title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In its first week of broadcast, the second season was watched by 6,219,547 accounts, from across the world; it became the top viewed show on Netflix in several Spanish-speaking countries and broke a Mexican record for viewership of a second season. The series ended 2019 as the second most-watched show on Netflix in Mexico. Scholar Paul Julian Smith, though, was worried about the international and streaming success distorting the views of its importance, suggesting that nationally broadcast telenovelas play a more important role in everyday Mexican life, especially noting that many Mexican homes cannot regularly access the Internet to view Netflix.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Interviewed in early 2020, between the release of the second and third seasons, Paco León said that he thought the show's second season was "inconsistent", but had its good moments, while saying that the third season will be ""acojonante"" ("fucking amazing"). By April 2020, before the premiere of the final season, the show was the eighth most-watched Netflix series in Mexico. Within hours of the final season's release, the series was the number one most-watched on Netflix in Mexico.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The release date of season 2 was announced on August 15, 2019, in a tweet that also showed the new family portrait; the season's marketing had begun earlier in the month with videos using Paulina's voice. These included Paulina leaving a threatening voicemail in the style of "Taken"; a WhatsApp voice note where she announced the character of Virginia had died, with the hashtag "#QDEPVirginiaDeLaMora" ("RIP Virginia de la Mora"); and an ASMR video recap made by the character. The first official trailer was released on September 23, showing scenes from the first episode in both Madrid and Mexico City. A press tour for season 2 was held a few weeks before it was released to Netflix.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Shortly before the second season aired, promotional posters were launched in a campaign mocking those of conservative Mexican groups, particularly the National Front for the Family, which has criticized the show. The posters feature slogans which satirize homophobic and transphobic ones, including an image of trans character María José and her partner Paulina accompanied by "This is not natural ... we are obviously wearing make-up", among others. This campaign was run with the hashtag "#NoTeMetasConMiFamilia" ("Don't Mess With My Family"), playing on the National Front's own campaign. Ana Carolina, writing for UniCable, noted that the campaign was embraced by fans but also prompted surprise across Mexico because of how explicitly it attacked the intolerance of the National Front. The posters were discussed at the 2019 Huelva International Film Festival in relation to social media and marketing influencing the public view of films, particularly in terms of social criticism.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The only marketing for the surprise funeral episode came shortly after its release to the platform, in a tweet from Manolo Caro; it also has its own Netflix poster. The third and final season's first teaser trailer was released on March 6, 2020, set in 1979. On March 17, 2020, Netflix shared the opening title sequence for the final season, and announced the release date as April 23, 2020. The final trailer was released on April 2, 2020, picking back up with the original main cast from the end of the second season. Ashley Falls of Clio Entertainment examined the marketing for the third season, writing that the "bold typography[,] floral full-frame graphics [and] groovy music" of the trailer made every second of it work, and that the "color scheme and floral pattern" of the poster matched graphics with the video. She also noted that the combination of these poster graphics with its "family portrait and mural-like illustration" made it "remarkable".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: A virtual press junket was held in the days leading up to the release of the final season, with the cast completing many video interviews or interviewing over the phone, and answering fan questions live in a moderated livestream discussion called "La Fiesta de las Flores", which took place from 8:00pm in Mexico City (CDT/) on April 23. Suárez pre-recorded a message for "La Fiesta de las Flores" from Madrid (where the time zone was CEST/). At the end of the stream, Caro announced that at midnight that night, the show's soundtrack would be released for purchase. Another video-based interaction for the show happened shortly after its end: on April 26, a social media 'wedding reception' was held, with cut scenes and behind the scenes images shared on Instagram, and fans invited to dress up and celebrate at home.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: A soundtrack for the series, called "La Música Que Inspiró La Serie Original De Netflix, La Casa De Las Flores (Creada por Manolo Caro)" ("English": "The Music That Inspired The Original Netflix Series, La Casa De Las Flores (Created by Manolo Caro)"), was released on April 24, 2020 by Universal Music Mexico, available for digital download on Apple Music and iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music and Deezer.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Two of the songs on the soundtrack are original to the series: the main theme by Yamil Rezc, and the "El Triste" cover by Alexa de Landa, which she performed as character Micaéla in the second season.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: "Líder Informativo" said that the soundtrack compilation was a greatest hits list, including tracks from the eighties through to contemporary music and covers.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Smith notes that beyond merely being an openly transgressive telenovela, the show "boasted a self-conscious and ironic reference" to the tradition it was leaving behind by taking the veteran actress Verónica Castro as its star. However, he does note that the three main areas of novelty within the show's production had already been shown by indie producers Argos in the 1990s, some preceding even the new wave of Mexican cinema; he particularly looks at the show "Mirada de mujer", a successful late-90s "avowedly feminist telenovela" that he considers the predecessor of "The House of Flowers" based on their renovations to the genre and, in content, many similarities. As Smith's "Film Quarterly" editor on the subject, B. Ruby Rich commented that "The House of Flowers" owes "a big debt" to "Mirada de mujer". Despite such similarities, Smith concedes that "the tone of Netflix's series is much more playful", that it makes use of color where Argos' telenovelas did not, and is less harsh to the bourgeois family at its heart.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Raciel D. Martínez Gómez also notes one similarity that the show bears with traditional telenovelas, being that it uses Mexico City and its elite neighborhoods to express a lightness within the story; Martínez Gómez suggests that of recent popular Mexican output the only work to use the city in a more social-realist way was Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma". In terms of color, Grosso Cortes "et al." note that the temperature of the series is between neutral and cold (in the 5000K to 7000K range), which they suggest shows a work as being "hostile" but also "everyday", by not being too cold. They also note that, in "The House of Flowers", the cold temperature makes the show more colorful, "due to the combination of colors present in the flowers": the cold tone is "embellished by the different colors of the flowers that appear".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Jacqueline Avila looks at the use of music in the show, comparing it to the inherently musical form of telenovelas, saying that it "plays a significant and meaningful role in the developing narratives, highlighting and magnifying elements that reflect both the local and the global and incorporating past practices into a new format for a new generation of audience members who attempt to transcend borders"; she also examines the relationship of Spanish-language broadcasting with the Netflix digital platform, viewing habits, and their influences on the form of the telenovela. Noting that the use of music in streaming series is necessarily different from films and scheduled television because of unpredictable viewing habits, and interacting with Rick Altman's theory of flow, Avila writes that "The House of Flowers" uses music to underscore the narrative and to help signify aspects of the Mexican telenovela in the show. She gives the example of the diegetic music used during Roberta's funeral in the second episode, as it provides campy elements of telenovelas while reflecting the grief, pain, and character relationships. Despite having connected the show with the telenovela, and noting that the music selection taps into Mexico's popular culture, Avila ultimately concludes that "the strategic use of music [...] provides a more cinematic approach" than "older traditions", saying that this "encourages a more prolonged and attentive listening strategy rather than relying on shorter episodes and pauses for commercials".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Avila discusses other aspects of the show: non-musical sound and the function of the cabaret. She describes the voice-over narration from Roberta as "a ghostly omnipresent voice [that] is strikingly similar to the narrator in Alfonso Cuarón's [...] "Y tu mamá también"" and believes it fulfills the purpose of Michel Chion's "textual speech" concept. Teresa Piñeiro Otero further discusses this narration. She writes that, along the same lines as "Sunset Boulevard" and "Desperate Housewives", the series employs a posthumous narrator: Roberta. In the midst of Ernesto's birthday party, a female figure is visually highlighted among the crowd, raising the curiosity of the audience by the gaze directed through the camera. With the audience's curiosity sated at the moment of Roberta's suicide, the character then begins narrating, with her voice seeming to be released from the body, presenting characteristics of the "incorporeal voice" proposed by Linda Kreger Silverman. Piñeiro Otero also compares the similar situations initiating both "The House of Flowers" and "Desperate Housewives" to reiterate the former's genre as black comedy, writing that while the dead woman of "Desperate Housewives" was well-respected and an equal member of their rich neighborhood, Roberta is not and often simply called "the hanged lady" by the de la Mora family.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Corresponding with feminist theory, Piñeiro Otero then asserts that with Roberta's voice free of her body, it is free of patriarchal control. Thus, there is a rupture between Roberta as character and Roberta as narrator: the first is subject to her image and constrained by her role of "Other", the second is free to wander and is subversive in front of the patriarchal discourse. By not being contained in any body this voice is empowered and is omniscient, able to provide information that she lacked while living and even about characters she did not know. Having discussed the classical artistic conventions that have created an entrenched association between women and death, Piñeiro Otero expands on her feminist reading of the series, writing that when faced with the silence and stillness of death, which have objectified female beauty, Roberta rebels through the word. Only as a voice, Roberta dares to challenge Virginia de la Mora, the official wife and her former boss. Piñeiro Otero concludes that the voice-over in "The House of Flowers" reveals the truth, rather than just appearances. In some cases the narrative underlines Roberta's omniscient character and foreshadows much later events as a nod to the most observant audience. In addition to empowering her as a voice, Roberta's actions give her a continuous and destabilizing presence in the story.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Writing on another voice, a section of Avila's article is given to describing the cultural impact of Paulina's diction and comparing it against the similar speech of Cuca, la telefonista in "The Disobedient Son". Avila suggests that Paulina has reclaimed the voice from the lazy Cuca character's portrayal to instead give it to Paulina, "a funny woman who is more capable and present". Avila finds that "[Paulina's] voice and delivery [...] creates a fascinating sound synthesis". Avila also writes that the use of the cabaret as a focus in the show provides a history of Mexican popular culture, a space to examine queer narratives, and a symbol for further identity politics that present discourses on politics and economics; she notes that the name 'La Casa de las Flores' when applied to the cabaret is a reference to the Caló terms for gay men ("florecita" and "floripondio").


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Referring to a moment later to be noted by Avila, Ernesto Diezmartínez discusses the show as breaking conventions of the telenovela when the drag queen performing as Gloria Trevi at Roberta's funeral is framed between Ernesto and Paulina de la Mora having a conversation. Diezmartínez writes that while the pair are talking in "typical redundant telenovela dialogue" but are "supposed to be saying something really important, [Paulina] interrupts the dialogue" to acknowledge, in a comment directed at Ernesto, how good the performance is; Diezmartínez argues that Caro does this to force the audience to notice the subversive aspect of the show over the expectation. He also looks at the show as an auteur product of Manolo Caro – he compares Paco León's transsexual character to that of Mariana Treviño in "Amor de mis amores" and the show's soundtrack to those of "Amor de mis amores" and "No sé si cortarme las venas o dejármelas largas", which he also notes are Almodóvar-style – and comments on the writing of the series as compared to classic telenovelas – he says that with a thirteen-episode first season the writers "compress sub-plots that could last weeks in a traditional telenovela to solve them in a couple of episodes", but also that it still sticks closely enough to the telenovela that it "cannot avoid falling into a certain plot overload" and suggests that to continue the series for too long would over-extend it in a negative way.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In his article, Adrián Arjona Bueno looks at transgender representation on Netflix. Choosing María José as a subject of analysis, and noting comparisons between this character and the one of the same name(s) in the 1970s Spanish film "Change of Sex", Arjona Bueno writes that despite coming from a typically privileged position – María José is ethnically Spanish (and therefore white), and wealthy and educated, which enabled her to access her job as a lawyer, giving a higher social standing – the character has lived within a conservative family that is concerned with appearances, in Mexico, and so presents as "an oppressed identity, withstanding the tensions, pressures and impudence of [this] society". Arjona Bueno's determination on the representation provided by the character is mixed: he writes that, though she has a good job and social position, María José is mistreated by her family (the de la Moras), including being deadnamed at times, and has had surgery to justify her female identity. Also noting that María José is shown to be a good parent and loyal partner, Arjona Bueno concludes that transgender representation is improving to show "less stereotyped [and] more inclusive" characters. Cagri Yalkin names the series as exemplifying the increasing presence of LGBT+ characters, among a selection of shows that she writes are "reflecting both the changes in society and simultaneously acting as change forerunners".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Ortiz González, in his thesis, also looks at transgender representation; discussing the casting of a cisgender male actor, he notes that while other series sometimes show the character transitioning, María José in "The House of Flowers" is long since past this, with the coming out flashback scene "lasting only seconds". He also examines moments of misgendering in the series through the gendered language of Spanish, particularly the use of the generic "los" (""the"", plural, neuter or masculine) when referring to Paulina and María José together, when "las" would be more appropriate. In a similar moment mentioned, María José cannot settle on a name to give to people looking for Bruno and reverts to just saying that she is his father, which Ortiz González says is "a thing that, however much she is a woman, does not cease to be true". In another instance, Bruno uses the masculine form of a curse word when insulting her. Ortiz González also mentions how María José is occasionally deadnamed, but writes that this is usually immediately corrected (particularly by Paulina and Virginia) and seems accidental out of habit.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: On the more technical front, Claudia Benassini Félix has analyzed the success of the series in line with Netflix's machine learning and user recommendation algorithms, and the company's use of these to develop more profitable original series. From literature reviews, Benassini Félix determined that the past success of Spanish-language Netflix originals was a primary reason for the popularity of the show, based on Netflix's production plans, its targeted recommendations and suggested percentage of enjoyment, and the ability of users to create a 'watchlist'.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The show has been described as a telenovela, a typical Mexican genre characterized by melodrama and exaggerated plot twists, though the Ibero-American Observatory of Television Fiction considers it a series, rather than a telenovela. In 2018, Caro said that people had been worried about using the term 'telenovela', because "they thought it would make [him] angry"; he says that labeling the show as melodramatic is quite accurate, and it did not bother him. Also in 2018, Netflix created a campaign called 'No es una telenovela' in response to various popular comments about the streaming service becoming like the network Televisa, known in Mexico for its telenovelas. For the campaign, a parody video called "La Rosa de la Virgin" was shared on social media; in it, characters from "The House of Flowers" played by Suárez, Derbez, and Castro appear in a scene in the style of a traditional telenovela, highlighting the differences – it specifically compares the series with the style of Mexican telenovela "La Rosa de Guadalupe". At one point, Verónica Castro as Virginia says "esto no es una telenovela" (""this is not a telenovela""), but then closes the video with a suggestive wink to the camera.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Netflix had previously created a telenovela-esque spoof of "Orange Is the New Black", during a time when it had a deal with Televisa in 2016, borrowing the character Soraya Montenegro, who had become an Internet meme representing the excesses of melodrama. Scholar Elia Cornelio-Marí suggests that the two contrasting parodies show "the love-hate relationship that Netflix has with melodrama, making fun of the genre but promoting it at the same time".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The series has also been called a "millennial telenovela". The term has been discussed in relation to several series that have kept elements of the telenovela but have been targeted towards the millennial market in style, tone, and content. Caro and Suárez have said they are proud for "The House of Flowers" to be called a millennial telenovela. Caro has also been described as the re-inventor of the telenovela. He has referred to the traditional mode as "obsolete", criticizing other creators for "not knowing how to evolve"; Suárez has added that a key to the show is still to connect with the "sentimental" response that Mexicans have to a telenovela, part of their culture from childhood. Arturo Aguilar and Primitivo Olvera for W Radio México agree, saying that it borrows a lot from the telenovela and is "enormously built out of nostalgia".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Cornelio-Marí writes extensively on the telenovela and melodramatic elements of "The House of Flowers", saying that it "is catalogued as a comedy, but in fact is a self-conscious melodrama with an ironic twist", noting several elements that contribute to this. She explores the same 'nostalgic' references that Suárez, Aguilar and Olvera noted, writing that the series "is using melodrama as a repository of shared references that create emotional attachment in Mexican audiences, exploiting nostalgia for the media culture of past decades"; she additionally suggests that this nostalgia is the reason for the inclusion of the drag queens as famous pop divas. Other ways in which Cornelio-Marí suggests the show is reflective of the telenovela are the inclusion of Verónica Castro as "a seemingly traditional housewife"; the series' focus on family, characters, and plot twists that are distinctly melodramatic, particularly having a paternity dilemma as a main plot point; a focus on morals and gender roles; and "its exaggerated mise-en-scène", said to be reflective of melodramatic tradition.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Referring to its genre designation as a black comedy, Cornelio-Marí writes that "melodrama is pervasive in Netflix's Mexican productions, although not recognized openly". She suggests a reason for the obscurity, separating melodrama from the telenovela and saying that "melodrama is still strongly connected to telenovelas and they still carry the connotation of low culture": Cornelio-Marí argues that the melodrama is "cleverly disguised" so as to attract viewers fond of that culture while not discouraging viewers who would not want to watch something described as a telenovela. She describes the "Rosa de la Virgen" video as Netflix "[going] to great lengths to publicly deny that "La Casa de las Flores" is a telenovela".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Susana Guerrero, in discussion with Ramon Lobato, suggested that the traditional telenovela has fallen out of mainstream popularity; she wrote that though the telenovela has been seen as an important genre around the world for a long time, networks have had to make them more marketable. Guerrero said "the modern take on telenovelas is anything but the version of its former self, and that has been key in securing the genre's longevity [because] the genre has lost viewers on traditional television over time", with television broadcasters Telemundo and Univision making more narco-themed telenovelas to recapture the market while Netflix opted instead for "a more contemporary feel", according to Lobato. In the nine months to February 2020, views of "The House of Flowers" grew overall by 5%, spiking after the season 2 release at 15% growth, a similar trend to the series "Jane the Virgin", a telenovela parody.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: While Cornelio-Marí concludes that Netflix has used algorithms to "decode the formula for cultural proximity" in order to create the most internationally marketable telenovela-adjacent television shows and "influence the evolution of melodrama in the years to come", she also includes that there is a "need to conduct deeper textual analysis of titles like "La Casa de las Flores" and its paratexts as transmedia expansions (e.g., memes, advertising, viewers' comments, etc.), in order to arrive to more grounded conclusions about the ways in which melodrama is becoming part of Netflix's productions".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Reviews of the show were generally positive, and Cecilia Suárez has been repeatedly singled out and praised for her performance as Paulina; her role on the show was reverently described by Javier Zurro as: "And here she entered, Cecilia Suárez, a whirlwind discovered in "La casa de las flores" who took everything. She was the star. Her Paulina de la Mora is a revelation, a poster girl buried to the eyebrows in meds who, however, was the most modern and determined character in the story."


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Kayla Cobb of "Decider" called "The House of Flowers" "the Mexican "Desperate Housewives"", and praised "its willingness to be seedy." Cobb's review looks positively on the melodrama and the characterizations of Paulina and Virginia, but concedes that while exciting and fun to watch, it is "not great television". Brenden Gallagher of "The Daily Dot" similarly called the series light-hearted and adventurous, but he noted that character development was lacking and that the show could have gone further to challenge the usual parameters of the telenovela genre; Greg Wheeler of "The Review Geek" agrees that it does not do much different from other shows, but conversely thinks that it has "a good amount of character development". In terms of pushing generic conventions, David Lopez of "Instinct" wrote that the show, especially considering season 2, marked a turning point in Mexican television and its approach to modernity, keeping the telenovela classics but embracing more open topics both intelligently and humorously. Guillermo Espinosa of "Mujer Hoy" said that the show "has shaken the foundations of the telenovela genre".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: José Antonio Martínez of "Juego de series" celebrates that the show gives "a very different image of Mexico to that offered by U.S. cinema", and noted in particular that Elena's story in the second season is similar to one from the British comedy "Fleabag". Writing about the series in 2020, "Variety"'s John Hopewell said that it confirms Caro's ability "to transfer his auteurist personality from big to small screen", with the series being "one of the first premium series from Mexico to break out internationally". Hopewell writes that the series has become a cult hit in Spain. Going the other way, María Alba said that the show has made Paco and María León household names in Mexico.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Several reviews also comment on the show's Spanish-language nature, suggesting that rather than watch the available dubbed version, which has been described as "truly horrendous", the show is better in Spanish anyway, with subtitles if necessary. Suárez, Yazbek Bernal, and Medina all dub their own characters into English for the show, with Medina also providing other voices. Jonathon Wilson of "Ready Steady Cut" argued that the show's dub was at least better than that of "Welcome to the Family", a similar Catalan-language show picked up by Netflix.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In November 2018, "ABC" wrote that the series (season 1) was the latest of Netflix's worldwide successes, and that it was then one of the most-watched current series around the world, marking it as part of the Mexican boom of new media. Diego Da Costa for "Cinemagavia" wrote that the "sparkle, "mamarrachería"" ("craziness") and "visual histrionics" were missing in season 2. "Perú.21"'s Esther Vargas said that the third season is "a manifesto of love and a cry against homophobia and transphobia", and at the end of April 2020, "Film Daily" reported on the show as one of their 'our obsessions' features, calling it "one of, if not the most underrated Netflix original comedy".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The show has been popular internationally, including in non-Spanish-speaking countries, and is said to be most watched by millennials. British daily newspaper "Manchester Evening News" singled it out above all other Netflix shows as a valuable language-learning tool because of how it "switches between English and Spanish and [is] not too fast paced". Balán's season 2 review said that some viewers saw this season as more boring and forced than the first. Regarding the show in general, Pere Solà Gimferrer for "La Vanguardia" wrote that it "works because it's like a meme on legs", saying that, likely by design, Caro has made each scene feature something that people immediately want to start talking about on social media. Solà says that it is either a good black comedy, or a ""Sharknado" telenovela" spoof. In early 2020, the de la Moras were described as "one of the most recognized families in Mexico". During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Falls suggested people could watch the series if they were "not getting enough family drama in quarantine".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The unusual speech pattern of Paulina became popular, spawning the '#PaulinaDeLaMoraChallenge' on social media, where fans imitate the slow, enunciated, way of speaking, often with some of the character's lines. The challenge was started by Mexican actor Roberto Carlo, with the stars of "Cable Girls" taking it up. When Netflix and Suárez responded with their own version of the challenge on Twitter, it became a trending event on the website, based on popularity and coverage; until March 2020, this was the only time that Suárez had spoken in Paulina's voice outside of the show, which she says is due to Netflix restrictions. She has clarified this as being "a suggestion" that she follows to not break the magic of the fiction. By the time Suárez responded, over 69,000 fan videos had been shared; only a few days after the first season was released, a petition had been started to include Paulina's voice as an option on the GPS navigation app Waze. Suárez posted another social media video in character during the COVID-19 pandemic from quarantine in Madrid, telling everyone in Mexico to stay at home and reminding them that male relatives can also look after elderly family members (comparing this to Julián and their grandmother on the show) – she followed the post with one of her own, where she reiterated the request and said that the situation in Madrid was "really scary".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In response to Paulina saying in one episode that she is "addicted to Tafil", the BBC ran an article explaining what Tafil is, also suggesting that the anti-anxiety medication is the cause of Paulina's slow speech as this is one of the more severe side effects of overuse of the drug. It noted, however, that the character's voice and Tafil use are creatively coincidental as they were conceived of separately during the show's development: Suárez said that the voice came through a process of improvisation during filming, with Caro liking it and having her re-record some of the early scenes to match. Verónica Calderón of "Vogue" also notes that Paulina's voice is demarcating of the "fresa" stereotype ("yuppie") that her character plays with, and is not unusual in upper-class neighborhoods like Las Lomas, suggesting that it could be used as part of the show's socio-economic commentary. "Clarín"'s Pablo Raimondi said that the style of diction establishes her as a "daddy's girl" and a character who can know everyone's secrets.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Scholar Smith explained that clips of Paulina's memorable lines uploaded to the Internet by fans have received hundreds of thousands of views, and that t-shirts featuring the quotes were shortly after being sold on Amazon. Suárez has also suggested that Paulina became popular because she "does not discriminate" by race, class, or sexual identity. Despite gaining a following, Suárez has refuted the idea that Paulina may have a spin-off, assuring that she does not believe Caro would choose to do that because the character belongs in the show's story.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In opposition to Suárez's popularity, Martínez has said that some fans of Verónica Castro did not like when Castro left the show and were not happy with Suárez becoming the leading actor, because of her differing views on traditional telenovelas, like those which Castro starred in, and similar refusal to portray typical Mexican stereotypes. "The Hollywood Reporter" also noted that Castro's return to acting was a key contributor to the show's initial popularity in Mexico in 2018. Taibo reported that fans "haven't liked it very much" but that Caro had made her absence "as painless as possible".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Espinosa also suggested that the show has had a positive social effect on families in Mexico; León affirmed that he had been told stories of parents in Guadalajara who now "no longer fear that their son is gay", adding with laughter that "what makes them panic is that they might be trans", but confirming that the show has at least brought the topic of transsexuality to discussion in more conservative Mexican families. Suárez believes that these aspects have been more easily accepted because of the familiar genre of telenovela that all Mexicans relate to, and because of Caro's intelligent writing around taboo subjects that allows audiences to be entertained by them as an opening to discussion.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The drag queens from the show also gained popularity, and in 2019 began touring in character with a drag show called 'Las Reinas del Cabaret'. The drag queens performed live during the show and impersonated other artists beyond their characters, as well. Preceding the tour was the promotional opening of a "The House of Flowers"-themed cabaret, running from October 16 to October 18, which included more immersive features for fans of the show, like a 'prison meeting' area to speak to El Cacas and a 'Drag Lounge' makeover space with the performers from the show. Tickets were available through promotions on social media. Parts of this show were broadcast live on the series' Facebook page. An unconnected gay club in Monterrey, which was open between October 2018 and October 2019, was called 'La Casa de Pau li na' after the show.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In November 2019, Netflix launched a line of book companions to some of its series. From a deal made with Grupo Planeta in July 2019 to produce Spanish-language books for Spain and Latin America, the first four launched on November 26 across the Spanish speaking world. One of these is the official fanbook of "The House of Flowers", published by the imprint Libros Cúpula and said to compile all the behind-the-scenes secrets of the show with a tone that reflects the show's style.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The style of the show has been widely compared to that of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar; creator Manolo Caro is said to be a "shameless admirer" of him, and has taken influence from him in his own works. Espinosa refers to Caro as a "young Mexican Almodóvar".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: When asked why he thinks the show is successful, actor Paco León said that the characters and style drove it, and "it's like, all of a sudden Almodóvar had made a television series in the eighties", while Manuel Betancourt, in a write-up before the show premiered, described it as "what would happen if Almodóvar finally caved and wrote a TV show, sprinkled some of "Las Aparicio" family melodrama in, and decided that it needed some of the queer vibe that Paco León's own films have been mining".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Critic Nader notes that these Almodóvar "aesthetics" may annoy some viewers, but that he enjoyed "[t]he colors, the faces and mouths, the absurd situations, the masculine nudes, the obviously tacky costumes and scenery" that make it this style. Mariana Motta said that the satirical takes on telenovela tropes allowed comparison to Almodóvar, herself comparing the show's handling of topics that traditional society sees as perversion to "The Skin I Live In" and saying that "the use of angles and colors that express more than dialogue can, and the use of music and intertextuality, translate for the Mexican experience what the acclaimed director does with Spanish society". Writing for "Fuera de series", Marina Such said that the darkly comedic melodrama and the contrasting settings of the two House of Flowers establishments give the show its Almodóvar feel from the outset, noting that the character María José could be from "Todo sobre mi madre" ("All About My Mother"); Carlos Aguilar suggested that the "Almodóvar-esque drama" may be an aspect that endears the show to English speakers, while Andrew Pulver of "The Guardian" compared the aesthetics, writing that since the show is "heavily influenced by Pedro Almodóvar, it's a visual treat".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In his scathing review, Pavel Gaona negatively compared the two, saying that "there is a huge difference between taking something [Almodóvar] as a reference and another in practically making a carbon copy and doing it wrong", and that Manolo Caro should "seek his own voice and aesthetics" rather than emulate Almodóvar's techniques without the same naturalness. Smith refers to the series as showcasing an innovation in aesthetics through "the appeal to a lush 'Almodóvarian' style". However, he writes that "the series' tone comes too close to early Almodóvar for comfort" with the inclusion of a drag bar, particularly one featuring campy eighties Spanish pop.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: At the 2019 Platino Awards, the main international film and television awards for Ibero-American media, the show was nominated in two categories. Also co-hosting the ceremony, Cecilia Suárez was nominated as Best Actress in the television category, which she won. In the Best Miniseries or Television Series category, "The House of Flowers" was nominated but lost to the Paco León-created "Arde Madrid". At the , Paco León was nominated in the Best Actor in an International Production category for "The House of Flowers", though he did not win; he was notably not nominated for his role as Manolo in his own show, "Arde Madrid", which won in each category it was nominated.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: For the 2018/19 PRODU Awards, the show was nominated in five categories, with three nominations for Manolo Caro, and won in two. Verónica Castro won as Best Actress and Caro as Best Director.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: In 2020, the show received nominations for the for both León siblings; Caro was also nominated in these awards, but for acting in "Brigada Costa del Sol". For the 2020 Platino Awards, the show received the third-most television acting nominations (three), including two for Mariana Treviño and Juan Pablo Medina in the new Supporting categories; only Suárez won, repeating her Best Actress win from 2019.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The show has made two 'best-of' lists created by "The Hollywood Reporter". In 2018, it was listed in its own entry (separate to the entry for in general) on the list of the top 10 international television moments of the year, being celebrated for "[putting] a racy and decidedly more contemporary spin on the telenovela genre" to save it from "losing viewers to melodramatic, action-packed narco series". In 2019, Caro was included on their list of the best showrunners for creating, writing, and directing it, with Scott Roxborough saying that he "has a knack for [mixing] telenovela plots with a sharp ear for dialogue and a stand-up's sense of timing".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: Suárez and her role as Paulina in "The House of Flowers" were included in an "Entertainment Tonight" list in December 2018 as the only Spanish-language star and show of the thirteen shows said to have contributed to the "rise of the Latinx TV Star" in the US that year. In February 2019, "Screen Rant" listed it as the eighth best Spanish-language show available on Netflix in its top 10, saying "there is absolutely no going wrong with [it]".


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: The series was listed as the sixth best foreign-language TV show on Netflix in "The Daily Dot"'s top 15, which said that "there's a winking comedic playfulness throughout the show, which offers good old-fashioned soapy gloss with some modern renovations". Media reviewers for "La Tercera" placed the series as number 70 of its '70 best series of all time that you can watch on Netflix' list, saying that it is "certainly going to be a classic". On April 17, 2020, the show, about to release its final season, was included on "The Guardian"'s 'Best home entertainment' list.


title: The House of Flowers (TV series)

text: "Some quotations in this article were originally in languages other than English, and have been user-translated."


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Germany have evolved significantly over the course of the last decades. During the 1920s and early 1930s, lesbian and gay people in Berlin were generally tolerated by society and many bars and clubs specifically pertaining to gay men were opened. Although same-sex sexual activity between men was already made illegal under Paragraph 175 by the German Empire in 1871, Nazi Germany extended these laws during World War II, which resulted in the persecution and deaths of thousands of homosexual citizens. The Nazi extensions were repealed in 1950 and same-sex sexual activity between men was decriminalized in both East and West Germany in 1968 and 1969, respectively. The age of consent was equalized at 14 in East Germany in 1988 and in unified Germany in 1994.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Same-sex marriage has been legal since 1 October 2017, after the Bundestag passed legislation giving same-sex couples full marital and adoption rights on 30 June 2017. Prior to that, registered partnerships were available to same-sex couples, having been legalised in 2001. These partnerships provided most though not all of the same rights as marriages, and they ceased to be available after the introduction of same-sex marriage. Same-sex stepchild adoption first became legal in 2005 and was expanded in 2013 to allow someone in a same-sex relationship to adopt a child already adopted by their partner. Discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity vary across Germany, but discrimination in employment and the provision of goods and services is banned nationwide. Transgender people have been allowed to change their legal gender since 1980. The law initially required them to undergo surgical alteration of their genitals in order to have key identity documents changed. This has since been declared unconstitutional. In May 2020, Germany became the fifth nation in the world to enact a nationwide ban on conversion therapy for minors.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Despite the biggest opposition party - that headed the government from 2005 to 2021 - being socially conservative on the issues of LGBT rights (CDU/CSU), Germany has frequently been seen as one of the most gay-friendly countries in the world. Recent polls have indicated that a large majority of Germans support same-sex marriage. Another poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center, in 2013 indicated that 87% of Germans believed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, which was the second highest score in the 39 countries polled, following Spain (88%). Berlin has been referred to by publications as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world. Former Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit is one of the most famous openly gay men in Germany, next to the former Mayor of Hamburg, Ole von Beust, the former Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, the deceased former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor, Guido Westerwelle, the former Federal Ministry of the Environment, Barbara Hendricks, comedians Hape Kerkeling, and Hella von Sinnen, or political journalist Anne Will. Founded in 1981, the Akademie Waldschlösschen, an adult education conference center near Göttingen, has developed into a national networking hub for LGBTI teachers, lawyers, clergy, gay fathers and gay and lesbian student groups at German universities. Other famous gay rights activists include Rosa von Praunheim, whose film "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives" (1971) triggered the modern gay liberation movement in Germany.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Homosexuality was punishable by death in the Holy Roman Empire from 1532 until its dissolution in 1806 and from 1620 to 1794 in Prussia. The influence of the Napoleonic Code in the early 1800s sparked decriminalisations in much of Germany outside of Prussia. However, in 1871, the year the federal German Empire was formed, Paragraph 175 of the new Penal Code recriminalised homosexual acts. The first homosexual movement unsuccessfully campaigned for the repeal of the law both under the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Under Nazism the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany resulted in convictions multiplying by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year. Penalties were severe, and 5,000–15,000 suspected offenders were interned in concentration camps, where most of them died. The Nazi persecution is considered the most severe persecution of homosexual men in history.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Nazi additions were repealed in East Germany in 1950, but homosexual relations between men remained a crime until 1968. West Germany kept the more repressive version of the law, legalising male homosexual activity one year after East Germany, in 1969. The age of consent was equalized in East Germany at 14 years in 1989, and in unified Germany in 1994. It is now 14 years (16/18 in some circumstances) for female-female, male-male and female-male sexual activity.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: East Germany inherited Paragraph 175. Communist gay activist Rudolf Klimmer, modelling himself on Magnus Hirschfeld and his Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, campaigned in 1954 to have the law repealed, but was unsuccessful. His work prevented any further convictions for homosexuality after 1957.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In the five years following the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, the GDR Government instituted a program of "moral reform" to build a solid foundation for the new socialist republic in which masculinity and the traditional family were championed, while homosexuality, seen to contravene "healthy mores of the working people", continued to be prosecuted under Paragraph 175. Same sex activity was "alternatively viewed as a remnant of bourgeois decadence, a sign of moral weakness, and a threat to the social and political health of the nation".


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In East Germany, Paragraph 175 ceased to be enforced from 1957 but remained on the books until 1968. Officially, homosexuality was decriminalised in East Germany in 1968.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: According to historian Heidi Minning, attempts by lesbian and gay activists to establish a visible community were "thwarted at every turn by the GDR Government and the SED party". Minning wrote: "Police force was used on numerous occasions to break up or prevent public gay and lesbian events. Centralised censorship prevented the presentation of homosexuality in print and electronic media, as well as the import of such materials."


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Protestant Church provided more support than the state, allowing meeting spaces and printing facilities.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Towards the end of the 1980s, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German Government opened a state-owned gay disco in Berlin. On 11 August 1987, the East German Supreme Court affirmed that ""homosexuality, just like heterosexuality, represents a variant of sexual behavior. Homosexual people do therefore not stand outside socialist society, and the civil rights are warranted to them exactly as to all other citizens"."


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 1988, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden commissioned the state-owned film studio, DEFA, to make the documentary film "Die andere Liebe" ("The Other Love"). It was the first DEFA film about homosexuality and its aim was to convey official state acceptance. In 1989, the German Hygiene Museum also commissioned DEFA to make the GDR's only HIV/AIDS prevention documentary, "Liebe ohne Angst" ("Love Without Fear"). This did not focus on homosexuality directly but pointed out that AIDS was not a "gay disease".


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 1989, DEFA produced the film "Coming Out", directed by Heiner Carow, telling the story of an East German man coming to accept his homosexuality, with much of it shot in East Berlin gay bars. It was the only East German feature film on the theme of same-sex desire ever produced. It won a number of awards including a Silver Bear and Teddy Award at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival, and awards at the National Feature Film Festival of the GDR.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Jürgen Lemke is considered one of the most prominent East German gay rights activists and has published a book on the subject ("Gay Voices from East Germany", English edition published in 1991). Lemke claimed that the gay community was far more united in the GDR than it was in the West.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: West Germany inherited Paragraph 175, which remained on the books until 1969. However, as opposed to East Germany, the churches' influence in West Germany was very strong. Fundamentalist Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church were staunchly opposed to LGBT rights legislation.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Frankfurt Homosexual Trials of 1950/51 marked an early climax in the persecution of homosexual men in the Federal Republic of Germany, which showed clear continuities during the Nazi era, but also took place under the new auspices of the Adenauer era. They were largely initiated by the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office through the instrumentalization of the sex worker Otto Blankenstein as a key witness.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: As a result of these strong socially conservative influences, the German Christian Democratic Union, the dominant political force in post-war West Germany, tended to ignore or oppose most gay rights issues. While their frequent coalition partners the Free Democratic Party tended to have a stronger belief in civil liberties, they were, as a smaller party, less likely to alienate the more socially conservative elements in the larger Christian Democratic Union.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: During the Cold War era, support for gay rights in Germany was generally restricted to the Free Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party and, later in the 1980s, the Greens. At the national level, advancements in gay rights did not begin to happen until the end of the Cold War and the electoral success of the Social Democratic Party. For example, in 1990, the law was changed so that homosexuality and bisexuality were no longer grounds for being discriminated against in the military.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The first kiss between two men on German television was shown in Rosa von Praunheim's film "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives" (1971). This film marks the beginning of the German modern gay liberation movement. In 1986, the popular soap opera "Lindenstraße" showed the first gay kiss in a German TV series. From then on, many other television shows followed this example. The creation of private TV stations in 1984 resulted in a stronger LGBT presence in the media by the end of the decade. The station RTL in particular was very gay-friendly and some TV stars had come out by then.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 2002, the German Government decided to overturn any convictions for homosexuality made during the Nazi period.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In May 2016, Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced that gay and bisexual men who were convicted of same-sex sexual activity after World War II would have their convictions overturned. Maas said the following in a statement:


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In October 2016, the German Government announced the introduction of a draft law to pardon around 50,000 men for the prosecutions they endured due to their sexual orientation. On 22 March 2017, the Germany Cabinet officially approved the bill. The bill, which also foresees compensation of €3,000 (£2,600) for each conviction, plus €1,500 (£1,300) for every year of jail time, then had to obtain parliamentary approval. On 22 June 2017, the Bundestag (German Parliament) unanimously passed the bill to implement the scheme to rehabilitate gay and bisexual men. The bill then went back to the Bundesrat for final approval, and was signed into law by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on 17 July 2017.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In September 2021, Germany implemented a compensation scheme for hundreds and possibly thousands of LGBT victims of the law criminalizing homosexual acts, which continued to apply in West Germany in its Nazi era version until 1969.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Same-sex couples have been legally recognized in Germany since 2001. That year, registered life partnerships () were instituted, giving same-sex couples rights and obligations in areas such as inheritance, alimony, health insurance, immigration, hospital, jail visitations, and name change. Subsequently, the Constitutional Court repeatedly ruled in favor of same-sex couples in registered partnerships, requiring the Bundestag to make incremental changes to the partnership law. In one case, the European Court of Justice ruled that refusing a widow's pension to the same-sex partner of a deceased person is direct discrimination if the partnership was comparable to marriage (see also "same-sex unions in the European Union").


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Even though a majority of the political parties in the Bundestag supported legalising same-sex marriage, attempts to follow through with the proposal were repeatedly blocked by CDU/CSU, the largest parliamentary party and the dominant party in the government coalitions since 2005. This changed on the final sitting day of the Bundestag before the 2017 summer break, when the junior party in the coalition, the Social Democratic Party, introduced a bill to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption which had previously passed the Bundesrat in September 2015. German Chancellor Angela Merkel moderated her stance on the issue by allowing members of the CDU/CSU to follow their personal conscience rather than the party line, which freed up moderate members who had long been in favour of same-sex marriage to vote for it. On 30 June 2017, the SPD, Die Linke and the Greens as well as 75 members of the CDU/CSU formed a majority in the Bundestag to pass the bill by 393 votes to 226. The law came into effect three months after promulgation, on 1 October 2017.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The first same-sex weddings in Germany were celebrated on 1 October 2017. Berlin couple Karl Kreile and Bodo Mende, a couple for 38 years, were the first same-sex couple to exchange their vows under the new law and did so at the town hall of Schöneberg, Berlin.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 2004, the registered partnership law (originally passed in 2001) was amended, effective on 1 January 2005, to give registered same-sex couples limited adoption rights (stepchild adoption only) and reform previously cumbersome dissolution procedures with regard to division of property and alimony. In 2013, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that if one partner in a same-sex relationship has adopted a child, the other partner has the right to become the adoptive mother or father of that child as well; this is known as "successive adoption". The same-sex marriage law, passed in June 2017, gave same-sex couples full adoption rights. On 10 October 2017, a court in Berlin's Kreuzberg district approved the first application for joint adoption of a child by a same-sex couple.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: There is no legal right to assisted reproduction procedures for lesbian couples, such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation, but such practices are not explicitly banned either. The German Medical Association is against explicit legalisation and directs its members not to perform such procedures. Since this directive is not legally binding, however, sperm banks and doctors may work with lesbian clients if they wish. This makes it harder for German lesbian couples to have children than in some other countries, but it is becoming increasingly popular. If a married lesbian couple conceives a child via donor insemination, the non-biological parent is not automatically recognized on the child's birth certificate and must go through an adoption procedure. This is not the case for married heterosexual couples, where the non-biological father is automatically recognized as a legal parent. A bill initiated by Alliance 90/The Greens in June 2018 to rectify this inequality is pending in the Bundestag. In October 2018, the Federal Court of Justice ("Bundesgerichtshof") in Karlsruhe ruled that, unlike heterosexual couples, the wife of the child's legal mother does not automatically become a parent, and that an adoption is necessary. This specific case involved a lesbian couple from Saxony, who had converted their civil partnership in mid-October 2017 into a marriage. At the beginning of November, their child was born via artificial insemination. When trying to record the birth, only the biological mother was allowed to register. The couple then unsuccessfully applied to the registry office to correct the birth record so that the non-biological mother could also be listed as the child's mother. The office rejected this request, whereupon the woman filed suit. A district court in Chemnitz initially ruled for the couple, but the Dresden Higher Regional Court overturned this decision in April 2018. Eventually, after another appeal, the Federal Court of Justice ruled against them. In its judgment, the Court referenced Paragraph 1592 of the "Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch", which states that "the father of a child is the man who at the moment of birth is married to the child's mother". The Ministry of Justice has begun looking into legal reforms to grant automatic co-parent recognition for lesbian couples.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In May 2019, Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Franziska Giffey recommended that teachers use forms that are gender-neutral, which no longer use "mother and father" but instead "parent 1 and parent 2".


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Bundeswehr maintained a "glass ceiling" policy that effectively banned homosexuals from becoming officers until 2000. First Lieutenant Winfried Stecher, an army officer demoted for his homosexuality, had filed a lawsuit against former Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping. Scharping vowed to fight the claim in court, claiming that homosexuality "raises serious doubts about suitability and excludes employment in all functions pertaining to leadership". However, before the case went to trial, the Defense Ministry reversed the policy. While the German Government declined to issue an official explanation for the reversal, it was widely believed that Scharping was overruled by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and former Vice-Chancellor Joschka Fischer. Nowadays, according to general military orders given in the year 2000, tolerance towards all sexual orientations is considered to be part of the duty of military personnel. Sexual relationships and acts amongst soldiers outside service times, regardless of the sexual orientation, are defined to be "irrelevant", regardless of the rank and function of the soldier(s) involved, while harassment or the abuse of functions is considered a transgression, as well as the performance of sexual acts in active service. Transgender persons may also serve openly in the German Armed Forces.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In September 2020, the German Government issued a formal apology for past anti-gay discrimination in the military. In November 2020, the German Cabinet approved legislation providing compensation to LGBT servicepeople for past discrimination and harassment. In March, 2021, the bill has been discussed in het Lower Chamber of Parliament (Bundestag), where it was supported by a majority - with some minor amendments suggested. On May 20, 2021, the bill got a supporting vote in the Bundestag.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In March 2021, it was reported that both transgender and intersex individuals can now serve openly within both the military and police in Germany.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In the fields of employment, goods and services, education and health services, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal throughout Germany. As a signatory to the Treaty of Amsterdam, Germany was required to amend its national anti-discrimination laws to include, among others, sexual orientation. It failed to do so for six years, due to discussions about the scope of the proposed laws. Some of the proposals were debated because they actually surpassed the requirements of the Treaty of Amsterdam (namely, extending discrimination protection for all grounds of discrimination to the provision of goods and services); the final version of the law, however, was criticised as not fully complying with some parts of the Treaty, especially with respect to the specifications about the termination of work contracts through labor courts. The Bundestag finally passed the "General Act on Equal Treatment" () on 29 June 2006; the Bundesrat voted on it without discussion on 7 July 2006. Having come into force on 18 August 2006, the law bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, education, health services and the provision of goods and services.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Some state constitutions have anti-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity, including the constitutions of Berlin (since 1995), Brandenburg (since 1992), Bremen (since 2001), Saarland (since 2011) and Thuringia (since 1993), and Saxony-Anhalt in the public sector since 1997. Article 10(2) of the Berlin Constitution reads as follows:


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is banned in Germany. German law prohibits incitement to hatred based on membership to a certain social or ethnic group. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 245 cases of homophobic and transphobic attacks occurred in the first half of 2019, compared to 351 recorded in all of 2018.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 1994, although a majority in the Joint Constitutional Commission of the Bundestag and Bundesrat voted in favor of the inclusion of a prohibition on discrimination based on sexual identity in the Basic Law (), the required two-thirds majority was not achieved.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In June 2018, the states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia submitted a draft bill to the Bundesrat to amend article 3 of the Basic Law to add the characteristics "sexual and gender identity". In July, the draft proposal failed after the state of Berlin requested that it be rejected, as it became clear that the two-thirds majority would not be achieved.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In May 2019, Alliance 90/The Greens, the Free Democratic Party and The Left proposed a joint legislative initiative to amend Article 3 of the Basic Law to ban discrimination on grounds of "sexual identity" (). In November 2019, the Christian Democratic Union expressed support for the initiative.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Since 1980, the "Gesetz über die Änderung der Vornamen und die Feststellung der Geschlechtszugehörigkeit in besonderen Fällen" has stated that transgender persons may change their legal sex following sex reassignment surgery and sterilization. In January 2011, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that these two requirements were unconstitutional.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In May 2019, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior presented a draft bill to reform the law. It was criticized by LGBT groups for failing to adopt a self-determination model and still requiring transgender people to go to court before a legal gender change. In addition, it would introduce the concept of "spousal veto", and requires a three-year waiting period before the applicant can reapply to change gender after a spousal veto or a negative court decision.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The German Society for Transidentity and Intersexuality estimates the number of transgender and intersex people in Germany at between 210,000 and 500,000 people.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Since 2013, German law has allowed children born with atypical sexual anatomy to have their gender left blank instead of being categorised as male ("männlich") or female ("weiblich"). The Swiss activist group "Zwischengeschlecht" criticised this law, arguing that "if a child's anatomy does not, in the view of physicians, conform to the category of male or the category of female, there is no option but to withhold the male or female labels given to all other children". The German Ethics Council and the Swiss National Advisory Commission also criticised the law, saying that "instead of individuals deciding for themselves at maturity, decisions concerning sex assignment are made in infancy by physicians and parents".


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In November 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court ("Bundesverfassungsgericht") ruled that civil status law must allow a third gender option, meaning that intersex people would have another option besides being listed as female or male or having a blank gender entry. A government proposal on the matter was presented in August 2018. Intersex individuals would be able to register themselves as "divers" on official documents. The resulting third gender law was approved by the Bundestag in December 2018, and took effect on 1 January 2019. The "divers" option is available for such documents as birth certificates, passports and driver's licenses; however, intersex people are required to receive a doctor's statement or medical certification confirming their intersex status, which was criticized by LGBT groups. Additionally, parents are able to use the "divers" category for newborns with unclear sex traits. In April 2019, the Ministry of the Interior clarified that the "divers" option is applicable to intersex people only, not transgender people. If the "Selbstbestimmungsgesetz" proposed by the German government in 2022 passes the Bundestag, the "divers" option is open to anyone.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Conversion therapy has a negative effect on the lives of LGBT people, and can lead to low self-esteem, depression and suicide ideation. It is opposed by every medical organisation in Germany.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In 2008, the German Government declared itself completely opposed to the pseudoscientific practice. In 2013, Alliance 90/The Greens introduced a draft bill to the Bundestag to ban conversion therapy on minors, but it was never voted on. A petition calling on the Health Ministry to ban the practice was launched in July 2018, and had collected about 60,000 signatures by mid-August 2018.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In February 2019, openly gay Health Minister Jens Spahn stated that he wanted conversion therapy for both minors and adults to be made illegal, calling it "a form of assault". Spahn said he hoped to work together with Justice Minister Katarina Barley for a law to ban conversion therapy, that he hoped would be approved by the autumn of 2019. In April 2019, after an online petition on the issue started by international LGBT organisation All Out collected around 110,000 signatures, Spahn called for a commission to draft proposals on how exactly such a ban can be introduced. The panel would then present its final report in autumn. The commission met in May and June for two full-day workshops. Likewise, the Ministry of Health invited politicians, scientists and those affected, as well as institutions from abroad who have already gained experience with legal prohibitions, to participate in the exchange. In June, Spahn presented in a press conference the results of two scientific reports that denounced conversion therapy and called for a legal ban. In early November 2019, Spahn submitted a draft bill that would ban the use of conversion therapy on minors and punish those coercing, deceiving and threatening someone of any age into the practice. On 18 December, the Cabinet gave its approval to the draft bill. Conversion therapy on adults would also be banned, provided there was a "lack of will power" such as coercion, threats, deceit or misapprehension. The ban would also be in effect for psychotherapeutic and pastoral conversations, but only if "the conversational partner purposefully tries to influence one's sexual orientation". People charged with illegally performing conversion therapy may face up to one year in prison. Offering, promoting and referring to conversion therapy in case of minors would also be deemed illegal and may carry a fine of 30,000 €. Both people performing the therapies and legal guardians "grossly violating their duty of care" may be charged. The legislation was approved by the Bundestag on 7 May 2020 with support from all political parties except the AfD.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: There was also an initiative of several federal states for a ban on conversion therapy. The states of Hesse, Berlin, Bremen, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein tabled a joint motion in the Bundesrat, which was presented in plenary on 12 April 2019. The states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia agreed to the motion, while Bavaria expressed potential support but with some modifications. The motion was to be voted on in plenary in the Bundesrat in May, but was later postponed. Another bill to ban conversion therapy for minors and a motion with numerous measures to educate and support victims of such practices was presented by the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag in March 2019.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In Germany, as in many other countries, men who have sex with men (MSM) were previously not allowed to donate blood. In June 2016, German health ministers announced that the MSM ban would be lifted, replacing it with a one-year deferral period. The proposal to lift the ban was championed by Saarland Health Minister Monika Bachmann. Since summer 2017, gay and bisexual men have been allowed to donate blood following a year of abstinence from sex. Since September 2021, gay and bisexual men have been allowed to donate blood following four months of abstinence from sex.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In June 2021, Reuters reported that Germany plans to implement an "individual risk based assessment" (similar format to the UK, Italy and Spain) blood donations that replaces the current one-year deferral period policy since 2017. It is not clear yet on when it will go into effect.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: There are several prominent German politicians who are openly gay. Among them are former Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit (having outed himself with the famous words "Ich bin schwul – und das ist auch gut so!" ["I am gay – and that's a good thing!"]) and Johannes Kahrs, Michael Roth, Karl-Heinz Brunner, Lars Castellucci, Falko Droßmann, Timon Gremmels, Kevin Kühnert, Dorothee Martin, Matthias Miersch and Helga Schuchardt (from the SPD); Volker Beck, Birgitt Bender, Kai Gehring, Anne Klein, Sven Lehmann, Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin, Ulle Schauws, Gerhard Schick. Anja Hajduk, Sibyll-Anka Klotz, Herbert Rusche and Wolfgang Wetzel (from The Greens); Karin Binder, Achim Kessler, Matthias Höhn, Sabine Jünger, Klaus Lederer, Carsten Schatz and Harald Petzold (The Left); Alice Weidel (AfD); Jens Spahn (Federal Minister of Health in the Fourth Merkel cabinet), Uwe Schummer and Stefan Kaufmann (from the CDU); Bernd Fabritius (from the CSU); and Michael Kauch, Jens Brandenburg, Jörg van Essen, Heiner Garg, Konstantin Kuhle, Thomas Sattelberger and Guido Westerwelle, who served as federal Foreign Minister from 2009–2013 and Vice-Chancellor from 2009–2011, (from the FDP). In addition, former Hamburg Mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) did not deny anything when his father outed him but considered it a private matter; after leaving office he began talking about his homosexuality. In July 2007, Karin Wolff, the Minister of Education for Hesse, came out as a lesbian. In December 2013, Barbara Hendricks (SPD), the Federal Minister for the Environment in the Third Merkel Cabinet, came out as lesbian. In 2012, Michael Ebling (SPD) became the Mayor of Mainz. In 2013 and 2015, Sven Gerich (SPD) and Thomas Kufen (CDU) became the openly gay mayors of Wiesbaden and Essen, respectively.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Christian-conservative parties, the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), support basic rights such as registered partnerships and some of its members support same-sex marriages. Other major parties, including the Social Democratic Party (SPD), The Left (Die Linke), Alliance '90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) support LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is opposed to full LGBT rights and opposes same-sex marriage, but is in favour of registered partnerships.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In January 2022, the office of Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth was created. Parliamentary State Secretary Sven Lehmann is the first appointee.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The first homosexual rights organization anywhere in the world was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897 in Berlin by Magnus Hirschfeld to campaign for the repeal of Paragraph 175. The first gay journal in the world "Der Eigene" ("The Self-Owning") began publishing in 1896. The journal continued publishing, with contributions from Benedict Friedlaender, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Erich Mühsam and more, until 1932. During the 1920s and 1930s, two major mass organisations arose, the Bund für Menschenrecht and the Deutscher Freundschaftsverband, many further special interest groups followed, dozens of LGBQ+-journals got published in huge numbers, among them the world's first lesbian journals like Die Freundin, Garçonne, and Die BIF and the first ever transgender magazine Das 3. Geschlecht. Hundreds of gay bars and clubs created a vital LGBTQ+ landscape in Berlin. With the rise to power of the Nazi Party, officials closed the bars, censored and banned gay publications and forced all organisations of the movement do dissolve themselves. During the Nazi era, gay, lesbian and trans people were persecuted by authorities and sometimes imprisoned in concentration camps.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: Right after the second world war, some LGBT+-activists tried to establish a new movement, fighting the continuation of Nazi anti-gay laws. The first homosexual publication, "Amicus-Briefbund", was founded in 1948, followed by other magazines in the early 1950s. Activists in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt founded new organisations to follow up the powerful movement of the 1920s. Internal disputes and the repressive climate of the young Federal Republic, however, prevented a development as successful as the one of the Weimar Republic, and by the end of the 1950s the movement had already failed and reached its end. It was not until the liberalization of the social and political climate in the second half of the 1960s that homophile organizations made a modest new start, but they were soon marginalized by the rise of the modern gay and lesbian movements.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The Homosexual Action West Berlin (, HAW) was founded on 15 August 1971. The group formed as a result of Rosa von Praunheim's film "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives". From 1973 onwards, the group organised annual meetings with several other gay groups including the "Homosexuelle Aktion Göttingen", founded in 1972 in the city of Göttingen, and the "Homosexuelle Frauengruppe Münster" (Homosexual Women's Group Münster). The first gay and lesbian protest was organised in Münster on 29 April 1972. The groups campaigned for the repeal of Paragraph 175 and societal acceptance of LGBT people. In 1975, several members of HAW split from the group to form their own organisation, the "Lesbisches Aktionszentrum Westberlin" (Lesbian Action Center West Berlin). HAW began to lose influence from the late 1970s; founding the gay club SchwuZ ("SchwulenZentrum") and eventually shuting down in the late 90s. The Federal Association of Homosexuality ("Bundesverband Homosexualität") was established in Cologne in 1986 and dissolved in 1997. In 1990, the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD, "Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland") was founded in Berlin. The LSVD is today Germany's largest LGBT rights organisation. Several more advocacy groups were formed, including Lesbenring in 1982, the Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists ("Bund Lesbischer und Schwuler JournalistInnen") in Cologne in 1997, the Ecumenical Working Group Homosexuals and the Church ("Ökumenische Arbeitsgruppe Homosexuelle und Kirche") in 1977, and the Association of Gay and Lesbian Police Officers ("Verband lesbischer und schwuler Polizeibediensteter"), among many others. The "Bundesverband Trans*" and "Intersexuelle Menschen e.V." are among several groups campaigning for transgender and intersex rights.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The first Christopher Street Day occurred in Berlin in 1979 with 400 masked participants. Attendance increased thereafter, with 15,000 attendees in 1990 and reaching 100,000 attendees in the late 90s. In 2005, the event attracted an estimated 400,000 people. Today, Berlin Pride is among the city's largest events, attracting an estimated one million attendees in 2019. Outside Berlin, pride parades are also held in numerous cities, including Bremen and Cologne which held their first events in 1979, and Hamburg (known as Hamburg Pride) and Munich whose first pride events were organized in 1980. Freiburg im Breisgau organized its first pride event in 1985, followed by Frankfurt in 1993, Dresden in 1994, Dortmund in 1996, Kiel in 1998 and Stuttgart in 1999. Events are also held in Bonn, Leipzig, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Nuremberg, Darmstadt, Bielefeld, Düsseldorf, Essen, Duisburg, Heidelberg, Wuppertal, Mannheim, Saarbrücken and Lübeck, among many others.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: A May 2019 study revealed that 6.9% of the German population identified as LGBTI. The study also showed that 10.6% of the population of Cologne between the ages of 18 and 75 described themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer. This accounted to over 87,000 people in the city.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: A 2013 Pew Research Center poll indicated that 87% of Germans believed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, which was the second highest in the 39 countries polled, following Spain at 88%.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: 46% of 20,000 German LGBT people said they had experienced discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity in the past year per the 2013 results of a survey by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (the EU average was 47%). Two-thirds of respondents said they concealed their sexual orientation at school and in public life and a fifth felt discriminated at work.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: In May 2015, PlanetRomeo, an LGBT social network, published its first Gay Happiness Index (GHI). Gay men from over 120 countries were asked about how they feel about society’s view on homosexuality, how they experience the way they are treated by other people and how satisfied are they with their lives. Germany was ranked 14th with a GHI score of 68.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: A 2017 poll found that 83% of Germans supported same-sex marriage, 16% were against. For comparison, the 2015 Eurobarometer found that 66% of Germans thought that same-sex marriage should be allowed throughout Europe, 29% were against.


title: LGBT rights in Germany

text: The 2019 Eurobarometer showed that 88% of Germans believed gay and bisexual people should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual people, and 84% supported same-sex marriage.


title: Style (form of address)

text: A style of office or form of address, also called manner of address, is an official or legally recognized form of address for a person or other entity (such as a government or company), and may often be used in conjunction with a personal title. A style, by tradition or law, precedes a reference to a person who holds a post or political office, and is sometimes used to refer to the office itself. An honorific can also be awarded to an individual in a personal capacity. Such styles are particularly associated with monarchies, where they may be used by a wife of an office holder or of a prince of the blood, for the duration of their marriage. They are also almost universally used for presidents in republics and in many countries for members of legislative bodies, higher-ranking judges, and senior constitutional office holders. Leading religious figures also have styles.


title: Style (form of address)

text: General tradition indicates that monarchs who have ceased to reign but not renounced their hereditary titles, retain the use of their style and title for the duration of their lifetimes, but both die with them. Hence Greece's deposed king is often still styled "His Majesty King Constantine II", as a "personal" title, not as occupant of a constitutional office, since the abolition of the monarchy by the Hellenic Republic in 1974. Similarly, until his death, the last King of Italy, Umberto II, was widely referred to as "King Umberto II" and sometimes addressed as "Your Majesty". In contrast, Simeon of Bulgaria who, subsequent to the loss of his throne in 1947, was elected to and held the premiership of his former realm as "Simeon Sakskoburggotski", and therefore is as often referred to by the latter name as by his former royal title and style.


title: Style (form of address)

text: While this rule is generally observed, and indeed some exiled monarchs are allowed diplomatic passports by their former realm, other republics officially object to the use of such titles which are, nonetheless, generally accorded by extant monarchical regimes. In 1981, the then Greek President Konstantinos Karamanlis declined to attend the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales when it was revealed that Greece's deposed monarch, a cousin of the Prince, had been referred to as "King" in his invitation. The current Hellenic Republic has challenged King Constantine's right to use his title and his passport was revoked in 1994 because he did not use a surname, as his passport at the time stated "Constantine, former King of the Hellenes". However, Constantine II now travels in and out of Greece on a Danish diplomatic passport as a descendant of Christian IX of Denmark, by the name "Constantino de Grecia" (Spanish for "Constantine of Greece").


title: Style (form of address)

text: The Most Honourable – In Jamaica, governors-general, as well as their spouses, are entitled to be styled "The Most Honourable" upon receipt of the Jamaican Order of the Nation. Prime ministers and their spouses are also styled this way upon receipt of the Order of the Nation, which is only given to Jamaican governors-general and prime ministers.


title: Style (form of address)

text: His Excellency/Her Excellency is used before the name of President of India as well as before of governors of the states. However, it is not mandatory for an Indian citizen to use this style to address the president or the governors after a notification from the President House. But it is mandatory for foreigners to address the president and governors.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Your Honour/My Lord – It is used before the names of judges but now it is also not mandatory. The Supreme Court in a hearing said that people need to respect the judges and "Sir" is sufficient for it.


title: Style (form of address)

text: With a long history of rulers, there are many styles which vary from territory to territory and languages for royal families in India, commonly Maharaja (for king), Maharani (queen) whereas for their successors Raja, Rani (Maha meaning "Great" removed). Rajkumar (for prince) and Rajkumari (for princess).


title: Style (form of address)

text: Others include Hukam (commonly in Rajasthan), Sardar (kings in territories of Punjab within Sikh Empire), Badshah (Mughal Empire), Vazeer-e-Aala (in Mughal Empire) etc.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Generally the vast majority of the members of these royal families use the titles Prince and Princess, while the higher ranked amongst them also use either Highness or Royal Highness to describe secondary appellations in their native languages that they hold in their realms, appellations that are intended to highlight their relative proximity to their thrones, either literally in the sense of the extant kingships of the continent or symbolically in the sense of its varied chiefships of the name, and which therefore serve a function similar to the said styles of Highness and Royal Highness.


title: Style (form of address)

text: For example, the Yoruba people of West Africa usually make use of the word Kabiyesi when speaking either to or about their sovereigns and other royals. As such, it is variously translated as Majesty, Royal Highness or Highness depending on the actual rank of the person in question, though a literal translation of the word would read more like this: "He (or She) whose words are beyond questioning, Great Lawgiver of the Nation".


title: Style (form of address)

text: Within the Zulu Kingdom of Southern Africa, meanwhile, the monarch and other senior royals are often addressed as uNdabezitha meaning "He (or She) Who Concerns the Enemy", but rendered in English as Majesty in address or reference to the king and his consorts, or Royal Highness in the case of other senior members of the royal family.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Certain senior government officials (such as the Chief Secretary for Administration), President of the Legislative Council, members of the Executive Council, and members of the judiciary (such as the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal) are also styled as "The Honourable".


title: Style (form of address)

text: In Ireland, holders of offices with Irish names are usually addressed in English by its nominative form (so, 'Taoiseach' and 'Tánaiste'), though the Irish vocative forms differ ("a Thaoisigh" and "a Thánaiste"). The President may be styled 'His/Her Excellency' (, / "A Soilse" ) and addressed 'Your Excellency' (Irish: "A Shoilse"), or simply 'President' (Irish: "A Uachtaráin" ). The titles 'Minister' and 'Senator' are used as forms of address; only the latter as a style. A TD ("Teachta Dála") is formally addressed and styled as 'Deputy', though often simply "Mr", "Mrs", etc. Similarly, county and city councillors can be addressed as 'Councillor', abbreviated "Cllr." which is used as a written style, but are just as frequently addressed as "Mr", "Mrs" etc.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Styles can be acquired through marriage, although traditionally this applies more to wives of office-holders than to husbands. Thus, in the United Kingdom, Anne, Princess Royal, is styled Her Royal Highness (HRH), her husband, Sir Timothy Laurence, bears no courtesy style by virtue of being her husband (although his mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, has since knighted him), nor do her children bear any title or style, by right or tradition, despite being in the line of succession to the Crown, until 2015 subject to the Royal Marriages Act 1772. In contrast, when Sophie Rhys-Jones married Prince Edward, she became HRH the Countess of Wessex (&c.) and their children are entitled (although they do not use them) to the princely prefix and the style of HRH, and do bear courtesy titles derived from their father.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Styles and titles can change when a marriage is dissolved. The Lady Diana Frances Spencer held the style Her Royal Highness during her marriage to HRH The Prince of Wales and the title Princess of Wales. When the couple divorced she lost her style: she became instead "Diana, Princess of Wales". (although she fit the criteria which customarily accords the prefix of "Lady" to the daughter of an earl, and she had been known as such prior to marriage, she did not revert to that title following divorce).


title: Style (form of address)

text: When applied to the current Princess of Wales, inclusion of a definite article ("The Princess of Wales"), is, like HRH, part of the style which accompanies the title. When Charles was remarried to Camilla Parker-Bowles in compliance with the Royal Marriages Act, she lawfully became HRH The Princess of Wales but, as was the announced intention prior to the couple's wedding, she continues to use the lesser title derived from her husband's Duchy of Cornwall and is known as HRH The Duchess of Cornwall because the strong association to the late Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Style (form of address)

text: From the divorce until her death in 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales ceased to hold any royal style, although the monarch declared that she remained a Princess of the United Kingdom and in occasions when members of the Royal Family appeared in public, she continued to be accorded the same royal precedence.


title: Style (form of address)

text: When Sarah Ferguson was divorced from her husband, HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, she too lost her HRH style, the rank as a British Princess and was re-styled as "Sarah, Duchess of York".


title: Style (form of address)

text: In 1936, Wallis Simpson was denied the HRH style by George VI when she married his older brother, the former Edward VIII, who became HRH the Duke of Windsor following his abdication and receipt of a peerage.


title: Style (form of address)

text: The names of most current and former elected federal and state officials and judges in the United States are styled "The Honorable" in writing, (e.g., "The Honorable Mike Rawlings, Mayor of the City of Dallas"). Many are addressed by their title in conversation as "Mister" or "Madam" ("Mr. President", "Madam Mayor") or simply by their name with their appropriate title e.g., "Senator Jones" or "Commissioner Smith".


title: Style (form of address)

text: Continued use of a title after leaving office depends on the office: those of which there is only one at a time (e.g., president, speaker, governor, or mayor) are only officially used by the current office holder. However, titles for offices of which there are many concurrent office holders (e.g., ambassador, senator, judge, professor or military ranks, especially colonel and above) are retained for life: A retired US Army general is addressed as "General (Name)" officially and socially for the rest of their life. Military retirees are entitled to receive pay and are still counted as members of the United States Armed Forces. Accordingly, all retired military ranks are retained for life pursuant to Title 10 of the United States Code. In the case of the President, while the title is officially dropped after leaving office – e.g., Dwight Eisenhower reverted to his prior style "General Eisenhower" in retirement – it is still widely used as an informal practice; e.g., Jimmy Carter is still often called President Carter. The Vice President is typically referred to as "former Vice President", such as "former Vice President Mike Pence." Similarly, governors are typically addressed in later life as "Governor (Name)", particularly if running for further political office. Mitt Romney, for example, was frequently referred to as "Governor Romney" during his 2012 presidential campaign and was addressed as such formally in the debates, having been Governor of Massachusetts until 2007.


title: Style (form of address)

text: All former monarchies had styles, some, as in the Bourbon monarchy of France, extremely complicated depending on the status of the office or office-holder. Otto von Habsburg, who was Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary (1916–1918), had the style 'His Imperial and Royal Highness'. He was last addressed as such by church figures during the funeral of his late mother, Empress-Queen Zita of Austria-Hungary in 1989, although the use of these styles has been prohibited in Austria since 1920.


title: Style (form of address)

text: The names of some offices are also titles, which are retained by the office holder for life. For example, holders of titles of which there are many at the same time, such as ambassadors, senators, judges, and military officers who retire retain use of their hierarchical honorific for life. Holders of titles of which there is only one office holder at a time such as president, chief justice or speaker revert to their previous honorific when they leave office out of deference to the current office holder.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Styles were often among the range of symbols that surrounded figures of high office. Everything from the manner of address to the behaviour of a person on meeting that personage was surrounded by traditional symbols. Monarchs were to be bowed to by men and curtsied to by women. Senior clergy, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, were to have their rings (the symbol of their authority) kissed by lay persons while they were on bended knee, while cardinals in an act of homage at the papal coronation were meant to kiss the feet of the Supreme Pontiff, the Pope.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Many of these traditions have lapsed or been partially abandoned. At his inauguration as pope in 1978 (itself the abandonment of the traditional millennium-old papal coronation), Pope John Paul II himself kissed cardinals on the cheeks, rather than follow the traditional method of homage of having his feet kissed.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Similarly, styles, though still used, are used less often. The former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, was usually referred to as "President Mary McAleese", not "President McAleese", as had been the form used for the first six presidents, from President Hyde to President Hillery. Tony Blair asked initially to be called "Tony". First names, or even nicknames, are often widely used among politicians in the US, even in formal situations (as an extreme example, President James Earl "Jimmy" Carter chose to take the Oath of Office using his nickname). One notable exception involves judges: a judge of any court is almost invariably addressed as "Your Honor" while presiding over his or her court, and often at other times as well. This style has been removed in the Republic of Ireland, where judges are addressed only as "Judge".


title: Style (form of address)

text: However, styles are still widely used in formal documents and correspondence between heads of state, such as in a letter of credence accrediting an ambassador from one head of state to another.


title: Style (form of address)

text: The term "self-styled", or "soi-disant", roughly means awarding a "style" to oneself, often without adequate justification or authority, but the expression often refers to descriptions or titles (such as "aunt", "expert", "Doctor", or "King"), rather than true "styles" in the sense of this article.


title: Style (form of address)

text: Though the Republic of Ireland does not possess a Privy Council, the style is still used. The Lord Mayor of Dublin is still styled the Right Honourable, as previous lord mayors of Dublin were "ex-officio" members of the former Irish Privy Council until its abolition in 1922.


title: Enough Said

text: Enough Said is a 2013 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. The film stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener, Toni Collette and Ben Falcone. Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a divorced masseuse who begins a relationship with Albert (Gandolfini), only to discover that he is the former husband of her client and friend Marianne (Keener).


title: Enough Said

text: Holofcener wrote the script, which was partly inspired by her own life, after she was approached by two producers from Fox Searchlight Pictures who offered to produce her next project. It was filmed in Los Angeles on a budget of $8 million. Gandolfini died after the film was completed but before it was released; Holofcener dedicated the film to him.


title: Enough Said

text: "Enough Said" premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on Gandolfini’s birthday, September 18, 2013, ranking as the fifth best-reviewed wide release of the year, according to Rotten Tomatoes. The film was praised for Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini's performances, as well as Holofcener's screenplay and received several major award nominations, including for a Golden Globe for Louis-Dreyfus (her first nomination for a film role), a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Independent Spirit Awards and four Critics' Choice Movie Awards.


title: Enough Said

text: Eva, a massage therapist and the divorced mother of a teenage girl, attends a party in Pacific Palisades with her friends, married couple Will and Sarah. There she meets a poet, Marianne, and Will introduces Eva to one of his friends, Albert. After the party, Albert asks Will for Eva's number and, although hesitant since she is not physically attracted to him, Eva agrees to go on a date with Albert, which goes well. Marianne contacts Eva for a massage, and after taking an immediate liking to one another they become friends.