Join me, Meg Lightheart, as I talk to historian Brandy Schillace to learn lessons in resistance from Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science, the first major hub of scientific research and support for trans, and queer people - and the first target of fascist bookburning.
Brandy's new non-fiction book The Intermediaries tells the fascinating history of a daring team of sexologists who built the first trans clinic in the shadow of the Third Reich.
Set in interwar Germany, The Intermediaries tells the forgotten story of the Institute for Sexual Science, the world’s first center for homosexual and transgender rights. Headed by a gay Jewish man, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the institute aided in the first gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments, acting as a rebellious base of operations in the face of rising prejudice, nationalism, and Nazi propaganda.
I read it and KNEW I wanted more people to have this framework in their analysis of the current moment.
It is no coincidence that trans people are being attacked, and this history is a vital part of understanding why.
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