WEBVTT - The War on Trans People: Part 5, How the Nazis Destroyed German Queerness 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:12.600 Oh boy, welcome to America. The podcast. Wait is that? 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:14.760 Is that what we're calling it now? I don't think 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.760 that's true. We just had like two episodes on international 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:19.720 tourfs that think we are going to we're trying to 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.439 be a little beyond America. I fucked it up. I 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:29.639 fucked it up. Well that's the podcast. Goodbye, everybody. See 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.479 Usually at this point you say, Garrison take over. All right, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.400 well let's let's get into this. What are we talking 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.080 about today? Who are we? Where are we? What is life? 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.520 Where it could happen? Here? Where is God? Final episode 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.120 of the war on transpeople? Which means when this episode, 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.040 when this episode is done, that means the war will 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.000 be over. We did it, everybody, and whatever God's wants were, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.600 if long abandoned this place. We did get pretty good 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.560 news about the governor of Utah, kind of surprising me here. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:02.160 Uh yeah, that just hit. It's nice. There's the there's that. 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.920 I mean. Luckily, look, some of some of the bills 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:06.760 that we've talked about actually have been shut down at 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.560 this point. The Wisconsin Wisconsin bill got shut got got 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:14.520 signed down surprisingly and in very very recently, like yeah, 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.600 the past few days. Yeah. Um, there's a looks like 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.800 there's still going to be injunctions on any investigations in 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.080 Texas until the case gets put up. Still very much 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.560 in the air. It's it's still in the courts, but 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:29.880 it's like it's it's trying. It's at least it's kind 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.640 of paused right now, and it's going to get settled 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.160 at some point in either the lawsuit or in the 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.840 higher courts. So we'll see, we'll see how that develops. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.000 But for right now, seems some things seem to be 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.160 paused and some states are not are not fully passing it. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:49.520 I know there was a walkout by Disney employees today 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.520 about over there don't say gay bill, and we're gonna 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.880 see if that's gonna get signed. Um. So, yeah, it's 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:57.800 still still up in the air, but we're gonna be 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.400 talking about something a little bit different, gonna do some 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:06.240 We're gonna do some time travel. Oh boy, that's that's 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.600 what I had to say. So we're going we're going 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.240 to go back to another time in which there was 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.320 a for a very brief period, a massive expansion in 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.120 the knowledge about and sort of but both knowledge about 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.239 and appearance of and safety of trans people and then 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.720 it all catatrophically came crashing down. Oh good. And to 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:33.160 help us with that is Robern Evidence my boss. Hi, everybody, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.919 how are we doing, Garrison? How? How how are we doing? Oh? 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.880 I'm doing actually fine, I'm just I'm just waiting for 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.040 you to do your job and not passing over all. Right. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.600 So the important thing to understand is that like the 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.280 kind of very concept of not just gay rights, but 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.880 like our our modern attitudes towards like what it means 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.840 to be homosexual and trans all have their origins in 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.480 Germany in the not not just in the post war period, 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:08.079 but really the last couple of decades of the Kaiser 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.840 and the Weimar Republic. Like that is where kind of 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.160 the modern Western attitudes towards what it like is to 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:19.760 be homosexual really get formed, because obviously, like gay people 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.040 have existed for forever, there's quite a bit of documentation, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.160 but if you look at like, for example, you know, 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.960 two spirit folks within some indigenous American cultures, that's a 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.800 very different attitude towards um, like what like trans people, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.280 I suppose the Western exactly. Yeah, so this is like 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.320 they're there's Western quote unquote you know whatever. Yeah, there's 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.320 the actual thing that's going on, and like the the 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.640 individual sexuality, and then there's kind of the the public 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.720 concept of what it is um and and that is 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.920 really forming. In Probably the seminal moment that kind of 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.640 starts this progress is in August sixty seven, when a 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.320 lawyer named Karl Heinrich Riks go before the sixth Congress 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.640 of German Jurists in munich Um to urge them to 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.360 repeal laws forbidding sex between men. So again there is 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.680 still a kaiser and like this is this is before 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.800 Germany is actually fully a nation, right because eighteen seventies 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.320 when that happens, so Germany doesn't even really exist at 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.240 this point. There's a series of like kings kind of 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.599 being welded together slowly into a German state. And there 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.760 is a lawyer getting up in front of like the 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.080 council of different German jurists to urge an end to 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.520 the laws that make it illegal for for men to 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.119 have sex with each other. And one thing that's important 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.440 to notice that obviously there are lesbians in this period 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:40.839 of time, as again there have been throughout all of history. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.160 That's not really a legal problem, right, They do not 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.880 face really legal repression and and I mean not to 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:48.920 say that like there's not repression and things that they're 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.360 dealing with, but it's not the same as as it 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.200 is for like men who want to be in relationships 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.359 with men. That's it's in fact a lot easier for 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.800 women to be kind of like and this is not 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.080 just Germany to be built to like kind of say 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.120 like we lived together, right, like we're on and we 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.240 live together like where. Yeah, that that because in part 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.320 because men, just like I think a lot of like 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.720 the men in this period just assume it's impossible like 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.200 that women would do that or or the other side 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.880 of it is like femininity is always presentuary, it's always 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:22.440 like it's un as soon as the beauty symbol. So 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.120 it makes more sense for women to find other women 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.880 attractive because that's what beauty is is when is performative femininity, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.720 So like that's like way more obvious and it doesn't 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.800 make sense for but and it makes less sense for 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.320 men to find other men attractive, and that's way more 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.200 taboo because of the way that messages with like patriarchy. Um, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.440 so yeah, I think there could be a like gender 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.960 studies and sexuality studies can have a lot of theorizings 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.400 for how this is developed. But yeah, this this idea 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.280 you can even see in like Victorian era and like 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.400 run Us on Sarah of yeah, women who lived together 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.280 and are very good friends, very very very close friends. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.680 I hope people don't feel like I'm trying to like 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.760 flatten the history of like the concept of being a 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.440 lesbian in the West, to to that at all, or 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.000 trying to for that matter, flattened like homosexuality between men. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.400 But I am kind of making the point, and I 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.640 am not the person who are kind of initially made 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.000 this point. The scholarly work that I'm kind of basing 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.600 my research on this on largely right now, and we're 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:22.840 going to do an episode behind the Bastards that gets 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.159 in two more of this, I think in the near future. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.640 But it's a called Gay Berlin by Robert baccy Um 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:30.440 and in in the book, one of the things that 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.200 Beach argues is that even though obviously same sex love 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.680 is as old as the existence of quite a bit 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.720 older actually than the existence of human beings, um, the 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.440 public discourse around it, and like the political attempt to 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.760 win rights for gay people starts in Germany in the 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.440 late eighteen hundreds, and it starts in this conference in 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:53.440 eighteen sixty seven. Um And and the guy who does 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.799 this rix is a number one, is a gay man. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.760 Um And he had he had been open kind of 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.799 to his relatives. He had started in the period before 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:03.400 he gets up in front of all these lawyers to 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.920 be open with like his family members that he was homosexual. 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.760 Um but he had never like, he was not publicly out. 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.520 And so on the same day that he appeals for 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.840 a change in the legal code to make homosexuality legal 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.560 in the German States is the day he comes out 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.760 publicly as a gay man. Like. He does both of 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.200 these things at the same time. And I want to 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:31.600 from a New york Yeah, it's quite a moment. Um. 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.120 I want to read a quote from a New Yorker 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.440 article that's covering all of this, and that's based again 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.280 on the book Gay Berlin quote. He faced an audience 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.920 of more than five hundred distinguished legal figures, and as 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.960 he walked to the lectern, he felt a pang of fear. 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.920 There was still time to keep silent, he later remembered 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.120 telling himself, then there will be an end to all 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.360 your heart pounding but Ulrix, who had earlier disclosed the 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.040 same sex desires and letters to relatives, did not stop. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.880 He told the assembly that people with a sexual nature 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.240 opposed to common custom were being persecuted for impule is 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.040 that nature, mysteriously governing and creating, had implanted in them. 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.240 Pandemonium erupted and Rix was forced to cut short his remarks. 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.960 Still he had an effect. A few liberal minded colleagues 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.760 accepted his notion of an innate gay identity, and a 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.520 Bavarian official privately confessed to similar yearnings and a pamphlet 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.840 titled Gladyus Furans or Raging sword or Rix wrote, I 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.080 am proud that I found the strength to thrust the 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.520 first lance into the flank of the hydra of public. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.960 It feel like that sometimes but incredibly based. Wow, what 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.040 if there's a heaven? I hope this dude made it there, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:45.200 because one absolute unbelievable. So no, but like what it like, like, yeah, 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:50.600 the astonished, Like the astounding bravery that that takes. Um 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:54.360 And he's essentially the first gay activist in a modern 0:08:54.440 --> 0:09:00.319 Western political context. Um, And it's interesting, like uh, within 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.160 kind of the the next couple of years, things start 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.160 to happen very quickly. Two years later in eighteen sixty nine, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.520 uh and Austrian an Austrian writer I know right named 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.840 Carl Kurt Benny um, who is kind of fighting sodomy 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.240 laws and and and sodomy laws are laws that make 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:20.680 everything that's not like missionary position sexily targeted towards towards 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.480 gay men primarily. Um. So Carl Kurt Benny create like 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.679 he's the guy who invinced the term homosexuality, like like 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.600 two years after this is part of his like fight 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:35.160 against these anti sodomy laws. Um. The eighteen eighties of 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:40.400 Berlin police commissioner makes the decision to stop prosecuting gay bars. Um. 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.080 And in fact, not only does he stop doing this, 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.840 but he starts leading tours of the gay districts in 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.960 Berlin just to like show off, like look at how 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:55.720 it's kind of wow, what a weird picture of putting 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.719 your head at least even like yeah, especially copy and 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.040 like why are we arresting these people? Let's show this off? 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:08.400 Yeah yeah. So in eighteen nineties six, the very first 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.840 gay magazine starts publishing in Germany in Berlin. Really do 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.600 you want to know what it's called? Of course? Why 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.400 of course, the German name is derrk eigen h and 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:23.280 that means the self owning. That's great, it's pretty it's 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:28.160 pretty cool. Um. So the very next year, eighteen nineties seven, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.760 one of the primary heroes of the early gay rights struggle, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:37.040 physician Magnus Hirschfeld uh starts the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.800 is the first organized gay rights group in Western history 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.240 at least. Um So, by the start of the twentieth century, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.200 a lot of stuff is in place, right And I 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:48.880 think I'm even have been a little bit guilty of 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.040 this in the past, of kind of focusing so much 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.720 on Weimar Germany, um and all of the stuff that 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.040 happens around game by rights there, and how progressive it was. 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.520 This is building in Germany. Again, we don't consider the 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.080 Kais or Reich as a particularly progressive place, but all 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.280 of this is happening under the Kaisers. And there's there's 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.120 so many things that are happening in the eighteen nineties 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.560 and the start of the nineteen hundreds that directly mirror 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:14.959 things that are happening in the United States in the 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.800 nineteen eighties. In fact, right as the century turns, um 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.200 you start getting an advocate one of the first gay 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.720 rights advocates in gay literature uses the phrase coins the 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.960 phrase staying silent is death to like talk about the 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.760 importance of gay literary, which is essentially the same slogan, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.760 the same stuff we're talking about right now with all 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.160 of like the with with all the book bandings taking 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.840 you know, doing a massive sweep of that the past 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.160 the past few years. Yeah, this is nineteen hundred, like 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:55.480 basically that this is starting. Um, so yeah, and there's 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.760 you know, there's even there's a lot of um. Activists 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.240 start to complain and to try to complain both within 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.720 like their own magazines and within like more public magazines 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.360 about things like negative depictions of gay people in popular novels. 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.520 They start to be the first arguments about whether or 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.080 not it's morally right to out people who are gay 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.120 but who are attached to anti gay organizations, because that 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:22.400 starts happening absolutely, Um, it's it's sucking wild howld off. 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.920 This is nothing new or than the sun. Yeah, but like, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:27.760 but this is also like the first time it happened 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.000 in these types of countries, in these societies. Yeah, yea, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.560 but it is that is so yes, times of flat circle. 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:35.959 But this is also like the first time it's happened, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.600 and it's just kind of been rehappening ever since. Then. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.719 It's important to note I didn't I didn't covers. When 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.640 we start talking about Rix, well, there's a lot of 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.599 people who get angry, and obviously Rix is not successful 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.840 in repealing the anti homosexuality laws. Um when he makes 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:02.480 his speech. In addition to the people who are like 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.160 yelling at him to sit down, there are like German 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.240 deputies yelling no, no, no, let him continue, let him continue, 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.760 like he needs to be allowed to talk. Um. So 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.440 even like in this period of time, there are non 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.640 gay people at a fairly high level in German politics 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.600 who are like vocal allies and starting to become vocal allies. 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:27.680 You know. Um, yeah, it's it's it's pretty fascinating. So um. Obviously, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.640 World World War One happens, um doesn't go great for Germany, 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.559 but you know, we we get after that. The Vimar 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.040 Republic and the Viimar Republic is kind of the traditional 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.000 era in which we talk a lot about, you know, 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.000 gay rights starting to really move forward in significant ways. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.319 And uh so there's a lot of um, even kind 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.520 of into the early nineteen thirties, some pretty interesting things 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.199 that are happening in German society and like the mainstream 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.320 elements of it. There's a film called ma Chin in 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.679 Uniform in nineteen thirty one, which is the first like 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.640 positive portrayal of lesbians in Western cinema. Um. Like thirty 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:08.040 one is like again we're talking like right before uh 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.400 Z the nazis kind of kind of come around. Um. 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.040 And yeah, there's these like this this this police commissioner 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.559 that we chatted about earlier. I think it's one of 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.440 the people who's most interesting to me. We're gonna get 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.880 to Hirshfeld a bit in in a little bit, but 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.120 this this guy is named Leopold von Muerscheite Wholsheim. Um, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.760 I'm not going to get that right. But he's a 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.480 big part of when we talk about gay Berlin, particularly 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:33.560 during the Weimar years. Even though he's like during what 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.880 while the Kaiser's in, He's why gay Berlin really happens 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.640 in a lot of ways. Um. And it's in part 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:45.360 because like he decides to stop cracking down on on 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.080 gay people. Um. And like he's not gay, although his 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.240 boss is, which is part of like what makes it easier. Um. 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:54.640 For him to do this, and there's like a lot 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.760 of debate about why he does this because he's not 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.640 like a gay rights activist. Some people say that it's 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.880 because is um he's worried that like gay people will 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.600 become politically radicalized by the Reds and so if you 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.360 stop cracking down on them, they won't go communists like that. 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.800 There's a lot of like debate about like why he 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.840 does this. Um. He's also there's a number of things 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.080 that he like, he takes a lot of data on 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.440 on gay people in Berlin, and he does this on everybody. 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.520 He's a big data guy. So it's not particularly uh 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.840 um harmful in his era, but it's some of the 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.160 stuff that he gathers will be used by the Nazis 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.280 later um, which is kind of a broader thing about 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.520 like the wisdom of not letting the government get access 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.440 to this like he has he founds a department of 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.880 Homosexuals in eighteen eighty five that like lists the people 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.680 that they know are gay, and and again like this 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.680 is all so it's really a complicated thing that's that's 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.200 happening here because he's not he's not this like thoroughly 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.440 sympathetic figure. He's doing a lot of stuff that's that's 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.840 weird and that will later have negative outcomes. But he's 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.520 also by ending police persecution of gay people, um, at 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.840 least in an organized way, really allowing gay culture to 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:08.080 to blossom um in Berlin. Uh. And it's it's it's yeah. 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.760 I'm gonna read another quote from that New Yorker article here. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.880 For whatever reason, Mr scheid Holsenheim took a fairly benevolent 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.600 attitude towards Berlin's same sex bars and dance halls, at 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:20.760 least in the better healed parts of the city. He 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:22.960 was on cordial terms with many regulars, and none other 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.120 than Odious Strindberg testified in his autobiographical novel The Cloister, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.680 which evokes the same sex costume ball at the Cafe Nationale. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.920 And this is a the police inspector and his guests 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.840 had seated themselves at a table in the center of 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:37.600 one end of the room, close to which all the 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.160 couples had to pass. The inspector called them by their 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.320 Christian names, and some and some of the most interesting 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.760 among them to his table. So he's kind of like 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:49.240 going on safari like among the gay people in Berlin. 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.520 Like there's a lot of weird. It's it's weird in 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.160 a lot of way. Um, But he's also one of 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.920 the things he does is he provides police help to 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.720 gay people who are being blackmailed and like threatened withouting, um. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.119 And he'll even like counsel them on how to handle it, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.040 Like he provides like counselors and stuff. And he does 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.920 this in part because like he's worried about, um, them 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.560 committing suicide because they're being blackmailed, which is like a 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.040 real problem in Germany in a bunch of other places. Um. Yeah, 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.919 and this guy, like why this police commissioner winds up 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.600 killing himself kind of in the early nineteen hundreds, I 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.080 think because he wound up getting found to be taken 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.600 bribes from some millionaire who gets in a lot of 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.040 legal trouble for raping somebody. So again, he is a 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:35.040 sketchy dude, but he's also like because he's he's got 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.200 this weird almost like voyeuristic fascination with gay people, um, 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.320 and some legitimate because there are legitimate humanitarian concerns. He's 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.040 really worried about people committing suicide as a result of blackmail. 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.119 So he's one of these figures we don't talk about 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.760 enough in history where it's like the overall outcome of 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:55.600 this guy's at work is pretty positive, but he does 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.320 it for this like really confusing mix of reasons. He's 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.920 just a very strange figure in history. Well, I think 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.000 it's interesting looking at him, like like comparing him to 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:07.520 like if you look at like what the US is 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.359 doing in the fifties, right where there's this whole thing 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.280 about like gay people are getting are gonna get are 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.119 getting blackmailed, and the you know, the the US, the 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.639 entire U S Security state loses his mind and becomes 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.960 convinced that like these people are all going to become 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.560 Soviet agents and you know, and instead of like doing 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.760 counseling that there's the thing that they do is they 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:26.840 they do the Lavender Scare and they start purging every 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.840 gay person they can find from the entire US government. 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.840 And it's like, no, it's it's it's interesting that like, yeah, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.240 this is this is a guy in like late eighteen hundreds, 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:42.840 early nineteen hundreds like like literally ruled Bay Monarch Berlin, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.440 and his policies are enormously better than like anything you're 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.919 going to see for like half a century. He's he 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.720 is way more woke on on this than like any 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.639 New York police officer for a century today, upped up 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.159 to the present day. In a lot of way, it's like, yeah, 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.679 so let's talk about Magnus Hirschfeld a bit. Um. Hirshfield 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.359 is very influenced by Ulrich, the guy we started the 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.199 story with. His first like publication on the matter is 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.600 called Sappho and Socrates and eight nineties six, which is 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.359 again it's a story of a gay man who gets 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.719 coerced into marriage. So this like uh, and who commits 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.120 suicide as a result. So there's like a big with 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.840 both um, you know, his police commissioner, with Hirshfeld, with 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.080 a lot of people who are becoming activists in this period. 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.960 A big part of why is, for one reason another 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.359 the suicide rate among gay people, um, which is a 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.119 huge problem today for for trans people in particular. And 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.040 this is what it's interesting, like that that Utah governor 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.840 you know, made the announcement today that like he's vetoing 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.159 this trans sports ban in Utah, and he specifically cites 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.880 like the suicide rate among trans people is so like 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.040 high and it he could not morally conscience doing anything 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.919 that would like make these kids feel othered and likelier 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.280 to commit suicide. I mean, okay, well let's let's let's 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.520 let's not go that far. He he he was, he 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:06.240 was willing, He was willing to do the commissions. She 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:08.879 just wasn't willing to do a full band. Yeah, I'm 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.520 just saying the the justification he gets for what he's 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.600 doing is like, um, is the rate of suicide attempts 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.840 among trans people. Um. Not to like whitewash that guy 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.439 or utah. Like again, we've been doing this whole week's episodes, 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:23.879 but it's interesting that you get um again, It's just 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.720 kind of like the the issue for a long time 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:28.920 has been that when you like other people and make 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.680 it dangerous for them to be who they are openly, 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.960 they will kill themselves. Um, a lot of them will. 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.240 And that's that's a thing that is even by very 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.960 problematic people in Germany in the eighteen nineties, folks recognize that, 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:47.280 like this is a huge issue. UM. So yeah, Hirschfeld 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:52.280 um starts this first organization that's like gay rights organization. Um. 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.439 And he also is doing like a huge amount of 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.840 of research. Um. He is fall again, he's following in 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.320 l Rick's footsteps, he too believes that that homosexuality is congenital, right, 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.840 it's something you're born with, as opposed to like a 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.879 choice people make because of Dvans or whatever, which is 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.760 still the big fight that we're having to this day. 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.200 And he's also like, it's hard to there's a lot 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.679 that like you can criticize about Hirschfeld scientifically and a 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.400 lot of the research he does, among other things, there's 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.440 like difficulty with like control groups and actually like being 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.360 the kind of scientific sort of detachment that is necessary 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.119 to study that. There's like critiques of his of his 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.600 research that are valid, But one of the he's he's 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.320 really like, it's wild how far ahead of the curvey 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:39.679 is because one of the things that Hirschfeld introduces is 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.640 the idea that sexuality is a spectrum um where there's 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:48.000 what he calls sexual intermediaries between male and female. Um. 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.520 He doesn't believe that like those are even particularly useful 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.679 terms that sexuality kind of like it it again, that 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.200 it's a spectrum, which is this thing that we are 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:00.399 just now really starting to have good wider, kind of 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.560