return to Normality

Original title Rückkehr zur Normalität

Gender naturally exists beyond the binary opposition of male and female. There have always been humans born as intersexuals, known as hermaphrodites, and the socio-cultural construct of gender-identities has changed throughout history. Throughout their lifetime some humans find out that they cannot identify with certain body parts or with their socially ascribed gender role. The film questions contemporary heteronormativity by sharing everyday experiences of self-identified trans-people in a collaborative manner. Beela, a transvestite, feels most comfortable when he slips into women’s clothes. He allows us to follow him through his daily life and reflects what it means to him to be a transvestite. Samuel, a young trans-man, talks about his own identity, about intersexuality and its perception in different cultures, questioning socially constructed gender roles. Beela and Samuel are part of the association BBZ “Lebensart E.V.”, which offers a space for queer realities, a place for a community to connect, where people empathize and empower themselves for living in in society that often fails to acknowledge the normality of the diversity of (gender) identities.

Author/s Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Bischke

Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Biscke are students of social and cultural anthropology. Tim Fabian Bartel received his B.A. in Cultural Studies from the Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder). He is currently enrolled at the University of Ljubljana where he is writing his M.A. thesis about the liminality of social and artistic roles in postdramatic theatre productions. Jasmine Bischke is studying in Mainz at the department of Anthropology and African Studies. Her focus is on Gender Studies. During the second Halle Summer School for visual anthropology 2014 they got together to explore the subject of transsexual identities.

Research topic: trans*-identities, sexuality, carried out by: Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Bischke
Photography Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Bischke
Sound Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Bischke
Editing Tim Fabian Bartel and Jasmine Bischke