WEBVTT - Part One: Gay Resistance to Nazis 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:03.680 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.200 the podcast about all the rebels and weirdos and revolutionaries 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.120 who fought against all the worship that the world has 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.920 to offer. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and with me 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.200 today is Sharine, who is a director and artist, a poet, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.400 a general jack of all trades, and as the co 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.680 host of the podcast Ethnically Ambiguous. How are you doing today, Shrine? 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:26.360 I'm doing Hi, Sharine. I have a podcast that I've 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.200 done so many of these, and every intro I've ever 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:34.600 done is so awkward. I'm Sharin. That's actually something that 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.280 I really appreciate about podcasts. It makes me feel like, um, 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:44.040 I'm doing okay. Yeah, that's why I to reassure, to 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.120 reassure everybody. But if I can do what you could do, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:52.400 it probably better. Um. We've also got our producers, Sophie 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.840 listening on like the voice of God or maybe like 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.080 one of the three norns weaving the fate of the 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.560 rest of us mortals. How are you doing to Sophie, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.280 that's my favorite intro you've done. I'm great, you know, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:11.240 surviving kind of exited for this script. It's a good one. Thanks. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.120 Thanks cutting some threads. Um, that is a great image, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:21.200 and Sophie is like that. I guess that was great. Okay. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.160 So I figured today we should do something like really lighthearted, 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:29.560 easy breezy and talk about Nazism. I figure no one ever, 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.360 no one ever talks about these guys, right, Like, when 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.240 was the last time anyone talked about Nazis? So we 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.200 figured we should talk about But more specifically, I want 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.520 to talk about how during the early twentieth century there 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.080 was this like queer accepting culture that was blooming all 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.040 across Europe, which the Nazis tried to crush. But it 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.360 turns out the it didn't it didn't actually work out 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.600 that way in the end, that the Nazis actually spoil 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.400 our alert get crushed. Um, And they took out a 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.240 lot of queer people along the way, but a lot 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.960 of queer people fucked up the Nazis too. So that's 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.040 what we're gonna talk about today. I like that. I 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:11.800 like a good like I don't know, revenge, Uh yeah, yeah, no, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.480 this is good. I think you might like some of 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.400 this story. Then obviously not all of this story, unfortunately. Okay, 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.160 So I don't know if you knew this, but there's 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.600 actually not one way to be to be gay. Um, 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.959 a very different yeah. No, I was shocked to learn 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.240 this as well, there's one straight way to be gay. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:38.239 Thank you for laughing so much. Uh yeah, the like, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.320 every culture has had different conceptions of homosexuality and transnis 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.680 and all of these different things, and like to be 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.760 to be clear, like, guys have been fucking guys since 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.880 the beginning of time, girls have been sucking girls, and 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.200 wherever there's been gender, there's been people transgressing gender roles. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.480 But since Western civilization is like trying it, so I 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.120 almost feel like guilty focusing on this particular conception of 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.760 of gayness and how we developed to our current Western 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.399 conception of gayness. But since Western civilization is trying its 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.520 hardest to be like the one single culture over the 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.760 entire world, I feel like it's worth knowing it's history 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.680 of queerness, or at least some of it. And kind 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.359 of oddly, a lot of the history we have about 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.080 gayness in our culture doesn't come from like the ladies 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.000 who liked scissorin, but instead the the priests and the 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.160 governments that tried to stop us from doing that. Instead, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.960 So I want to start with this Book of Monsters. Hell, yeah, yeah, 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.960 lever Month Storum, this is this, it's the It's a 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.280 series of three volumes that was written in Old English 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.480 around the turn of the eighth century, and it's got 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.360 like cyclopses and centaurs and ship in it. But it's 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.680 not just like a collection in alphabetical order. It was 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.520 written in kind of a specific like they picked who 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.040 to put first and who to put at the end, 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.560 and yeah, exactly exactly. It's a monster lay list that 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.880 this guy is writing to try and impress someone, probably, 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.680 which makes it perfect actually, because the very first monster 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.560 in the very first book of Monsters in English is 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:17.599 a trans woman um or possibly an intersex person. Those 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.520 concepts were very blurry all throughout history, and so to 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.000 quote liber Month Storem from a translation by Andy Orchard, indeed, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.200 I bear witness at the beginning of the work that 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.040 I have known a person of both sexes, who, although 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.320 they appeared more masculine than feminine from their face and chest, 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.840 and were thought male by those who did not know yet, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.520 loved feminine occupations and deceived the ignorant among men in 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.000 the manner of a whore. But this is said to 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.120 have happened often amongst the human race. Oh so is 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:53.880 the person writing this pretending they're not human? Or no? No, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.400 I think he's It's just like just the way the 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:01.720 old English works sounds strange, Okay, yeah, sickly. Uh So, 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.839 the very first monster in all of English history is 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.560 a fucking it's me. Um. So that rules. Um but 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.080 I kind of projecting they're they're projecting if that's the 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.440 very first playlist or song in the playlist they chose, Hey, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.479 look inwards. That's a that's a very good point. Um. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.960 And the same book also describes, uh it specifically quotes 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.560 like Ethiopians also as monsters and it it's it's not 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.760 exactly a a tome I would like to see live 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.880 on in the modern world in any appreciable degree. Um 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.680 But okay, So fast forward a couple hundred years and 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.520 in the tenth century the Church of England, they were 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.440 passing around these manuals of recommended penance for sinners based 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.039 on their different sins or whatever, right, and one of 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.719 the passages refers to a third gender of person, which 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.160 is the baid ling or maybe bad ling. I don't 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.040 actually know how to pronounce Old English. Um. I'm gonna 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.480 go with bad ling. And and we know that they 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.080 meant it as a third sex because the specific rule 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.320 is that any man who quote has sex with a 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.200 bad ling or with another male or with a beast 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:15.000 ought to fast for ten years and penance well. And 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.080 so this is probably again the same concept. This is 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.480 a concept of someone who is either intersects or trends 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.040 and it's um and it's related to all these other 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.839 effeminate words that they had at the time, or words 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.680 for effeminine men that they had at the time, including 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.600 battle and baden or badden. There's a lot of arguments. 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.880 People like to argue about the ship endlessly on the Internet. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.680 I don't know if you've met the internet, um, but 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.840 it likes to argue about ship like this. There's a 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.560 chance that the word bad comes from this, which I 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.080 will also happily take. I'm like totally down to be 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.800 the origin of monsters and bad. I mean bad, that's 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.320 that's badass. Like I don't even mean that. That's a pun, 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.480 but I think that's really cool. Yeah, and different people 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.720 have tried to reclaim these words in different ways to 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.440 various degrees. But um, okay, fast forward even more, and 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.560 you've got two important pieces of legislation. Who's bigotry has 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:17.760 echoed throughout the world thanks to colonialism the Holy Roman Empire, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.080 which stretched from northern Italy up to modern day Germany. 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.240 In in fifteen thirty two, it passed something called the 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.440 I don't pronounced load, even though I took three years 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:33.120 of it, Constitutio criminalist Carolina. And one of the laws 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.640 in this set of laws is when a human commits 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.320 fornication with a beast, a man with a man, a 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.600 woman with a woman, they have also forfeited life and 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.640 they should be, according to the common custom, banished by 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:51.160 fire from life into death Jesus. Yeah. Um, So they 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.280 weren't like huge fans of homosexuality, not really. It seems 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:00.680 like they just kind of hate hate us. Yeah yeah. Um. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.360 The very next year, it must have been like sweeping 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.760 the Europe at the time, because the very next year, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.120 Henry the Eighth of England, in fifteen thirty three, he 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.320 passed the Buggery Act, which made anal sex and beast 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:19.440 reality punishable by death. Um. And it's just so disgusting 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:22.600 to me that those are always coupled together, like and 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.240 I say this as someone that used to have a 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.040 friend like five years ago that was arguing that point, 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.440 and I'm not I'm not a friend anymore. But like 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.760 I can't. I could not believe someone my age would 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.480 be able to still have any any thought about that, 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:39.800 and it blew my mind. So I'm very I just 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.520 hate that's just is beyond the upsetting and disgusting to me, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:49.800 I just yeah whatever, like yeah, no, no, It's like, 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.040 I don't know. It just makes me really mad that 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.240 humans are like that. But also like, okay, I studied 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.760 our history in college and the Roman Empire or whatever 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:04.120 the all a lot of their artworks involved all genders everywhere, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.840 and their gods are intersects and all this stuff. So 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:11.840 it's just so ironic to me that they're also birdening 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.240 people alive. I honestly, like the best I can figure out, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:17.840 and I'm not sure, but the best I can figure 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:19.320 out from like all this research I'm doing for this 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.480 episode is that like, not only have there. It's like 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.360 it's not like everyone was just like hiding in the 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.280 closet and afraid of the witch hunters the whole time. 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.320 It seems like it like cycled people would be like, oh, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.360 being gay rules, and the people like, yeah, it does rule, 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:32.800 and then I would just have like a whole culture 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.360 of people being like this rules, and then someone would 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.680 get into a moral panic and then murder us all 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.920 and drive the rest of us back into the closet um, 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.240 which is a really cool pattern that we are hopefully 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.680 not in the middle of right now. Well, that makes 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.959 me very nervous the way you said that, But we'll 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.960 keep thinking this story. Stop thinking about that at all, okay, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.720 do you all? Right? So, so England's law get exported 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.080 all over the world because they are fucking colonialist scum, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.520 and the Holy Roman Empire's law becomes Prussian law, which 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.120 becomes German law, and then becomes Nazi law and then 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.880 actually stays the law after the Nazis go away too. 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.800 But we'll get to that. So the Nazis didn't invent 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.319 the prosecution of gay people, the persecution of gay people, 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.960 They just turned it up to a lemon Uh. In 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.440 contrast at all, during all this time France when they 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.320 did their whole revolution thing, uh in the legalized homosexuality, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.360 And that's pretty incredible. I didn't know that. No, I 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.560 didn't either, honestly, And then I hate that. I'm about 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.959 to say something positive about a Napoleon. But um, then 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.920 when he went around and conquered Europe, he he brought 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.720 the French law with him and eradicated anti gay laws everywhere. 0:10:51.760 --> 0:11:01.040 He went. Wow, short King, I know, sure read Hey, 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:06.880 that's that's pretty freaking cool. Yeah. And so it's like 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:12.479 so so so Prussia becomes Germany by bringing in Bavaria 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.960 and some other regions, and Bavaria actually had legalized homosexuality, 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.560 but Prussia did not. So in eighteen seventy one, when 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.640 when Prussia becomes Germany, the whole country suddenly as an 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.239 anti gay log and and it's a law called paragraph 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.400 one seventy five, and and it was the law in 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.559 Germany from fucking eighteen seventy one until do you want 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.840 to guess what decade they got rid of paragraph eighteen 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:40.880 seventy one? What I don't know, I'm genuinely gonna say 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:46.800 like nineteen sixty or something. No, no, no, it's gonna say. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.240 I was gonna say you were alive, you were alive. 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.920 Oh my god. I just thought like after fucking I 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.360 don't know, NATO one, maybe they were like in a 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.560 good mood and the sixties stuck, I think about it, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.760 but that is that is very unfortunate and sad. And 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.720 they did, like they actually they did reform the laws 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.680 in the late sixties and early seventies and like, and 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:16.199 I think what they did. I don't have the notes 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:17.360 in front of me, but I think what they ended 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.720 up doing was making it so that there was just 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.760 a higher age of consent for for gayness than for 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.360 straight no us or whatever. Um So, like straight kids 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.720 were allowed to funk at fourteen, but gay kids weren't 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.120 allowed to funk until they're twenty one or something, which 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.760 is like progress, but in the weirdest, most horrible way, 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.200 you know. Um So, this this, this law paragraph one 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.920 seven five is unnatural fornication, whether between persons of the 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.760 male sex or humans with beasts, is punished with imprisonment, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.360 with the further punishment of prompt loss of civil rights. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.959 Well and okay, so like most of these laws are 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.000 just about men, right the Holy Roman Emperor one managed 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.920 to include lesbians as well, but so Germany. They actually 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.840 tried to extend it to include lesbians a couple of times, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.160 but they couldn't reach consensus on exactly like how women 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.680 would go about sucking each other and so like exactly 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:18.000 what would be illegal, And that's so funny. It's like 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.679 straight guys making lesbian port or something, you know what 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.560 I mean, They're just like is this what they do? Yeah? Totally. 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.440 I just like to imagine that there's like this room 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.680 full of dudes and like powdered wigs or maybe like 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.400 hats with spits on them, and they're like trying to 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.079 mimic exactly what they thought. Maybe like one of them 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.440 puts their fingers with some scissors by accident or something, 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:42.960 you know. Um. So, and in England they tried to 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.600 expand the law to women as well, the English law, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.520 but they got afraid that if they did, it might 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.520 give women ideas. So the the earl of I don't 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.440 pronounced English names, well, I mean like women can't have 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.559 ideas though, Margaret, like that's so dangerous is yeah? Well, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:04.679 I mean this actually ties into my I mean, like 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.080 I think the reason that men hate lesbians is that 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.200 they realized that, um, if women can enjoy each other, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.480 then the men have no purpose. Um. And I actually 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.240 think this is why they even hate trans women especially 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.280 or also is because like because they could hold on 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.760 too like, well, at least the human race wouldn't continue, 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.200 and yeah, sorry, we're gonna sunk that one up for 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.680 you too. Well, no, I think you're correct, that is why. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.520 So okay, so the earl of desert, I'm just gonna 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.080 call the desert desert. I don't know if I could desert. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.880 I think desert. Okay, they colonized like half the fucking world. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.840 They can get their names wrong. How many people does 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.200 one suppose really are so vile, so unbalanced, so neurotic, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.640 so decadent as to do this. You may say there 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.880 are a number of them, but would be like, at 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.000 most an extremely small minority. And you're going to tell 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.480 the whole world that there is such an offense, to 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.400 bring it to the notice of women who have never 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.960 heard of it, never thought of it, never dreamed of it. 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.720 I think that is a very great mischief. I love that. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.360 I love the performance. Um, but I was just thinking 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:20.960 about it, like annihilating the human race, or not annihilating, 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.640 but slowly killing us off. That would be have you 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.680 seen us? Have you seen this planet? Like that's the 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:32.040 way to save the world lesbians and women? Yeah, the 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:37.840 man that wrote the men that wrote that, uh, just 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.880 probably so gay. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the other 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.720 thing we're gonna like there's a lot of different conceptions 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.480 that come up about, like, you know, whether sexuality is 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.200 in it or whether it's like socially contagious and like. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:54.800 So that wasn't even part of the question yet. It 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.880 was more just like the act Oh yeah, yeah no, 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:01.200 I was saying that later in the script, we're gonna 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:06.000 talk about yeah no no. So they didn't they didn't 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.760 expand the law to include women because they couldn't, you know, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.320 they didn't want to give any women ideas. Um. But Okay, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.400 despite the fact that there's all these anti gay laws 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.200 on the books, nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, Germany was 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.600 like fucking unbelievably gay through and through, left wing, right 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.680 wing center gay people everywhere, and and of course a 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.720 lot of these people were fighting for their rights, which 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.640 brings us to the Institute for Sexual Research. Uh. From 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.400 nineteen nine to nineteen thirty three, there was a place 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.280 in Berlin called the Institute for Sexual Research, which was 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.880 opened by three Jewish sexologists. The most famous of these 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:46.360 is a guy named Magnus Hirschfeld. And this place, I 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.240 don't know. As far as I get tell, A ruled right. 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.000 Twenty thousand people visited every year from around the world. 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.280 There was this Museum of Sex, there was a massive 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.960 research archive. UM. They offered consulting on matters of sex 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.600 to gay and straight people, Like if you're confused about 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:03.280 your sexuality, you could just like show up at the 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:08.399 institute and someone would um set you straight or gay. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.200 That I wish I had that now, I know how 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.320 that's so ahead of its time, I know. And they 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.840 did endless scientific research in the homosexuality. Uh, some of 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.960 it seems like really weird today. Like at one point 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.119 they spent a while trying to and this is all voluntary, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.639 but they tried to transplant testicles from straight men into 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:29.600 gay men to see if it would cure the gay 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.520 men of their gay um. But they and again this 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.040 wasn't a forced conversion therapy. This was like people being 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.320 like I want to do this or whatever. Um. But 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.119 they kind of dropped anything like conversion therapy pretty quickly, 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.399 and then they moved apparently all their focus to helping 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.159 people navigate homophobic society rather than you know, trying to 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.320 fucking cure them or whatever. They they coined the words 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:57.520 both transvestite and transsexual. I know transvestite isn't invoke now, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.399 but like it actually was a word that meant a 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.760 lot to me as something when I was younger before 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:06.479 identified it as as transgender because I prefer women's cloth. Yeah, exactly, 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.679 words changed and they involved in their meaning and I 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.159 had no idea that's wherely were coined from. That's what 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.040 an amazing little institute. Oh yeah, no, this place is 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:19.560 just like there's so much cool ship. Um, they pioneered 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.240 this idea. I mean, I'm sure other people came up 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.240 with this idea too, but they pioneered this idea is 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.760 like a scientific thing that if you just let trans 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.640 people exist and you let us like go through society 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:31.840 the way that we know we should belong in society, 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.360 that we're happier and society is happier and we don't 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:40.280 like kill ourselves as much. Um, because like you know, homopope, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.440 society is drive an awful lot of people to hurt themselves. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.679 And the government hears then they're like, no, we have 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.440 to keep them miserable or also need us to keep 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.040 them scared and miserable and sad. That's actually the truth yeah, 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.359 I genuinely believe that. Um, they're like, I'm miserable, so 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.239 you have to be visible, you know, Okay. And they 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.320 also they performed probably the first gender confirmation surgery in history, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.880 or at least the one that's known about in Western 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.080 records or whatever. I have a feeling some people tried 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.480 and did this a long time ago too. But this 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:16.879 woman named Dora Richter in thirty was the first person 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.080 to in in our understanding, to to undergo full like 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.920 gender confirmation surgery. And she actually worked at the institute. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.119 She was a maid basically, Um, it was one of 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.720 the only places in Germany where trans people could get jobs. 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.080 But I honestly, I don't know how well they were treated. 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.000 It sounded like they all got kind of ship jobs, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.720 like this woman was a maid, um, and Hirschfeld was 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.280 like traveling around staying in luxury hotels and show it's 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:46.359 always a negative side, I'm sure everybody. Yeah. And they 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:48.800 also tied were tied in with the first Western pro 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.760 homosexual advocacy group in history, which was the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.840 which was founded in and they treated homosexuality as gender. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:00.399 So this is getting to the there's a lot of 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.040 different conceptions about gayness arguing at the time, and the 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.240 Institute's theory was that homosexuality and gender exists in the 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.440 body and are essentially determined at birth rather than being 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.400 conscious choices, um, which led them down to some strange paths. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:16.760 They presented this idea that homosexuals were sort of a 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.119 third sex, halfway between men and women, which implied that like, 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.320 all lesbians are a bit masculine and all gay men 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.800 are like a bit feminine. Um. They did, however, separate 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.080 out transpeople from all of this to not be exactly 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.560 the same as gay people. Um. So it's like progress 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.240 and and they got away with a lot of this 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.760 gayness because even a one seventy five paragraph one seventy 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.000 five was technically a law in the books. The local 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.960 government basically told the police, like, now, I don't enforce this, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.040 because the local government was like far more progressive. That's 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.960 something at least. But I mean, it's also interesting, this guy, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.560 Magnus Archfield wasn't out as gay. He was very very 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.560 clearly gay, but he wasn't out, um, And like lived 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.280 with this partner and was active in the gay scene. 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.159 And I don't love everything that this guy did. For 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.520 one thing, um as part of the coalition to abolish 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:12.199 paragraph on the law that they advocated instead would have 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:18.000 legalized homosexual prostitution. And he was and Magnus was like, no, no, no, no, 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.680 take that part out. Not because he hated sex work, 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.080 but because he um, it would be like too controversial. 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.920 It would like, you know, and I don't know, sex 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.280 workers get thrown under the bus fucking constantly, and and 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.080 it also kind of throws on working class gay folks 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.480 under the bus more right, if you do that, yeah, exactly. 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.400 And he was also super fucking assimilationist. I'm not trying 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:41.639 to like rag on this guy, but I feel like 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.160 you can't understand him. You know, if you had stopped 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.600 like three minutes ago, like he started institution whatever, like 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:50.840 that's great, but this is an example of like, don't 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.080 meet your heroes, right, If I would have just kept 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:56.560 him as like at this heroic figure, if you just 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.800 stopped there, it's good to know everything, it's good to 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.000 be so at one point he was like when he 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.440 was trying to convince everyone that that gays were cool, 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.760 he would like bring cops to gay bars and to 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.399 be like, look, we're just like everyone else. And like, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.520 I like to imagine being in that bar and trying 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.719 to be like, okay, we're we're what, we're like everyone 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.399 else all right, yeah yeah, yeah, totally everyone put on 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.719 your everyone else yeah totally like quick stop sucking in public. 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.919 Um And and they asked, okay, so they weren't the 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.480 only game in town either. Um. The there was this 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.439 anarchist named Adolph Brand who started the world's first game magazine. Again, 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.080 whenever I say like the world's first or whatever, I 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.679 want to like really heavily disclose that, like all of 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:41.919 these history books are going to call it the first 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.440 whatever and they mean the Western world and you know whatever, 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.520 Still fucking cool. At least started this game magazine in 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.199 the nineteenth century, um in eight nine six, And the 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.280 name of the magazine translates to the unique. And he 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.119 was really fucking out, Like he kept getting arrested for 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:00.800 being gay and they be like, are you gay, and 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.800