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This text is part of a video-art piece created by one of the panelists of Translating Kuir. Raphaelpoetically considers memory, queer culture and public space.I live in the center of Cairo, in the only pedestrian area available. Almost all of the shopsand cafés in the pedestrian area are closed. A few months ago, the zone wonderfully cameback to life with the adolescents that used to come here to skate or ride their bikes. Inan Arab region where we live without hope and without public space, it was lovely to see.The adolescents, who come from all over Cairo, having fun. Girls and young women freelyfinding joy in their own bodies. Kids together, teaching each other how to skate and dotricks. Kids interacting in non-toxic ways. Making something out of nothing.When the scene became a bit too joyful, a security guard arrived to chase them away.The angry man with the gun, the uniform and the walkie talking ordered them to leave!He told them that they were “causing a headache.” They even put up cement barricadesand chains to keep them out. The boardwalk once again became lifeless. I was devastated.These kids gave us life in a daily context that would’ve made Pinochet jealous.Not too long ago, I heard some young queer people whispering about the pedestrian areawhere I live. Incredulously, they were telling each other about how ten years ago, rightafter the revolution, it used to be full of queer cafés where lgbt people would hang out andbe completely extravagant. Cairo was a different place back then, with legendary queerparties. I could also hardly image my own neighborhood full of queer bars. It really is acompletely different place now.Many lgbt people of older generations have stopped going to the center because thememories hurt too much. All of their old gathering places are closed. The cafés and theliveliness are gone. Their friends have left the country or are in prison or died or areclinically depressed.I often think about how one of the first things that the Nazis infamously burned in Berlinwas Magnus Hischfeld Institute’s research and books. The institute was an innovativecenter that supported queer and trans people. The founder himself, Magnus Hirschfeld,was queer and worked extremely hard to change Germany’s homophobic laws. Theinstitute helped trans people reassign their sex to align with their gender identities. Theymade it so officially affirming your gender was easier than it is now. There were morethan 100 lgbt bars, many of which were exclusively trans bars. There isn’t even a transbar in Berlin any more.24
Yesterday, when I went through the chain fence to enter the pedestrian area and myhome, I noticed that some of the kids had started slowly coming back.On the thresholdof the untranslatable:Calling ourselves lesbianxsby Vir CanoA. The scent of names: You can say lesbianxs in many waysLesbiana, lesbianx, lesbiano, tortillera, marimacho, camionera, bombera, torta, tortillita, travo,trola, chonga, transbiana, chonguito, chongo, chongazo, fem y tortillerx are a few of the namesthrough which we delineate some of the contours of our lesbian existences. These words carrythe traces of what has been said about (and by) us, with time coming closer to some of theways we have named ourselves. In this sense, they constitute some of the raw materials wehave used to construct a discursive trench, a curler in the hair of language that holds on to thatwhich we have become, of what we have resisted, of what we have lost and also of what wehave built. In our mouths, these words know struggle, joy, sadness and shared life and death.They speak of our existential territories, of the networks we have woven and the ways in whichlanguage has been, as val flores says, a disputed territory that we cannot give up on. Theyspeak of the nuances and trajectories of our ways of seeing and feeling the world, of inhabitingits meanings and its possibilities.If I had to translate these words to other languages, I am sure that I would quickly stumble intothe difficultity of “crossing from those nuances and regions of local lesbian language to idiomsthat propose–and enclose–their own relief and gaze of the world.” How do you take into accountthe particular and situated histories carried, in my corner of the world, by the words “lesbianx,”“transviano” or “trola”? How do you do justice, in other languages, to the history and the injuryand the reapproation at play–and risked–in these terms? What unites and what separates our“torillera” from terms in English like “dyke” or “lezzy,” the Portuguese expression “sapatão,”25
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Page 3 and 4: Outburst, FAQ Festival deArte Queer
Page 5 and 6: TRANSLATING PRESENCES,WORDS AND CUL
Page 7 and 8: 1. CORDIALITY AS TERRITORYIt may co
Page 9 and 10: This exercise suggests that somethi
Page 11 and 12: 2. HOSTILITY HAS A SOCIAL BODYNow,
Page 13 and 14: Transälien“...translations are n
Page 15 and 16: are in Irish, in which, for example
Page 17 and 18: Fran Custranslation would be, beyon
Page 19 and 20: ourselves public, we translate ours
Page 21 and 22: about what we do in relation to tra
Page 23: TRANSLATING CULTUREBy Raphael Khour
Page 27 and 28: space or to welcome this whole etho
Page 29 and 30: I would like to take advantage of t
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