How the Nazis stroyed the first gay rights movement

Contents:

• STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY

(Berl) – The German ernment has pledged to do more to uphold the rights of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and tersex (LGBTI) people abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The adoptn of the LGBTI Incln Strategy is the rult of staed advocy om German civil society groups sce 2012, spearhead by the Lbian and Gay Feratn Germany (Der Lben- und Schwulenverband Dtschland, LSVD), the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundatn, and the Yogyakarta-Alliance.

Ls than 80 years after roughly 6, 000 gay men perished Nazi ncentratn mps, Germany has bee one of the untri mostly wily acceptg of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people. That stark cultural and polil change trigued Stanford rearcher Samuel Clow Huneke, a doctoral ndidate history, who began vtigatg how East and Wt Germany alt wh homosexualy om 1945 to 1990.

“There is an assumptn that the state of gay rights Germany today is somethg that’s mostly due to events mocratic Wt Germany, which had a more vibrant gay culture and a more visible gay rights movement durg the 1970s, ” Huneke said. Prev historil rearch has vtigated how gay people fared Germany durg the Weimar perd, the terwar years that ran roughly om 1918 to 1933, and durg Adolf Hler’s Nazi dictatorship. While the Wt’s activism died down after 1980, when a group of pro-pedophilia activists dispted a major gay rights event Wt Germany’s pal Bonn durg that year’s feral electn, activists the East ntued to anize, Huneke said.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

From 1985 until the Berl Wall fell 1989, the East German ernment released a s of pro-gay policy chang, grantg gay people the right to serve the ary, among other eedoms, acrdg to his rearch. “This history troubl our assumptns about gay liberatn and how mori fare unr certa forms of ernment, as well as our lgerg Cold War expectatns about munist and mocratic regim, ” Huneke said.

The Nazis ma more severe and imprisoned 10, 000 gay men (and some lbians, although they were not vered by Paragraph 175) ncentratn mps, where they were marked wh the pk triangle—and a majory died. But there is plenty to see today to remember the highs and lows of German LGBTQ+ history, om the Monument to Homosexuals Persecuted unr Natnal Socialism and the Schwul Mm (Gay Mm), both Berl, to the Dtsche Eiche bar and bathhoe Munich, where Freddie Mercury hung out the 1970s.

Germany ranks among the top gay-iendly vatn statns acrdg to the Spartac Gay Travel Inx 2018 due to the gay-iendly environment the major ci like Berl, Hamburg, and Cologne.

GAY RIGHTS

Throughout summer, several ci around Germany are holdg events for Christoper Street Day (CSD) - now part of a global celebratn for gay rights and equaly - cludg Cologne and Berl. Hirschfeld vented the term transvte, zealoly opposed Paragraph 175, and found the Scientific Humanarian Commtee Berl which pneered rearch to transsexualy and stood at the foreont of prott opposg legal discrimatn agast homosexuals.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

The Third Reich’s persecutn of homosexuals was immediate and relentls: Natnal Socialists stormed and stroyed Hirschfeld’s Instute for Sexual Rearch Berl, Nazi newspapers lled for the ath penalty for homosexual acts and all active gay anisatns Germany were clared illegal. Acrdg to ttimoni om survivors, persecuted homosexuals were at the bottom of the ncentratn mp hierarchy, receivg particularly btal treatment and equently subjected to horrific medil experiments which ed an excs of male hormon to try and ‘cure’ mat’ homosexualy. This is not to say that lbians lived enviable liv unr the Third Reich; there are rerds of some lbian ncentratn mp mat and the soc-cultural climate of the Third Reich would not have been an easy one for openly gay women.

At the Dach ncentratn mp memorial, a sculpture nsistg of the triangl that intified mp mat is nspicuoly absent of the pk triangle which noted homosexuals wh ncentratn mps. When the sculpture was created 1968, homosexuals did not fall to the ‘regnised’ persecuted groups meang they were left out of the sculpture which memorated the sufferg of persecuted mori.

Many homosexuals left ncentratn mps only to be seen as mon crimals upon their return to society; many were repeatedly jailed and died before seeg the liberatn of gays or acknowledgement of and pensatn for their sufferg at the hands of both the Natnal Socialists and the post-war German ernments.

Contrary to mon assumptn, was the East German ernment who, spe the strict censorship, rife surveillance amongst cizens and the feared Stasi, were ostensibly more liberal when me to gay rights. Ined, the apparent improvements for the gay muny East Germany did not necsarily reflect a lack of homophobia but rather a pragmatic approach to homosexualy and gay rights.

The 2013 documentary film, ‘Out East Berl, ’ told the personal histori of 13 openly gay dividuals unr the GDR ernment and the film expos the ls rosy everyday realy for homosexuals East Germany. The 2017 legalisatn of same-sex marriage Germany had a slightly bter unrtone as the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, voted agast the legalisatn a move nsistent wh her stance opposn of gay marriage. Although Berl famoly had an openly gay mayor, Kls Wowere, the fact remas that the nservative CSU and CDU have often had an ambiguo approach to more liberal piec of legislatn.

Repeated vandalism of the ‘Memorial to Persecuted Homosexuals’ Berl, ongog difficulti terms of adoptn for gay upl and creas attacks agast gay upl Germany should all serve as a remr of the ntued threat to LGBTQ+ dividuals Germany. Homosexualy is still illegal dozens of untri globally and Germany's history remds that liberalism n quickly give way to a rtrictn of rights and persecutn tim of enomic crisis. 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. Especially plac where lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer and tersex (LGBTQI) people are persecuted by the state, they often have no protectn agast vlence and discrimatn. E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life.

(Although the term gay is monly ed reference to homosexual mal, is also ed more generally to refer to homosexual mal together wh some or all other orientatns wh the LGBTQ muny.

) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power. In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.

In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women.

In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly. Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.

This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. In addn, 2019 Lori Lightfoot beme the first openly gay person to be elected mayor of Chigo, and two years later Pete Buttigieg beme the first openly gay bet member Amerin history. Large ci Europe also were fertile grounds for succs for openly gay policians; for example, Bertrand Delanoë Paris and Kls Wowere Berl were both elected mayor 2001.

At the lol and natnal levels, the number of openly gay policians creased dramatilly durg the 1990s and 2000s, and 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir beme prime mister of Iceland, which ma her the world’s first openly gay head of ernment. In Ai, Asia, and Lat Ameri, openly gay policians have had only limed succs wng office; notable electns to natnal legislatur clud Patria Jiménez Flor Mexi (1997), Mike Waters South Ai (1999), and Clodovil Hernans Brazil (2006). The issu emphasized by gay rights groups have varied sce the 1970s by time and place; different natnal anizatns have promoted polici specifilly tailored to their untry’s i.