I wasn’t aware, until I heard it on NPR this morning, that today is the 90th anniversary of the famous Nazi book burnings. This date is worth taking a moment to consider in light of ongoing efforts to ban books from public libraries and schools today. Like in the past, one of the main targets is any book containing knowledge about people marginalized for their sexual orientation and gender identity. One of the first targets of the book burnings (completed, it is worth underlining, largely by students) was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, which advocated for sexual reform and cared for queer people between World War I and the Nazi takeover. Today, the targets are graphic novels and young adult literature about LGBTQ+ people. But it’s all the same thing.
It was with this in mind that I read this morning that Indiana legislators defunded Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, using the very same slur that was often used by Nazis against queer people in the 1930s: that they preyed on young people. It is hard to understand how we arrived at this point. Marriage Equality, we were told, would assimilate queer people into American society and reduce homophobia. And yet! One can only agree with Sam Huneke is in the linked article that the pursuit of normalization has only served to reify the divide between normal and abnormal that is used by homophobes and fearmongers.