These LGBTI Jews reflect on their history for Holocaust Remembrance Day

[Behind the Aegis]

With anti-Semitism on the rise across the United States and Europe, these LGBTI Jews are well aware of how this history affects them today

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This is a break from how I normally post, but because I am going to be using (and destroying) quotes from the article, I didn't want to run afoul of the 4-5 paragraph rule for reposting articles. When I fist came across the article, the title to be exact, I was elated. That changed once I read the ahistorical, ignorant, and downright stupid shit in the article. While not exactly homophobic, the article is an insult to the LGBT community, and it is made worse that the people who did it are LGBT. What the ever-loving fuck?!

As Jews, most of us are well aware of the Holocaust and its ramifications to our people and community, even today. It is also true the Holocaust's main purpose was to "solve" "The Jewish Question". It is also quite true just about anytime the Holocaust is a topic, especially if Jews are mentioned, then some race breathlessly to comment how "Jews weren't the only victims!" Basically, "all lives matter". However, there is a time and place to discuss the entirety of the Holocaust and its victims. And, shocking as this may be, GBL people were victims of the Holocaust, especially gay men!

‘However, it’s also essential, in my opinion, with young goyish [non-Jewish] queers claiming the shit out of Shoah because “the Nazis killed queer people” to remember that the Nazis mostly didn’t give a fuck about actually killing queers who weren’t members of other targeted categories.’

Miriam references Ernst Röhm and Edmund Heines, two gay men who were still part of the Nazi ranks.

‘In short, being gay wasn’t going to get you sent to the camps or kicked out of the Nazi Party,’ Miriam states. ‘Being a queer Jew, or a queer Roma, or a disabled queer was actually how people were winding up branded as homosexual or antisocial. Not just being queer.’

WHAT THE FUCK?! Is this woman so goddamned ignorant as to not know the actual history of the Holocaust?! Or is she just blinded by her own Jewishness? Yes, the Nazis did round up people because they were gay or lesbian (I am guessing bisexual too, and I have not seen anything on transgender persons). But to claim Nazis only cared about gays if they were members of other stigmatized communities is ahistorical and flat out bullshit. For fuck's sake, there are many pictures of men with PINK TRIANGLES and nothing else, which indicates they were there because they were gay. I also "love" how this idiot also makes the comment about Röhm and Heines, as if their inclusion in the Nazi ranks someone meant that anti-gay persecution was a "side issue". (BTW...both were executed in the "Night of Long Knives." ) This is the same type of tripe that emerges in almost every comment section of a Holocaust story about Jews, with some asshole coming along and saying "but..but...there were Jews in the Nazi ranks too!" SO WHAT?! What is the purpose of that fact? The purpose is to point some of the guilt at the victimized group, but it is also meant to diminish the overall horror of the situation by saying "see, even some of their own were on the wrong side."

The one thing she did get somewhat correct, amazingly, probably dumb luck, was:

Miriam also notes the Nazis ‘didn’t recognize gay women as a real thing and considered lesbianism to be a kind of antisocial behavior.’

The Nazis did recognize the "scourge" of lesbianism, but they didn't see it as the same level of evil and heinousness of male homosexuality. They were, however, given black triangles as "anti-socials." There are also stories, I don't know the veracity of them, but I can see it as being something in the realm of possibility, is that lesbians were used in breeding programs (if they fit parameters) and were also used as sex slaves, meaning they were systematically raped. So, much like today, while anti-gay attitudes mainly focused on gay/bi men, lesbians and bi women did not escape the Nazi hate machine and were massacred too.

‘As a member of the Jewish and LGBTQ communities, I think it’s important to remember that the Holocaust gave the Jewish people intergenerational trauma that today’s queer people do not suffer from,’ she says.

Rivkah Standig, a 30-year-old queer Jewish woman, also agrees with this analysis.

‘I often feel like LGBTQ people who are otherwise not marginalized almost appropriate the Holocaust,’ she says. ‘As a queer Jew, my Jewish identity is the one that hurts most and is most affected by the Holocaust.’

The Holocaust gave us Jews "intergenerational trauma", well, no shit! But because the gays aren't raised in gay families, no such "intergenerational trauma" exists because there is no fucking "intergenerational" to speak of! This is also a problem in the LGBT community is that we don't look to our own history as LGBT people, instead we look to other identities, but there is a GLBT history and we should all know it, but most, as exemplified by the idiots in this article, don't know it or only know bits and pieces. As for "appropriating" the Holocaust, what a load of horse shit! Most Holocaust stories and research focus on one group: Jews! Of course, so does much of the Holocaust denial and revisionism. AS I stated in the beginning, it isn't surprising that most talk of the Holocaust invokes the Jews, we were the primary group for which the Nazis were trying to destroy and wipe from the planet. But to even suggest gays, read: gay men, are trying to "appropriate the Holocaust," is fucking offensive, ahistorical, and frankly, I see it as a form of Holocaust revisionism.

So why even post this article? Because I wanted to show a real life example of "Oppression Olympics" which is tearing apart various communities who should be working together, not kvetching who had it worse! When I went to Dachau, I saw a memorial wall with all the triangles...except one...the pink one! Why? Because when the memorial was built, gay men weren't seen as "real" victims of the Holocaust.

All I know, is if I were in Nazi Germany, both my husband and I would have been sent to concentration camps. The only difference is my pink triangle would have been part of a star, much like my avatar. But they likelihood is we could have both easily ended up dead. Dead Jew. Dead gay Jew. Dead gay. Know what they all have in common? THEY ARE ALL DEAD!

The Oppression Olympics: And the winner is....

NOT A GODDAMED SOUL!

Now, I am going to go make dinner for my non-Jewish gay husband!