The great replacement conspiracy theory that provoked the Buffalo shooter is nothing new. Like the r
The great replacement conspiracy theory that provoked the Buffalo shooter is nothing new. Like the right today, Nazis considered abortion and queer/trans freedom part of the same issue. They tried to restrict both at once. In 1936, Heinrich Himmler establish the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion to prosecute non-reproductive sex.The Office was responsible for locating and prosecuting at least 50,000 people. While many weren’t sent to death camps, their lives were over. They were left unemployed, publicly shamed, and often hunted by vigilantes.We should pay more attention to an infamous 1937 speech Himmler gave to his generals. Following 2 million Germans killed in WWI, the public feared “aryans” would become the minority. In his speech, Himmler argues the nation would crumble if citizens were allowed bodily autonomy. “There are those homosexuals who take the view: what I do is my business, a purely private matter. However, all things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation.”Himmler’s quest for “world domination” (his words), parallels today’s social panic around whites becoming the minority in the U.S.: “A people of good race which has too few children has a one-way ticket to the grave, for insignificance in 50 or 100 years, for burial in 250 years.”Nazis saw abortion and queer sexuality not only as “degeneracy” but also as direct population loss. Himmler lamented, “we don’t have it as easy as our forefathers” when it comes to murdering queer people. “That wasn’t a punishment, but simply the extinguishment of abnormal life.”Nazis’ linking of abortion and queer/trans sexuality gives us much to consider about the relationship between bodily autonomy, patriarchy, and nationalism. While we’re in this the midst of today’s moral panics, looking at the history of the right is essential to moving forward. -- source link
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