Ursula Sillge (born 1946) is a German sociologist and LGBT activist. She organized the first national lesbian gathering in East Germany, and between 1970 and 1990 was one of the main lesbian activists in the country, pressing authorities to recognize the rights and allow visibility of the LGBT community. In 1986, she founded the Sunday Club in Berlin. It was the only secular association representing homosexuals in the 1980s, though it was not officially recognized. The organization became the first legal association to represent the LGBT community in East Germany when it was allowed to register in 1990. Sillge resigned as director of the Sunday Club in 1991 to found the LGBT archive known as the Lila Women's Archives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was able to earn her doctorate. In addition to running the archives, she has published several works about homosexuality and women behind the Iron Curtain.
Early life and education
Ursula Sillge was born in 1946 in Untermaßfeld, a municipality in the state of Thuringia, which at the time was administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone (after October 1949 East Germany). She grew up in Meiningen, and was typically known as Uschi. Beginning in 1963, she trained in animal husbandry with a specialty in breeding cattle, earning her state certification in 1966. Sillge recognized that she was attracted to women around the age of 20, but had no way to determine if she was the only person who felt that way. She scheduled an appointment with a marriage counselor, who though shocked at her admission that she wanted a girlfriend, suggested that she advertise for pen pal. She took the advice and felt as if she had been given a lifeline, when three women answered. From 1968 through 1972, she attended Humboldt University of Berlin, earning a degree in agricultural engineering. Between 1972 and 1977, Sillge worked as a research assistant at Humboldt University. During this time, the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (Homosexual Interest Group Berlin, HIB) formed in 1973 and began lobbying for gay and lesbian rights. As most of its members were males concerned with their own issues, in 1976 Christiane Seefeld attempted to set up a lesbian branch of the HIB. The lesbian branch did not materialize and when in the late 1970s Sillge began participating in HIB social events, she was often the only woman. Because the LGBT activists' groups were typically dominated by men and women's issues were dismissed, Sillge began leading a circle of lesbians who regularly met at the House of Health. The group disbanded when the physicians and psychologists who worked at the facility began making demands that in exchange for giving them space for meetings, the women should allow medical testing and analysis of themselves.
Career
Efforts at organization (1978–1982)
In 1978, Sillge who had begun working as a housing manager, organized the first national lesbian gathering which was to be held in the Gründerzeit Museum, a venue operated by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, where HIB events often took place. After she sent out invitations, the police arrested and interrogated her, but decided to allow the event to proceed. Despite their assurances, on 8 April when the lesbians began arriving, the police refused to allow them to gather at the venue, forcing HIB to try to organize other events over the weekend. Sillge's apartment became the center of their activities for those who had traveled to participate. The police barred von Mahlsdorf from hosting any similar gatherings. Petitions to various authorities made it clear that there was no support for a social and educational center for homosexuals. The final decision by the Council of Ministers in September 1979 led HIB members to decide to dissolve the organization. The government position, according to scholar Geoffrey Giles, was that separate meeting spaces for the LGBT community were unnecessary because state social organizations allowed anyone to participate. Sillge became a court clerk in 1979, but left the following year, when she began writing and publishing for the journal Task. Most LGBT groups after the demise of HIB began affiliating with church groups, holding awareness sessions. An agreement of 1978, between the government and individual Protestant churches, officially granted autonomy to churches in East Germany, including the authority to integrate marginalized groups into society by providing them with social services. From 1982, various churches welcomed alternative groups like LGBT, human rights, peace, and women's rights activists, offering them space to meet which was protected from state interference. The motivation of the various churches was to attract new members, but also to serve their own members by providing information on the focal topics of the groups. The Stasi, the state security service, planted undercover spies in the church focus groups to gather information and create discord between the groups and the church.
Establishing the Sunday Club (1983–1989) Sillge participated in the church groups, but wanted to be independent from religious ties. In 1983, she began a sociology course, enrolling through a distance learning program at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, but was not allowed to complete her degree at either Humboldt or Karl Marx Universities because of a Stasi directive. When told by officials that for the government to sanction LGBT meetings, scientific studies would be needed, Sillge made arrangements with the social sciences department of Humboldt University to establish a research group on homosexuality in 1984. This group produced On the Situation of Homophile Citizens in the GDR in 1985, which showed high rates of suicide and discrimination against gays. It argued that failing to address their issues was a direct cause of many of them requesting to leave the country. It also suggested that counseling and educational services should be provided and that discriminatory laws about relationships and housing should be examined.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
