"For the people to publicly make a statement that they were gay or lbian was this enormo risk for them — they uld have lost everythg."
Contents:
- THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
- PERSECUTN OF GAY PEOPLE NAZI GERMANY
- GAY RIGHTS
- GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
The 1920s and early ‘30’s looked like the begng of the end for centuri of gay tolerance. Then me fascism and the Nazis. * lgbt protest nazis *
In 2017, Germany’s Cabet approved a bill that would expunge the nvictns of tens of thoands of German men for “homosexual acts” unr that untry’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175. Partly drivg this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started lookg at homosexualy and “transvtism” (a word of that era that enpassed transgenr people) as a natural characteristic wh which some were born, and not a “rangement.
And the fact that was almost impossible to nvict anyone unls he nfsed to such a crime urt meant that police jt kept a watchful eye on gay bars and events, and Germany end up beg home to a vibrant gay muny.
Historian Robert Beachy argu that, ironilly, the law spurred scientific tert the study of sexual preferenc, and that rearch tend to enurage a more scientific unrstandg of human sexualy, which further allowed the ia of gay rights to flourish. Durg that perd, gay-iendly bars and clubs started beg shut down, thori burned the books at a major rearch stutn voted to the study of sexualy, and gay aternal anizatns were shuttered. The efforts only creased after the Night of the Long Kniv, the 1934 purge of Nazi lears who were acced of tryg to overthrow Hler; they clud Storm Troopers lear Ernst Röhm, whom the SS murred, later cg his homosexualy as jtifitn for his murr.
PERSECUTN OF GAY PEOPLE NAZI GERMANY
Pk triangl were origally ed ncentratn mps to intify gay men. * lgbt protest nazis *
Some were ed as guea pigs var medil experiments to fd a cure for typh fever and a cure for homosexualy, the latter of which led the SS to ject them wh ttosterone to see if would make them straight.
GAY RIGHTS
* lgbt protest nazis *
As one of the USHMM’s curators has poted out, even as the Allied powers refully worked to scb Nazism om Germany, they left that part alone — perhaps bee they had anti-gay and anti-sodomy laws of their own. As the gay liberatn movement grew Ameri the ’70s and the ’80s, so did awarens of the persecutn of gays durg the Holot, as books and data about perd started beg published. Data on the victims started to be ced 1977, after a statistil analysis by soclogist Rudiger Ltmann of Bremen Universy claimed that as many as 60% of the gay men sent ncentratn mps may have have died.
The first reference to pk triangl TIME also appeared that year, a story about gay-rights activists Miami who attached the symbols to their cloth as a show of solidary while prottg a vote to repeal a law protectg gay people om hog discrimatn. In 1979, Mart Sherman’s play Bent, spired by Heger’s memoir, opened on Broadway; the play, one of the characters tras his pk triangle for a yellow star, “which giv him preferential treatment over the homosexuals, ” as TIME’s review put .
GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * lgbt protest nazis *
The activists who formed the anizatn ACT-UP to raise awarens about this public health crisis cid to e the pk triangle as a symbol of their mpaign and allud to s history when they clared, their manifto, that “silence about the opprsn and annihilatn of gay people, then and now, mt be broken as a matter of our survival.