doing thesis research on the "transvestite certificates" of 1930s Berlin, a card police would give trans people to let them "cross-dress" in public, & found a trans man who had my birth name. knocked the wind out of me. my family is from there. that could've been me 100 years ago

these documents sound like good things, and for a while, they did arguably provide some sanctity. they were issued for about 20 years, until 1933, when they were utilized by the nazis to round up trans people for concentration camps. i can't find out what happened to him.

psychology was just beginning to come up with theories on gender-diversive people; the "transvestite certificate" was birthed by magnus hirschfeld, a gay sexologist who gave trans people access to HRT and spent years profiling genderqueer people in berlin.

hirschfeld and his colleagues had a huge impact on queer visibility. by 1929, various forms of sex work was legal, LGBT magazines were everywhere, "transvestite" and gay bars were hugely popular...germany even almost decriminalized sex between two men (huge for the time).

the institute for sexual science (1919-1933) was the home of hirschfeld and his colleagues. in may 1933, nazis destroyed the building, and held a public book burning of the entire library...they destroyed tens of thousands of scholarly works, photos, interviews, patient records..

hirschfeld was in france at the time, and watched as his life's work, and the life's work of many of his peers, was destroyed. for his safety, he never returned to germany. over the next several years, 100,000+ LGBT people were arrested by the nazis.

nazis gathering documents to burn at the institute.

something beautiful: a photo from a party at the institute. magnus hirschfeld (second from right) is the one with the moustache and glasses. his partner karl giese is holding his hand. (late 1920s)

another really gorgeous one. these parties would be “disneylands for the gender and sexually diverse”. raise your hand if you’re going with me

obviously, as hirschfeld was also jewish, he really never wanted to go back to germany. he spent some time in vancouver during his final years—and met his partner there, liu shi tong :)

they didn’t get an eternal happy ending, sadly, as magnus passed somewhat soon after. after the nazis fell, germany attempted to get liu to come back, as he was his estate heir. he went home to hong kong instead. but he spent the rest of his career pouring over magnus’s work

so who wants to be in the movie i’m gonna make about this whole thing? ETA ~10 years