Who does not appear in the history books also has a hard time being heard in the present. At the Mainz-based Institut français, there was a sense of breakthrough in the air on Wednesday evening. Numerous guests from politics, science, and society followed the invitation of the German Society for Trans*- and Inter*-Gender Identity e.V. (dgti). Together they presented a pilot study that closes a decades-long gap: “Persecution, disadvantage, and lived realities of trans*, inter*, non-binary, and agender people (tina*) in National Socialism (1933-1945) in Rhineland-Palatinate.” For the first time, the systematic disenfranchisement of these people across an entire federal state is scientifically examined.
Finding the people behind the file numbers
How large the blind spots of historical writing have been became clear to attendees when Dr. Dana Mahr presented the results. Together with Jako Wende, Damir Padieu, Sarah Brühl, Janka Kluge, Christel Baltes-Löhr, Karl-Heinz Steinle, and Dr. Rainer Herrn, she carried out pioneering work in the archives. The team faced a familiar problem in historical research: what exists about the persecuted almost always comes from the perpetrators’ own writings. Police and court records use language that devalues people and subjects them violently to the ideology of the “purity of gender.” With the Queering Archives approach, the researchers read these documents against the grain. They searched for local networks, connected biographical traces, and returned the subjects’ voices to those affected. In this way, the dgti continues the long-running effort to address the persecution of queer people in Rhineland-Palatinate since 2012 and lays the groundwork for future research.
Who gets to tell?
In a lively panel discussion with the authors and activist participants, one theme stood out: the unusual yet productive collaboration between laypeople and scholars. The exchange was especially illuminating about how this cooperation opens new perspectives—and also raises questions: Who holds interpretive sovereignty? Who may tell which biographical stories, and under what conditions?
A central topic was language and the accompanying difficulties, such as questions about appropriate phrasing and pronouns for people who lived in a completely different era. The search for fitting terms remains a scientific challenge—and demonstrates how complex the engagement with the past can be.
Yet the discussion also made clear that reconstructing the biographies of these individuals defamed by archival power is possible. Through meticulous archival research—looking into meeting places and networks in the Weimar Republic—and with tips from the community itself, slowly images of a forgotten history emerge. The pilot study raises not only historical but also ethical questions and underscores the importance of open, participatory research.
Why this story matters to us today
The study shows how disenfranchisement creeps in. Repression against tina* people did not arise from a single authority, but from a systematic interplay of police, judiciary, and medicine. In particular, medicine contributed significantly to legitimizing this oppression through pathologizing diagnoses and labels. People were marked as “deviant” and gradually pushed out of public life.
That is exactly why this work is urgently needed today. In many countries—and even right at our doorstep—gender diversity is being portrayed again as a political enemy. When extremist and populist voices scorn trans, inter*, non-binary, and agender people, historical knowledge can help identify patterns immediately. Anyone who understands where social ostracism can lead will not stay silent when civil rights are challenged in the here and now.
The work continues
The Mainz evening was a strong start. The study is now publicly accessible on the dgti website for all interested readers and provides a crucial foundation for further digging. Because countless untold biographies lie still in the archives. Therefore, the search for traces continues: a follow-up project focused on in-depth source research is already planned and will be funded again by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Social Affairs. Every fate we save from forgetting today restores the victims’ dignity and strengthens our open society for tomorrow. (pm)
