Wrote this post for my uni LGBTQ society but thought I’d share it here too:

This #holocaustremembranceday we remember the thousands of gay and transgender people who were deported to concentration camps and police prisons and those who survived only to be sent to prison to ...

continue being persecuted.

It’s estimated that around 10-15,000 gay and trans people were sent to concentration camps, although the exact number isn’t known as many were never able to talk about the traumas they faced due to fear of persecution after the war had ended...

It is also important to remember that these numbers included transgender people as well as gay men, as the Nazis classified all GBT people as ‘homosexuals’, identifiable by a pink, downturned triangle. This pink triangle has since been upturned to represent a symbol of...

liberation and pride, most notably used in the fight against AIDS in the 1980s with the ‘Act Up’ campaign.

Prior to the war, Germany, in particular Berlin had been one of the most liberal cities for LGBT people, with world leading scientific research into transgender...

treatments and surgeries and by 1929 Germany was beginning its legislative move towards complete decriminalisation. However, in 1933 the Nazis violently looted The Institute for Sexual Science, setting fire to its collection on the streets, burning with it decades of research...

research into transgender people and medical treatments. It is thought today that the worlds research into transgender people is still not caught up to the point Germany was at prior to 1933...

An estimated 50,000 gay and transgender people received severe prison sentences in brutal conditions where they received inhumane treatment and were subject to torture and experimentation. As well as an estimated 10-15,000 gay and transgender people being sent to concentration...

camps, were most died from exhaustion or torturous medical experiments.

After the war ended, the Allies chose to not remove the Nazi-amended legislation against gay and transgender people and they refused to recognise gay and transgender people as victims of the Nazis...

meaning many continued to be in-prisoned and were unable to talk about their experiences as the same legislation prevailed long after.

Remember all victims of the Nazis this #HolocaustRemembranceDay
#HolocaustMemorialDay