Else & Ilse | LGBTIQ+ adventurers

Our city's Pride parade is one of our favorite festivals each year. We can celebrate our love, be proud of our sexuality, (re)connect with old friends, get to know new people. So when all pride parades had to be canceled due to COVID-19, we understood the decision, but it also made us incredibly sad. Yet, our parade wasn't canceled, but modified and postponed to October 11 and thereby coincided with the National Coming Out Day that was originally celebrated in the US, but nowadays around the world. We assume the organizers hoped for an end of the pandemic—as so many of us did. The second wave of the pandemic currently intensifies and we weren't sure if our Pride would really happen this year. But it did. We didn't have parade floats and masses of local, national, and international participants. Instead, we had a physically distanced bicycle parade in which everyone of us participated. Starting from four different locations, hundreds of queer people demonstrated LGBTQ+ v...

Pride Month is almost over and we wanted to share our interpretation of the flag's colors with you! We decided to go with the revised Philadelphia version from 2017. We always believed that the six-color flag is perfect; that it includes (or, at least, should include) everyone who feels to be part of the queer community. But this last month has taught us that, although the six-color flag should suffice, we should explicitly include BIPoC who did so much for our movement, but are still discriminated, harassed, disregarded, killed. So: we'll start with black! Black is one of the two colors added to the revised rainbow flag. It draws attention to Black people of our community and their particular issues. For us, it also honors those who fought for our rights, particularly during the Stonewall riots—Marsha P. Johnson is probably the most prominent, but not the only one: Andrea Jenkins, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, Earl Fowlkes, Elle Hearns, Ernestine Eckstein, Karleigh...

These last few months, we had more than enough time for indoor activities. So we decided that we want to explore queer books, movies, and TV shows, preferably with a diverse crew and cast. And although many are (too) white for our taste, we also came across fantastic books, movies, and TV shows that include BIPoC artists. Today, we want to share one movie, one book, and one TV show with you that we particularly love. Moonlight  (2016), an all-black cast movie, was the first movie we watched during our lockdown. This coming-of-age drama follows Chiron through his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, also mirrored in the release poster that merges the faces of the three actors playing Chiron into a single face. Chiron grows up with an addicted mother who calls him a 'faggot,' but finds a supportive father figure in Juan, an Afro-Cuban drug-dealer. In the course of the movie, he struggles with his identity and with his sexuality. We started reading Girl, Woman, Other (201...

We were and are so excited for Pride Month! Although most Pride festivities are canceled this year (Cologne Pride is, for now, postponed, so we still have some hope ...), we couldn't wait for this month of visibility, of pride (not just Pride), of rainbow flags, of support, of loving each other. Then, George Floyd was brutally killed. And although we cannot imagine how it must feel to be Black or a person of color, we can't stand this injustice. We will do everything we can to stand with you. To fight with you. Pride started as a riot. And although we do not support violence, it doesn't seem likely that this injustice will end without another riot. We stand with you. We won't have queer equality if we don't have racial equality. Black lives matter. The lives of people of color matter. Remember those who died from police violence. Say their names and never forget.

As a birthday gift for Else last year, Ilse planned and booked a trip to Belgium. So, mid-January, we got on our train (Else's first Thalys train ride!) to Brussels. Before our trip, Else, as a dedicated dinosaur lover, found out that the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels has an impressive dinosaur collection. So: off we were to meet our friends, the dinosaurs! The collection indeed was formidable, we probably killed a photo machine (we didn't do anything wrong!), and Else tentatively tried her French skills learned on Duolingo (unintentionally rude, but well ...). Another quick train ride away, we reached Bruges a few hours later. Ilse had booked us a fantastic hotel (even with an outside swimming pool —we hope to be back there in summer!) in the city center. During that time, we both were quite tired and exhausted and Bruges was the perfect place to relax —the city center is rather small and we could reach everything within half an hour from our hotel. Although the ci...

As white persons born and raised in a Western European country, we are very privileged —more than most people in the world . But, at the same time, we are women and we are lesbians. We are from non-academic working/middle class blended families. We are not skinny. Still, we count ourselves lucky. We know that so many people struggle. Struggle with discrimination in so many ways, on so many levels. And we believe that society/societies should acknowledge these struggles. All of them are valid. Some struggle more, others less. Maybe, some people don't struggle at all. But we never know how severe a struggle is felt that we would disregard. We believe that it is important to share experiences of discrimination, that it is important to make these visible. Perpetrators should not be protected. Perpetrators should be called out. It should be normal to call them out. Both of us have experienced discrimination as a woman, as a lesbian, as a child from a non-academic working/middle...

Last July and August, we went on our first vacation abroad as a couple. We wanted to travel to a warm country (Else loves the heat!), not too far away (Ilse fears flying and didn't have a passport until recently). We also wanted to go somewhere we both hadn't been to before. In the end, we decided to go to Portugal: a few days to Lisbon and, from there, a few days to Porto. As a very religious, Catholic country, we did some research before we traveled to Portugal and our first stop, Lisbon. We were surprised that queer rights in Portugal are said to be among the best in the world (!), but we also learned that queer people tend to be discreet in public — even though Lisbon and Porto celebrate pride parades. So, before we arrived in Lisbon (Ilse luckily survived the flight!), we had planned to be a bit more discreet. But: we suck at being discreet. Also: nobody seemed to care. We stayed at our hotels without being judged. We took the train from Lisbon to Porto without being ...

Welcome, dear visitors, to Else & Ilse . We invite you to look around, leave a comment or write a message, and come back in the future. A few months ago, we started an Instagram account where we share our 'adventures.' It started out as an account mainly for our travels and explorations, but it soon became more: we began sharing pictures and stories about everything important to us: intersectional feminism, queer rights and visibility, body positivity, and books! Here are some individual introductions that we would use to describe each other (not conclusive): Ilse is big-hearted (including frightening insects), emphatic, spontaneous, perfectly insane, funny, book loving, smart, adventurous, strong, open, curious, badass feminist, gorgeous, and a traveling superheroine. Else is so glad she chose to be with her! Else is a dinosaur-loving, gorgeous Wonder Woman! She is funny, so caring, considerate, sweet with the most gorgeous smile and a life changer, because...