A portrait of ApocalypsticK
Viðtal við ApocalypsticK
“I like to do a lot with fake blood” Hann segir líka að foreldrar hans hafi átt erfitt með að skilja kynhneigð hans. Móðir hans hafi verið að bíða eftir barnabörnum, og faðir hans hefði reynt að finna skýringar sem honum fannst skynsamlegar, eins og að einhver fyrrverandi kærasti hefði haft þessi áhrif á hann. Jónína telur að það skorti fræðslu á sama tíma og ofgnótt sé af neikvæðri og fordómafullri umfjöllun - hans fyrsta upplifun af eikynhneigðum karlmönnum var heimildarmynd sem hann sá þegar hann var átta ára. Myndin lýsti því hvernig mennirnir skömmuðust sín, og átta ára Jónínu fannst eins og hann ætti að skammast sín fyrir að vera eins og þeir. Jónína fagnar aukinni fræðslu um að vera eikynja og eikynhneigður, og telur að það sé einn mikilvægasti hlekkurinn í því að öll geti verið opinská um eigin kynhneigð og kynvitund. Hann vonar að aukin umfjöllun og fræðsla stuðli til þess að fleiri finni sinn samastað í hinsegin samfélaginu. /// Jónína and I are meeting at Café Babalú, a cute café in downtown Reykjavík. As we have only been in touch through Facebook, I don’t recognize him at first in the line to order, but we find each other eventually. Jónína has long hair, wears black clothes and no makeup. That is quite a contrast to what I expected since I checked out his social media beforehand, which is filled with drag and cosplay pictures. Jónína grew up in a small village in Germany close to Münster and the Dutch border. His family always had an affinity for Iceland so it is no surprise that he moved here. He has been living in Iceland since 2017, when he was only 21 years old. He says that this move changed a lot in his life. When he came to Iceland he got in touch with a person who identifies as agender and suddenly Jónína realized that there was a name for what he has been feeling his whole life. Growing up in a small German village, before the time of Google, as he puts it, there simply wasn’t any education on that topic. Queerness in general yes, that was a topic in school, Jónína remembers, but it was limited to trans people from a biological perspective. I ask Jónína which pronouns he prefers as I myself am afraid of using the wrong ones. He tells me that he used all of them at the beginning but soon came to realize that because of his female looks people tended to use the pronouns she/her a lot more than he/him or they/them. Jónína, who works in a tourist souvenir shop, already gets gendered as she/her so often in his daily life that he decided to even it out by using he/him most of the time and sometimes going by they/them, too. Finally
being able to put a label on himself, helped Jónína come to terms with himself after years of not fitting in regarding hetero-normative categories. But it was not only the labeling that played a role in the process. Also Jónína’s hobbies, drag and cosplay, helped him accept his body. Jónína says he likes to play with different features in his drag performances like showing his breasts and wearing a beard – whatever he feels like that day. In 2019 he found a home in the Icelandic drag community and took part in a show at Gaukurinn. The feeling was far from new to him, as he was used to standing on a stage through his cosplaying hobby but drag was a new facet. He likes his appearances to be impressive and labels himself as a drag performer within the category alternative drag. “I like to do a lot with fake blood,” he says, smiling, and continues to tell me about a performance he did when he pulled a sword out of his chest – followed by a lot of fake blood, of course. His costumes are partly bought but Jónína also gets creative in manufacturing them himself. It is an expensive hobby though, especially in Iceland. Jónína says that drag facilitates his creativity, that it is a place which allows him to be himself. And what will always put a smile on his lips is the acknowledgement he gets from the audience. It helps Jónína to like parts of his body that he usually would rather not possess, like his breasts. It gives him the comfortability to say: “That’s me.” Also, he says, he is no supermodel, but hearing fans tell him how pretty he is despite a couple extra fat cells or his boobs feels great. He also has fans that regularly come to see his show, the Drag Cabaret “ApocalypsticK” which he co-organizes every first Friday of the month at Gaukurinn, and some die-hard fans on social media all around the world. When asked whether he’s noticed any differences between the drag communities in Iceland and Germany, Jónína says it’s far from easy to distinguish between countries, and that you can more easily spot the differences between regions. In Germany the community is very big and different cities bring out different forms of drag, some are more focused on beauty while others are more alternative – it really depends. In Iceland he is especially happy that his genre alternative drag is so popular with the audience. He can, however, see differences in how people react to him when they see him on the streets. In Iceland he had never had a problem with harassment and not being accepted for who he is. Jónína says he never found it dangerous
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