I was looking at the different coloured triangle categories used in the Holocaust and noticed that while gay men, bi-men and trans women where classified with a pink triangle lesbians, bi-women and trans men were put under the broader black triangle. This was used for “asocials” and included everything from the work shy, mentally challenged, alcoholic, the homeless and so on. Why were the Nazis more specific with men than women when they’ve both committed the same “crime” (from a Nazi viewpoint)?
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It’s an old prejudice. First, you need to let modern ideas go. Gender equality goes out the window.
Lesbianism historically has been less-discussed and as a result been given less scorn.
Nazi ideology was very male-warrior and female-mother.
For men, masculinity traditionally meant being both a warrior and a father, the two were joined at the hip. Homosexuality inverted that, thus a man who wasnt having sex for procreation was being weak, passive, improperly feminine and depriving society of children. Men were a gender and the ruling class and that led straight to a idea of ‘proper roles’.
Compare to the view of masturbation as ‘wasting seed’ and you start to get the idea.
For women, if you had at least one child nobody would question you further. Miscarriages were common and childbirth often fatal, so if you could demonstrate you had ‘made an effort’, you were socially acceptable.
Not that i embrace any of this dreck, but its a good example of the intersection and interplay of class, gender, and gender roles.
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Exactly. Its important to remember that the further back you go in time, the less modern day definitions would apply. The Roman Republic and Empire did not view something like homosexuality the way the world did for most of the 20th century and even some of us still do today.
No one would bat an eyelid if some senator or other influential figure had sex with some other guy, be it a prostitute or a slave or whatever. As long as you were the ‘dominant’ or ‘giving’ partner it didn’t affect your status at all, however if you were caught or rumored to be ‘receiving’ then that could definately have an effect.
Caesar was often the victim or such rumors, and we don’t really know what the truth is, but in his younger years he spent a lot of time at the court of the king of Bythinia, and he (Caesar) was often referred to as the queen of Bythinia. Insofar things really happened or if those were inventions of his political opponents we don’t really know. Political smearing often involved implying your opponent was ‘receiving’ from another man. It wasn’t until the rise of the catholic church that these things changed, the old Romans and Greeks certainly didn’t view it as negatively as the church did.
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Religion played a huge part in this as well as a union between two men or two women or transgendered was considered blasphemous throughout most of the world only a union between a male and female was considered to be the only way to be.
Remember religion held huge sway over people for centuries and what religious leaders said could be considered law in many countries. It wasn’t until well into the 1970s that religion began to lose its sway.
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