Rockin’ all over the world: Flying Lesbians and cross-border cultural transfers in the history of the Neue Frauenbewegung

This article examines how a spontaneously formed, all-female rock group from West Berlin traversed geographical, cultural, linguistic and social divides to achieve international acclaim. It focuses on the Flying Lesbians, Germany’s first women-only rock band and purportedly the world’s first openly lesbian rock group. Formed amid West Germany’s Neue Frauenbewegung, the band had a brief but dynamic three-year career; between 1974 and 1976, the self-identified amateur band headlined major international feminist events and achieved notable LP sales, with significant distribution in the US. Despite this remarkable transnational success, the Flying Lesbians’ boundary-breaking impact remains unexamined in existing histories of the Neue Frauenbewegung. Drawing primarily on personal testimonies from former band members and fans, as well as my own oral history interviews with two former band members, this study uncovers the rock group’s pivotal role in fostering connections and feelings of solidarity among geographically, culturally, linguistically and socially diverse contemporary feminists. By placing the Flying Lesbians back on centre stage, the article not only enriches the historiography of the Neue Frauenbewegung but also contributes to scholarship in a range of intersecting fields, including global feminism, the global 1960s, queer history and the history of popular culture.