In the immense social upheaval following World War I, Berlin emerged as the global hub for gay life and gay art. In 1921, Berlin was home to 40 documented meeting places for gay people. By 1925, that number had jumped to 80.
Cheif among these hotspots was the cabaret Eldorado, whose drag pageants and performances were immortalized by the likes of artists such as Otto Dix. In 2023, Netflix released a documentary about the club, Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate.
At the center of the movement for gay rights was Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.
Ins 1896 Hirschfeld was operating as a regular physician, when he received a note from a soldier who was engaged to be married. The soldier was suicidally depressed because he could not get over his attraction to men, and was desperate to be cured of it. Being gay himself, Hirschfeld related tremendously to the soldier, and was spurred begin studying homosexuality in a scientific manner.
He was led to the conclusion that homosexuality was a natural occurrence that happened the world over. More importantly, he argued that homosexuality was not immoral and that homosexuals should be free to live and love as they pleased.
Hirschfeld was also the first scientist to recognize and study what we'd call transgenderism today, and was the person who coined the term "transvestite."
(Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, 2nd from right)
Das Institut acted as both a medical clinic and a center of education. Members of the public could come and be informed on the mechanics of how sex worked as well as receiving non-judgemental medical care for STIs and other sexual conditions. Women could receive information about safe abortion. It was also one of the first places where trans people could come and receive hormone treatment and information about gender-reassignment surgery.
Then, in 1933, with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor, everything changed.
Queer lives were officially deemed not worth living, and public queer places became the chief target of Nazi persecution. The voluminous libraries of Das Institut were raided and then burned, destroying so much early queer history and science that was irreplaceable.
Dr. Hirschfeld managed to escape Germany and died in France in 1935. Queer people who were not lucky enough to leave to the country were arrested and sent to die in concentration camps.
The lessons of Weimar Berlin are painfully pertinent today. Progress can be destroyed faster than it gets made. Rights are not guaranteed and must always be fought for. The past cannot be allowed to happen again.
By which I mean, for the love of all that is holy, if you want to continue to have any rights at all, pleasepleaseplease vote for Joe Biden on November 5th. Don't not vote in protest. Don't vote 3rd party. If Donald Trump is re-elected this WILL happen again. Just imagine your favorite local queer hang-out being shut down with "Make America Great Again" signs in the window, and vote to stop it.
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