"Homosexuality, just like heterosexuality, represents a variant of sexual behavior. Homosexual people do therefore not stand outside socialist society, and the civil rights are warranted to them exactly as to all other citizens." ― Supreme Court of East Germany, 1987
I feel like such a chud. Like every one else at the time, we celebrated unification and the Berlin wall coming down.
Looking back, I realize we were fed a constant stream of anti-communist propaganda. It was everywhere. TV, movies, video games, comics, news, etc.
If I’d known an inkling of the truth, I would have thought much differently.
In 1985 the Stasi finally produced a new set of guidelines on how to prevent what it termed “the political misuse of homosexuals.” Some of its recommendations were unsurprising, such as ramping up surveillance of gay activist leaders. But its final recommendation was entirely novel. It insisted that the government find “resolution[s] to homosexuals’ humanitarian problems.” That is, the Stasi decided to actually address activists’ demands.
Their rationale for doing so was actually rather simple. If the government tackled gay men and lesbians’ concerns, then all those church-affiliated activist groups would have no reason to exist. No complaints to be made, Stasi officials reasoned, meant nothing to organize about.
Thus began a series of genuinely radical changes in East German society. The state-censored newspapers, which for decades had hardly ever mentioned homosexuality, suddenly started printing dozens of stories about gay men and lesbians. The government also freed periodicals to accept personal advertisements from gay men and lesbians looking for partners.
The state tasked Berlin psychology professor Reiner Werner with writing a book titled Homosexuality: A Call to Knowledge and Tolerance, which appeared in 1987. Its initial run of 50,000 copies sold out in a matter of weeks. (It would also approve a gay film, Coming Out, that premiered on November 9, 1989, the night the Berlin Wall fell.)
In addition, the state began granting official recognition to gay groups, such as the Sunday Club, a secular activist collective run by Sillge that had been meeting in East Berlin since the early 1980s. And it authorized East Germany’s first gay discos, such as Die Busche, a club that still exists today.
The government even allowed gay chapters within the Free German Youth (FDJ), the state’s official youth scouting organization, and mandated that all FDJ members attend educational sessions dealing with homosexuality. All of a sudden, East German youth were required to attend meetings of gay groups such as the Sunday Club. Remembering this moment, Rausch told me, “The joke was that suddenly everyone was standing in line to get into the Sunday Club,” only a couple years after it had been a target of state repression.
In 1987 the East German Supreme Court struck down the law that set a higher age of consent for gay men and lesbians. The following year, the military allowed gay soldiers, reversing a policy the government had instituted in the 1950s.Source: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/gay-liberation-behind-iron-curtain/
Reading stuff like this without context is like 'well that all seems a bit excessive. What even is counter-revolutionary thought and what's the big deal?' and then you read The Jakarta Method and realize it's protecting the lives and safety of fucking millions.
Here's the archived source from archive.org. It's from the June 1990 FTM newsletter on page 3.
"in two cases a transsexual mother gained custody of her adopted children after a divorce"
My non-birth lesbian mom got full custody of us (birthmom lost all custody) more than 2 decades ago, but I wouldn't say that its evidence that the Texas government wasn't homophobic at the time. Would be weird if I read something like this about Texas in a decade referencing my parent's custody battle as evidence of Texas being ahead of the curve compared to other southern states in terms of homophobia: it was just a single judge's decision and birthmom clearly wasn't fit to be a parent.
You should give this a read.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/gay-liberation-behind-iron-curtain/
Good thing that's not the only example brought up here then...
I wasn't arguing against the overall point. Just that particular evidence seemed funny to me given my personal experiences.
No, actually 2005 was 5 years ago.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure that 2015 was 5 years ago.
2015 was just a few days back
:(
I need Hexbears who understand Germany to explain this to me:
How could such a progressive society (East Germany) turn into such a reactionary hellhole who support fascism (AfD has very strong support from former GDR regions) in such a short period of time? It’s not like they were different generations of people, it’s the same people who live through both times.
How could this be? How can market liberalization turn someone homophobic and transphobic and racist? Explain this to me!
Lotta people died and much of GDR was essentially resettled by Nazis from West Germany. The east German children raised there in the years since did so in extreme poverty (for like first 10 or 20 years), all the while bombarded with anti-communist propaganda. Very much recommend checking out some of Ghodsee's work like Red Hangover.
One part of the answer would certainly be material conditions. It's easy to support socialism when it has given you a job and a place to live, but since "reunification", vast parts of the economy were dismantled and the free market was unleashed, leading to widespread poverty, brain drain, all the good stuff. And it seems to me that poverty leading people to support fascism always wins out over having received an anti-fascist education, unfortunately. Still, the Left is more popular in the East than the West, but who knows if it's due to the legacy of socialism or just because of regional differences within the party.
lots of social reactionaries in the comments of that video, sad to see :(
