Lesbians responded to these new fears and conditions in different ways. Not all lesbians made the same decisions. Nor did they all have the same choices. For example, Aryan lesbians had far more options than Jewish or Romani lesbians, who—above all — faced persecution for racial reasons. The women, experiencing stirrings of feminist thought without a vocabulary to express them as well as a desire for each other, find intellectual and emotional support on afternoons when their husbands are away. First-hand testimonies, memoirs, and diaries of former prisoners reveal that prisoners had sexual encounters with each other in concentration camps. According to these sources, sexual encounters ranged from consensual intimacies to prostitution to brutal sexual assault. Both heterosexual and same-sex relationships took place in the camps.

The film chronicles Colette's rise to fame as she leaves behind her country upbringing to become the toast of Paris along with her husband, Willy (Dominic West), who spurs her to chronicle her life for his literary factory where only his moniker appears on everything that's published.Sitting in meetings with her at the prominent literary agency where we both worked left me feeling weak. Usually never short of things to say, in her presence, I’d marvel at her ability to drain all quips from my mind, leaving my mouth bone-dry. But I knew the cliché and I refused to succumb to the stereotype of being the young, ambitious 25-year-old who screws the boss. To know that I could finally come clean to my worrisome friends felt liberating beyond belief. I didn’t care about sacrificing my youth to move to outer London with a swarm of forty-somethings. All I wanted was to be with her full-time, and for it to be out in the open that we were together. Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. The Nazis classified prisoners in concentration camps into groups according to the reason for their imprisonment. By 1938, these groups were identified with various colored badges worn on camp uniforms. Men imprisoned for allegedly violating Paragraph 175 had to wear a pink triangle. The badge identified them as “homosexual” ( homosexuell ) according to the classification system.

Large numbers of Germans were opposed to these public discussions of sex and sexuality. They viewed such debates as decadent, overly permissive, and immoral. Many were disturbed by the increased visibility of sex in advertising, film, and other aspects of daily life. For these Germans, gay and lesbian communities were one symbol of what they saw as the degeneration of German society. Sam had known she was a lesbian for some time yet still hadn't told her closest friends even though she was now eighteen. Yearning for her first sexual experience, her curiosity is aroused when she reads in the news about a woman exposing herself in a nearby wood. When her parents leave her in charge of the house, she can't resist visiting the woods to see if the woman is still there... Before, during, and after the Nazi regime, men accused of homosexuality were prosecuted under Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code. This statute criminalized sexual relations between men. It did not apply to sexual relations between women. Nonetheless, beginning in 1933, the Nazi regime harassed and destroyed lesbian communities and networks that had developed during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). This created a climate of restriction and fear for many lesbians. There's a slow and persistent burn in Mona Fastvold's The World to Come. The gorgeously spare period piece stars Katherine Waterston ( Alien: Covenant) as Abigail and Vanessa Kirby ( The Crown) as Tallie, two women battling the harsh elements in 19th-century New York State who find solace and a whole lot more in one another. Because there was no single law or policy that applied to sexual relations between women, lesbians had a wide range of experiences in Nazi Germany. These experiences were not solely determined by their sexuality. Rather, other factors shaped lesbians’ lives during the Nazi era. Among them were supposed “racial” identity, political attitudes, social class, and gender norms. Based on these factors as well as others, some lesbians (especially those who were working class) were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. In these instances, they were classified as political prisoners or asocials. Jewish lesbians largely faced Nazi persecution and mass murder as Jews. In most cases, their sexuality was a secondary factor. The Germans and their collaborators murdered an unknown number of Jewish lesbians during World War II. Before the Nazis: Lesbians in the Weimar RepublicSexual relations between women were taboo for much of German society. Neighbors, family members, and friends sometimes disapproved of and thus denounced the women involved to the police. It is possible they did not realize that sexual relations between women were not illegal. In some of these cases, the police dismissed the complaints because they had no legal basis. The short answer is that when lesbians were arrested, they were arrested as members of other groups: The Nazis did not create any separate policies that singled out lesbians as a problem for Aryan procreation. Their reasoning drew on widespread attitudes about the differences between male and female sexuality. The Nazis concluded that Aryan lesbians could easily be persuaded or forced to bear children. Lesbian Responses to the Nazi Regime Hirschfeld and others also sought to educate the public about sexuality. For example, they promoted Hirschfeld’s ideas that homosexuality is inborn and not a vice or perversion. Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Soon afterwards, Germany’s gay and lesbian communities came under pressure and scrutiny from the new regime. For men accused of homosexuality, this worsened over the course of the 1930s. They faced brutal persecution. Shutting Down Lesbian and Gay Meeting Places

Part revenge tale and part redemption song, Lizzie took years for indie darling Chloe Sevigny ( Boys Don't Cry, Big Love, Love and Friendship) and out writer Bryce Kass to shepherd to the screen. Although there were several iterations along the way, the final version of the film about the ax killer from the tiny town of Fall River, Mass., couldn't have come at a timelier moment. A film that shares a lineage with the queer true crime-based films of the '90s like Heavenly Creatures and Sister My Sister, Lizzie is a fresh take on the "murderous lesbians'" trope. The movie also fits right in with the #MeToo era, with Lizzie and her maid/love interest/co-conspirator Bridget (Kristen Stewart) literally bashing toxic masculinity in the face. During the Nazi regime, lesbians could not continue to live and socialize as they had during the Weimar Republic. Much of German society saw lesbians as social outsiders, meaning people who did not fit into the mainstream. As such, they had a higher risk of being denounced and then targeted by the Nazi regime.By eliminating gay and lesbian gathering places and presses, the regime effectively dissolved the lesbian communities that had developed during the Weimar Republic. Expanding the Persecution of Men Accused of Homosexuality