Does every generation feel the weight of history in the making?
I am old enough to have seen firsthand the strides that the Queer community has made over the past 40+ years, as well as the many challenges that we have collectively faced. When I was born in 1971, homosexuality was still illegal in many states and it would be another three years before it was no longer considered a mental disorder.
In 1981, when I was ten years old, the first cases of AIDS were reported in the United States. What began with just five documented cases would soon explode into a full-grown epidemic. Largely ignored by the government, the ensuing plague that would decimate an entire generation of queer men while the culture demonized those who were dying.
The Pink Triangle was a symbol forced upon gay men by the Nazi regime. It was reclaimed by the activist group “ActUP” in New York in the 1980s to represent fighting back against a government turning a blind eye to the mass deaths of gay and bisexual men to the scourge of AIDS. Photo public domain, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
For the next several years this was the reality in which I was raised: a culture so lacking in human empathy and driven by a fervent hatred, I knew then to keep quiet and keep my true self hidden away. But as a protective measure, it only went so far.
By my mid-teens I was beginning to consciously realize my true nature, which caused me to slip into depression. I had exactly zero role models to show me that queer people even existed, let alone that they could also be happy and healthy. What I had was the news and the religious right telling me the exact opposite and while I knew deep down that this wasn’t truth, in the absence of evidence a void of despair now grew.
Over time I came to realize that I needed to be true to myself, and that meant being fully visible. I came out of the closet when I was 17, and even in the relatively socially liberal “bubble” that is the San Francisco Bay Area, it was an act not to be taken lightly. I was sharply aware of the danger such decision could bring, and received my share of bullying, harassment, discrimination, and even violence, all because I was first perceived as —and then later proclaimed myself to be— gay.
Though I have had to endure many negative experiences as a result of being visible, overall, the decision to do so has brought me so much more in the way of positive growth. Where once I was painfully timid and felt a sense of shame at not fitting in, claiming myself fully has meant that I now truly love the human that I am; talents, quirks, flaws, and all.
When I was writing my book, The Satyr’s Kiss, I thought about just how far we have come politically. Once, not really all that long ago, it was a federal crime to share any positive information about homosexuality, but today a legitimate publishing house has attached their name to my book which is unabashedly centered on sex magic for queer men. It was an honor to be able to write this book, and the privilege I enjoyed for being able to do so is not lost on me.
But behind the feelings of success and accomplishment that went into such an endeavor, I was also sharply aware of how transient this could all be. While it’s easy to take for granted the rights that we have today, passively assuming that such rights are a “done deal,” amounts to putting our heads in the proverbial sand. History has shown many instances of social regression and political repression, stripping from certain groups their legal equality as well as their human dignity in order to solidify their power.
In 1933, Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. He immediately began to target LGBTQ+ people and establishments, closing down meeting places, shuttering presses, and arresting repeat “offenders.” While male homosexual acts had already been illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175, the way the law was written (specifying that such forbidden acts were both “unnatural,” and “intercourse-like”) made it somewhat difficult for police to make arrests, as they would literally have to catch them “in the act.” In 1935, the Nazis altered the legal language, removing those specifications, making the legal description somewhat vague, which made it far easier to make arrests as well as to obtain convictions. Prior to the Nazi regime, in what is often called the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), arrests for violating Paragraph 175 each year numbered in the hundreds, but after the right-wing party took over, that number would increase 1000-fold.
Students of the Academy for Physical Exercise march in front of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin just prior to its vandalization on May 6, 1933. They would go on to burn some books and other media immediately, while they would bring others to burn at Berlin’s Opera Square on May 10. This was a blow to the gay, lesbian, and trans community and represented tremendous loss of information about human sexuality. Photo in the public domain. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The Nazi oppression wasn’t just leveled at gay men. Prior to the Nazi takeover of the German state, trans women (then called by the now outdated term “transvestites”) were able to dress and live fully as women, even being allowed to change their legal names. The study of human sexuality flourished under the direction of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, whose clinic offered gender-affirming care, and sex education to the public. When Hitler took over this clinic was vandalized and forced to close, its research burned and outlawed, and the rights that so many queer and gender-non-conforming people had enjoyed were suddenly and ruthlessly revoked resulting in mass arrests with many “offenders” being sent to concentration camps, many never to be heard from again.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
—Source disputed; attributed to Mark Twain
If all of that sounds like ancient history let me assure you that it is not. Even now, here in the United States, the demonization of queer people has been in full force for many years, most recently being given additional legal fuel in the form of anti-LGBTQ+ bills being passed into law, many of which target not only trans people, but also aimed at revising history to exclude queer people in general. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and others targeting trans people in sports, blocking gender-affirming care for minors (and in some cases for adults), and the ability for trans people to use the public restroom that matches their gender identity, being merely a few examples of the many politically right-wing attempts at dehumanizing queer people, making us the scapegoat for society’s ills (along with immigrants and other minorities, of course) in an effort to distract us from the real enemy: corporate oligarchs hellbent on tightening their grip on the economic forces that protect their power.
We are just two years out from the U.S. Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that affirmed the right of women to access abortions and other appropriate healthcare. In his concurrence to the decision that struck down this precedent, Judge Clarence Thomas argued that the reasoning that struck down Roe should be applied to other similar landmark decisions, citing those that grant the right to same-sex marriage, the decriminalization of consensual homosexual conduct, and the rights of married people to access contraception. (As Maya Angelou said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”)
United States Supreme Court Building. Courtesy DepositPhotos
We stand, as we have for so long now, at a crossroads. What kind of society do we want to be? What will be our legacy for the future of this country and for the world? Will we be a society that practices empathy, striving to care for our citizens and embracing our differences? Or will we regress into a Christofascist ethno-state, where we demonize our neighbors and strip them of their human dignity?
We are being asked to make that decision this November at the ballot box. Especially now that the Supreme Court has decided that Presidents are largely above the law, we must think long and hard at the long-term consequences of our decision. Where some on the Left have insisted they will not support Biden largely for his support of Israel’s war in Gaza, it is not an exaggeration to say that the alternative is so much worse. Project 2025 is a plan to gut the federal government and install loyalists to a Republican President who will then be able to push through a radically regressive agenda. Only one party will benefit from this plan, and it’s not the Democrats. And should that party win, we will see the final nail on the coffin for this great experiment called the United States.
Will history repeat? We still have the choice to ensure it does not. But we all need to be very aware that the sense of comfort and protection we have enjoyed can go away in a minute. The culture has been getting more and more volatile over the past several years. Violence is on the rise. More and more books about queer lives as well as about our countries shameful history with race and slavery are being painted over and erased. Just recently, in an attack on a metaphysical store in Portland, Oregon, a Pride display was targeted and burned, which included my aforementioned book.
The fear and violence of the right is on full display, emboldened by a Presidential candidate who has given full permission to hate and demonize immigrants, minorities, queer people, and anyone else who might disagree with him. To point-out the parallels between 1930s Germany and our current political culture are neither incorrect nor dramatic. Call me an alarmist if you must, but I can see the writing on the wall. And I think we need to sound an alarm, since so many seem to have been hitting the snooze button for far too long.
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