Cross dressing Nazi soldiers

[Imnobody4]

I found this fascinating. I got to it because TRAs have started claiming trans people were the first group to be targeted by Nazis. A German Twitterer gave the facts and this was linked to.

You can add Goering to that list.

This blog on the subject is worth reading.

This Twitter thread is also very good:

twitter.com/waljenca/status/1076511211351613441

I keep reading on English-language Twitter that the Hitler regime allegedly targeted #transgender persons more than #homosexual men, or even more than any other group. So as a German #queer historian, I thought I'd make a little thread about that. (1/8)

Male homosexuality was banned under Section 175 of the criminal code. Homosexual men, if caught, were put in concentration camps. This could include male homosexual (and only those) "transvestites" - male-identified men who enjoyed drag. The history of transsexuals is more

complicated. Some ended up in the medico-psychiatric system, which was hoever not uncommon in the era. But: There is evidence that sex reassignment and surgery were allowed and performed.
Source: This study by transgender erhnologist Eva Fels -> eva.transgender.at/Loc/Docs/TGuNS.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwje9eyp3rPfAhVKKlAKHaoxBmoQFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw0SYXKxDjsWPzicGq4bzPS7 …

In concentration camps gay men suffered degrading treatment and poor survival rates. There is however no evidence that persons whom some now would call transgender (the ID itself didn't exist then) were targets unless they were gay men, and then they were targeted as that.

Another part of the picture is that a little bit o' drag was not universally frowned on. As in many armed forces, drag shows (performed by male-identified men) were a common part of troop entertainment. Rumor has it that even Ernst Rommel donned the drag at least once

This emphatically does not mean drag was generally accepted, or transsexuals or transvestites* were never harrassed or arrested under "gross mischief", though convictions appear to have been rare (source see above).

(*again, an identity called "transgender" did not exist)

However, there is a group that was persecuted most thoroughly, most violently & in the most organized way: Jews.

Please stop appropriating Jewish experience.

Please do not put your identity politics above the remembrance of Sinti, Roma, communist, disabled, gay victims.

Ta, your friendly lesbian-not-persecuted historian.*

PS: If you were white middle-class & kept a low profile, you had a fair chance 2 get away w/some gender nonconformity. Unless you were Jewish.

(*Lesbians were not systematic targets, though indiv. cases are documented).

More proof history is repeating.

I think most armies around that time had fancy dress parties, anything to relieve the boredom or horrors of war.

It is interesting, that men get this urge to masquerade as women.
Not just as individuals but groups of men.

TheCountess
Lots of spare, women's clothes to dress up in, that is chilling.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel Thanks for that link-it's really illuminating and chilling. The importance of what's missing from the picture.

Lang
A little bit of drag was not universally frowned on
... unless you belong to a persecuted group.
As German soldiers weren't the persecuted group, perhaps they were emboldened with this daring behaviour.

In the context of soldiers at war, and of people in general subject to a repressive regime, the urge to cross-dress seems understandable. Escapism, loneliness, petty rebellions.

In King Rat, a novel about Allied POWs in a Japanese camp, there is an interesting 'trans' character. He is a minor character, but interesting because of the way his story comments on the emotions of the prisoners.

The 'trans' character starts off as a young, gay officer who is pressured into playing the female lead in plays put on by the POWs. He is encouraged to keep up the feminine role in real life outside the plays, to fulfil the need for the captives to feel that there is a female presence among them.

Eventually he becomes more comfortable in his feminine role, and begins to see himself as many others do: as a woman. When the camp is liberated he commits suicide, dressed as a woman, because the outsiders cannot accept him as a feminine man, and the POWs no longer need him, and now despise him for revealing their 'weakness'.

The novel was published in the early 60s, and is informed by the author's wartime experiences as an Allied POW in that camp.

Filed Colditz escapee and pioneer trans-campaigner French Lieutenant Charles Bouley:

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Lietenant_Bouley_after_failed_escape_attempt_from_Colditz.jpg

WrathofRancidKlopp - that was the Twitter thread, not me. Sorry, should have italicised!

Since the Goldsmith’s Line is that the Gulags were progressive, it’s at least reassuring that the TRAs see appropriating Jewish extermination as victimhood-seeking. I was half expecting to find they believed that either the holocaust didn’t happen (it would be of a piece of their usual mangling of knowledge) or that the concentration camps were firm but fair, like a 1950s holiday camp.

However, there is a group that was persecuted most thoroughly, most violently & in the most organized way: Jews.

Please stop appropriating Jewish experience.

Please do not put your identity politics above the remembrance of Sinti, Roma, communist, disabled, gay victims."

Its really worth listening to Woman's Hour today on catch up.
Lily Ebert on Woman's Hour talk describe her experience of the Holocaust, how she survived Auschwitz as a girl, her ongoing work speaking in schools and why this is important.

Her daughter and great granddaughter are also being interviewed about Lily's influence on them.

Its incredibly powerful and describes the impact of actual hate crimes and rising anti-semitism.

Contrast this with TRAs who have appropriated legislation and reported a man for liking a tweet:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3487853-Harry-the-owl-visited-by-police

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3488563-James-Kirkup-Coffee-House-Is-it-now-a-crime-to-like-a-poem-about-transgenderism

I've mentioned this before on here, but I'm of Jewish descent, members of my family died in concentration camps. When I see their experience not only being appropriated, but the actual victims being sidelined and ignored, well, I can't find the words to express how utterly hideous someone would have to be to do a thing like that.

Lang
No probs
I can't keep up, so much to read and watch.

So many intriguing facts are being uncovered in this shitstorm, so little time.