Blossom & Wilt

Exhibit description:

Queerness under fascism, c. 1791 – 1944

This exhibit features profiles of people and ideas that advanced the development of the modern gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities in Germany pre-1900 through the end of WWII, and gave voice and bodily expression to the transgender experience as early as the 1930s.

So much of the persecution visited upon LGBTQ people in, for example, in the 1950s and 60s United States included a program of erasure of the incredible diversity of gender and sexuality before and between the Wars. Where might our culture be now if it remembered that same-sex relationships and the transgender experience are not so novel, after all? Were it not for Nazi destruction of research from the likes of Magnus Hirschfeld and the reimprisonment of the men with the pink triangle, even after surviving slave-labor death camps, maybe we’d be further along.

People like us go way back—farther back than almost anybody realizes. The modern movement for civil rights and social inclusion of “sexual variants” can be traced to philosophical musings in the 1860s, moral arguments made before legal and medical associations in speeches in the 1890s, scientific and ethnological research conducted (across the world) in the 1920s, and bombings by anti-Nazi resistance fighters at the height of WWII.

Occasions for display:

January 27
International Holocaust Remembrance Day

April/ May
Yom HaShoah

May 8
Victory in Europe Day

December 10
Human Rights Day

Number of pieces:

9 banners

Est space:

27 linear feet

(153 sq ft)

Debut:

2022

Testimonials

I brought a group of 8 students to see the exhibit displayed in UWM’s library. The students were overwhelmingly impressed by how much of this history had been completely glossed over or omitted in their previous history courses. I was particularly struck by the quality and emotional impact of the visual imagery used. This exhibit told a compelling and nuanced story about the horrific violence the Nazi regime inflicted on the German LGBTQ+ community, drawing attention to various identities and groups which are often overlooked in other treatments of this subject, particularly queer women. It was truly eye opening.
Ariana Myers, Ph.D.
Director, UW-Milwaukee LGBTQ+ Resource Center

Testimonials

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