Hirschfeld Institute Hoodie

May 10, 1933 in Berlin, Germany. The very first N@zi book burning took place. They burned an entire library of medical journals stolen from Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sex Research. They destroyed thousands of medical journals, case studies, photographs, and records of LGBTQ+ people receiving treatment, including some of the earliest gender confirmation surgeries on record.

The government erased their history, delegitimized their identities, banned their medical care, and then outlawed their existence altogether. They gathered lists of former patients and tracked them down. The ones who weren't eliminated on the spot, were put into camps.

German newspaper headlines claimed the institute pushed an "un-German Spirit" and it was forced to shut down. The destruction of the institute led to a wider campaign against sexual reform and contraception, which were perceived as a threat to the German birth rate at the time.

Any of this sound familiar?

The not so subtle parallels that we see today in the US, with a constant barrage of attacks on trans and LGBTQ+ rights in general should terrify and infuriate anyone who opposes fascism.

The insignia says, "Those who deny the past are determined to repeat it". We've literally seen this before and we won't allow them to gaslight us into letting them do it again.