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Laurie Marhoefer, University of Washington
(THE CONVERSATION) In the fall of 2022, a German court heard an unusual case.
It was a civil lawsuit that grew out of a feud on Twitter about whether transgender people were victims of the Holocaust. Though there is no longer much debate about whether gay men and lesbians were persecuted, there’s been very little scholarship on trans people during this period.
The court took expert statements from historians before issuing an opinion that essentially acknowledges that trans people were victimized by the Nazi regime.
This is an important case. It was the first time a court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted in Nazi Germany. It was followed a few months later by the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, formally releasing a statement recognizing trans and cisgender queer people as victims of fascism.
Up until the past few years, there had been little...
