#In the interwar period

[chicago-geniza]

RIP Stefania Zahorska you would have loved glossy high-resolution full-color images incorporated into printed books

[brandyschillace]

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Transgender Clinic

I finished the first round of edits on my nonfiction history of trans rights today. It will publish with Norton in 2025, but I decided, because I feel so much of my community is here, to provide a bit of the introduction.

[begin sample]

The Institute for Sexual Sciences had offered safe haven to homosexuals and those we today consider transgender for nearly two decades. It had been built on scientific and humanitarian principles established at the end of the 19th century and which blossomed into the sexology of the early 20th. Founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish homosexual, the Institute supported tolerance, feminism, diversity, and science. As a result, it became a chief target for Nazi destruction: “It is our pride,” they declared, to strike a blow against the Institute. As for Magnus Hirschfeld, Hitler would label him the “most dangerous Jew in Germany.”6 It was his face Hitler put on his antisemitic propaganda; his likeness that became a target; his bust committed to the flames on the Opernplatz. You have seen the images. You have watched the towering inferno that roared into the night. The burning of Hirschfeld’s library has been immortalized on film reels and in photographs, representative of the Nazi imperative, symbolic of all they would destroy. Yet few remember what they were burning—or why.

Magnus Hirschfeld had built his Institute on powerful ideas, yet in their infancy: that sex and gender characteristics existed upon a vast spectrum, that people could be born this way, and that, as with any other diversity of nature, these identities should be accepted. He would call them Intermediaries.

Intermediaries carried no stigma and no shame; these sexual and Gender nonconformists had a right to live, a right to thrive. They also had a right to joy. Science would lead the way, but this history unfolds as an interwar thriller—patients and physicians risking their lives to be seen and heard even as Hitler began his rise to power. Many weren’t famous; their lives haven’t been celebrated in fiction or film. Born into a late-nineteenth-century world steeped in the “deep anxieties of men about the shifting work, social roles, and power of men over women,” they came into her own just as sexual science entered the crosshairs of prejudice and hate. The Institute’s own community faced abuse, blackmail, and political machinations; they responded with secret publishing campaigns, leaflet drops, pro-homosexual propaganda, and alignments with rebel factions of Berlin’s literati. They also developed groundbreaking gender affirmation surgeries and the first hormone cocktail for supportive gender therapy.

Nothing like the Institute for Sexual Sciences had ever existed before it opened its doors—and despite a hundred years of progress, there has been nothing like it since. Retrieving this tale has been an exercise in pursuing history at its edges and fringes, in ephemera and letters, in medal texts, in translations. Understanding why it became such a target for hatred tells us everything about our present moment, about a world that has not made peace with difference, that still refuses the light of scientific evidence most especially as it concerns sexual and reproductive rights.

[end sample]

I wanted to add a note here: so many people have come together to make this possible. Like Ralf Dose of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft (Magnus Hirschfeld Archive), Berlin, and Erin Reed, American journalist and transgender rights activist—Katie Sutton, Heike Bauer. I am also deeply indebted to historian, filmmaker and formative theorist Susan Stryker for her feedback, scholarship, and encouragement all along the way. And Laura Helmuth, editor of Scientific American, whose enthusiasm for a short article helped bring the book into being. So many LGBTQ+ historians, archivists, librarians, and activists made the work possible, that its publication testifies to the power of the queer community and its dedication to preserving and celebrating history. But I ALSO want to mention you, folks here on tumblr who have watched and encouraged and supported over the 18 months it took to write it (among other books and projects). @neil-gaiman has been especially wonderful, and @always-coffee too: thank you.

The support of this community has been important as I’ve faced backlash in other quarters. Thank you, all.

NOTE: they are attempting to rebuild the lost library, and you can help: https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/archivzentrum/archive-center/

[captain-price-unofficially]

Brunnhilde, 1936

[usafphantom2]

(Top) The Grumman F3F was the last American biplane fighter aircraft delivered to the United States Navy. (Lower) The Grumman J2F Duck. American amphibious biplane used by each major branch of the U.S. armed forces from the mid-1930s until just after WW2.

@ron_eisele via X

[hagswags]

JaDD chapter 13 reunion

[lonestarbattleship]

USS COLORADO (BB-45), Queen of the Seas, tied to a pier in New York Navy Yard, prior to her maiden voyage.

"Uncle Sam's newest addition to the navy is receiving final equipment before her cruise to Europe. COLORADO is the navy's most powerful high seas fighting instrument, the greatest in the world, and is commanded by Capt. Reginald R. Belknap."

Date: October 25, 1923

Photographed by Kadel & Herbert News

AP Photo: H-15645-S

[lonestarflight]

A pair of "Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes, of Observation Squadron One (VO-1), taxiis alongside USS ARIZONA (BB-39), after a flight in the Hawaiian Operating area. Pilot is Lieutenant-Commander Welton D. Rowley, Commanding Officer of VO-1. Rear-seat man, Radioman 2nd Class E.L. Higley, is preparing to go out on the plane's wing to hook up the aircraft to the battleship's crane for recovery. The plane is numbered 1-O-1."

This "plane flown by Ensign Lawrence A. Williams. Rear-seat man was Radioman 3rd Class G.H. Lane, who is preparing to hook up the aircraft to the ship's crane for recovery.

Note: the plane's side number 1-O-3, with the ship's name below it."

Date: September 6, 1941

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: 80-G-66111, 80-G-66109, 80-G-66108

[tybarious-ii]

1940 Bantam BRC MK II (BRC-60) mounting both a .30- and .50-caliber machine gun.

Date: February 1941

source

[diemelusine]

Arnold Comes of Age (1930) by Grant Wood. Sheldon Museum of Art.

[williamkisser]

✰— Jadwiga Smosarska in November Night (1932)

[mydearestdarlingsidney]

An editorial cartoon commenting on the events that would lead to World War II. Winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

(New York Daily News, Sat 25th April, 1936.) Cartoon by C. D. Batchelor (1888-1977)

source

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Ju Ju Doctor," Border Cities Star. June 1, 1934. Page 9. ---- DR. OGUNTULA SAPARA ---- Described by Gordon Sinclair as being the most successful ju ju doctor in all West Africa; is a medical graduate of St. Thomas' hospital, London, Eng. He is shown here from a photograph which Sinclair took during his present trip to Africa.

[Pretty typically racist caricature of a fascinating person, who led the fight against smallpox and bubonic plague in Nigeria, was a leading public health figure there, was educated in Scotland and England with multiple degrees. Read more here.]

[victusinveritas]

Little known fact: Christopher Walken was in the British Navy in between starring in The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Focke Wulf Fw 189 “Owl" prototype over Germany, 1939.

[usafphantom2]

Boeing XB-15 (1941)

@ron_eisele via X

[hagswags]

Dance, dance, dance!

Interwar period AU ghoap