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Magnus Hirschfeld - Blog Posts
The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was run by Magnus Hirschfeld, who had his German citizenship revoked and died in exile. The book burning was a clear signal and erased a huge part of research on queer people, as so well stated in this post. Today's equivalent could be the removal of online resources and the withdrawal of access and licences to ressources once free or purchased.
The Wikipedia article on Magnus Hirschfeld captures extremely well what Magnus Hirschfeld's research meant to individual queer people and to the queer community as a whole. I so wish I could stop being afraid of history repeating itself.
Content Warning: Mention of Suicide
In particular, Hirschfeld cited the story of one of his patients as a reason for his gay rights activism: a young army officer suffering from depression [...], leaving behind a [...] note saying that despite his best efforts, he could not end his desires for other men, and so had ended his life out of his guilt and shame. [...] the officer wrote that he lacked the "strength" to tell his parents the "truth", and spoke of his shame of "that which nearly strangled my heart". The officer could not even bring himself to use the word "homosexuality", which he instead conspicuously referred to as "that" in his note. However, the officer mentioned at the end of his suicide note: "The thought that you [Hirschfeld] could contribute a future when the German fatherland will think of us in more just terms sweetens the hour of my death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld
Btw, this is how conservatives keep getting to claim that trans people are a new thing no one has ever heard, because our history and existences have continually been erased or obscured systematically through out history.
The most famous example was 92 years when the Nazis raided the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the medical practice where the term transsexual was first coined and the first gender affirming surgery was performed in in 1931.
What did the Nazis do after raiding the library on May 6th, 1933? You may be familiar with these images
It is happening again.