Against anticipation, or, camp reading as reparative to the trans feminine past: A microhistory in Nazi-Era Vienna

Abstract

Whether trans people – especially trans women – were persecuted by the Nazi regime remains a contested yet under-researched topic. But the wider political backdrop (including the culture wars and Holocaust memorialisation practices) steers this historical question with a monolithic value: victimisation. This hyper-focus on victimisation is underpinned by a ‘paranoia’ that pre-empts tragic historical narratives. Trans histories that do not neatly map onto tragic narration are therefore deemed unthinkable and remain absent from the nascent literature. In a move against paranoid anticipation, this article puts forward an argument for a ‘Camp reading’ practice that embraces ‘insincere’ and ironic material to recalibrate which trans stories are deigned to be given a history. The microhistory of Bella P. in Nazi-era Vienna acts as a case study in divesting from the politics of victimhood, that challenges the historian's anticipatory impulses, offering the trans feminine past under National Socialism a ‘reparative’ entry into the historical canon on its own terms.