What does community mean to you?

Community means feeling a sense of belonging because you share common interests or because you want to get somewhere together. Achieving common goals and standing up for them, whether that means fighting, crafting, or carrying out actions together.

How do you find your community?

By sticking my nose into everything. Well, I’ve realized that I belong to many communities. That puts me in a special position when answering this question, because I don’t just move within the gay community but also within other communities. And while moving back and forth between them, I found most of my communities rather by chance, without giving it much thought. Completely independent of sexuality, too. Then I see what I like there, and I get involved.

What do you do to celebrate yourself? What do you do to celebrate yourself and your community?

I’m simply who I am. I don’t think it makes sense to pretend or act as if you want to please other people. I’m just the way I am. And actually, that works pretty well for me. Most people like me; they always say I wear my heart on my sleeve. Somehow that means I’m very direct. There are also a few people who think I’m a bit too direct. They think I should be more diplomatic. That’s not really one of my main strengths, but I don’t want to change that either.

What makes the we are village project so unique?

Well, it’s a place where people meet and, for once – or finally – it’s not just about hooking up, fucking, or who has the longest or the biggest one. Instead, it’s more about sustainable things, and I think that’s pretty cool. Sometimes it’s a bit too meditative for me, but fundamentally it’s more about the soul than just appearances. Although appearances aren’t unimportant to me either, otherwise I wouldn’t be so colorful and wouldn’t look the way I do. But when everything revolves only around that, I find it a bit boring, and fortunately that’s not the case at the Village.

Can you share a moment at we are village that was meaningful or memorable to you?

Yes, once after a workshop with the dance teacher—I think it was Michael—he had brought his dog along. After a pretty intense dance session or something like that, the dog was really excited. I happened to get along really well with the dog, so I played around with it for a while afterward. That was great.

And the other great thing for me was when I met Theo, because, as I mentioned before, it happened completely unexpectedly. I went there because I was taking part in a Playfight session. Then it ended, and Theo happened to be there that same day, shuffling through and carrying cups out from the kitchen in the back. And I thought, okay, who’s that? So I just asked. And that’s how I ended up joining the Queer Needle Circle.