Flames of Erasure: Targeting Trans Knowledge and Care
>> Hey there! This post is part of our series tracing how the early warning signs of fascism are reemerging in contemporary America. See the full series here.
Setting Fire to Memory: How Authoritarians Attack Knowledge First
In Nazi Germany, the first books burned were not just political treatises but pioneering research on transgender and queer lives. The obliteration of this knowledge was not incidental — it was central to the regime’s effort to control bodies, identities and futures.
Nearly a century later, we are witnessing new campaigns to ban, discredit and erase transgender healthcare and history. The methods have changed. The aim has not.
A Lost Archive: The Burning of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
On May 6, 1933, Nazi youth stormed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin. Founded by Jewish gay physician Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the institute was a world leader in the study of sexuality, gender identity and affirming medical care for transgender individuals.
The Nazis’ assault went far beyond the destruction of papers. They targeted a living, breathing community. The Institut was a sanctuary where transgender people could access gender affirming medical care, change their legal documents and find a network of legal and emotional support.
It also housed irreplaceable archives — patient testimonies, case histories and personal letters — documenting the existence, dignity and complexity of queer and trans lives at a time when much of the world insisted they did not exist.
“To burn books is to burn the memory of people. The destruction of Hirschfeld’s Institute was a destruction of possibility itself.”
The loss was not just of information but of a vision — a future where LGBTQ+ people might live openly, receive care, build families, advocate for their rights and have their identities recognized by law. It was a deliberate attack not only on individuals but on the very idea that freedom, dignity and belonging could ever be extended to those outside a rigid, state-imposed norm.
We stand in the very same place today.
How Trans Knowledge is Being Erased Today
The destruction of trans knowledge did not end in 1933. Today, across American classrooms, hospitals and courtrooms, new campaigns aim to sever transgender lives from public understanding. The tactics are modern, but the purpose is the same: to isolate marginalized communities by erasing the knowledge that affirms their existence.
Banning Books, Silencing Science
In a sweeping wave of censorship, books that affirm transgender lives are being removed from schools and libraries, often under the guise of protecting children. Works that explore gender identity, medical transitions or LGBTQ+ existence are labeled “obscene” or “inappropriate,” stripping vital sources of knowledge and affirmation from public spaces.
In 2023 alone, PEN America documented over 3,300 instances of book bans, with a disproportionate number targeting LGBTQ+ authors and subjects. Florida’s HB 1069 and Texas’s READER Act have empowered political actors to challenge books on vague “moral” grounds, creating a chilling effect on the availability of scientific and medical knowledge.
What was once burned in public squares is now quietly pulled from shelves — but the goal remains the same: to erase public affirmation of transgender existence.
Disinformation and the Demonization of Care
Medical institutions offering gender-affirming care have become targets of harassment and violence. Hospitals like Boston Children’s and Vanderbilt Medical Center have faced bomb threats, online abuse, legislative attacks and campaigns to strip them of public funding—all fueled by coordinated disinformation campaigns.
Right-wing media and politicians amplify false claims that gender-affirming care is child abuse, ignoring the broad range of what this care actually entails and the reality that every major American medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, supports it.
When care is criminalized and institutions are starved, authoritarianism moves from rhetoric to reality.
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When care is criminalized and institutions are starved, authoritarianism moves from rhetoric to reality. 〰️
As philosopher Jason Stanley notes in How Fascism Works, “Fascist politics seeks to obscure reality by replacing it with a fantasy world” — and in this fantasy, doctors become predators, parents become enemies and trans youth become casualties of a manufactured war.
Demonizing trans healthcare providers today serves the same function it did for early fascists: turning public fear into permission for cruelty so they may continue to dismantle institutions that sustain marginalized communities.
Criminalizing Knowledge and Medical Practice
Beyond banning books and spreading lies, authoritarian movements today are moving to criminalize access to transgender healthcare itself. In at least 24 states, new laws have been proposed or enacted that ban or severely restrict gender-affirming care for minors — and in some cases, even for adults.
Several laws, such as Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act (VCAP), make it a felony for doctors to provide hormone therapy or puberty blockers to transgender youth. Others, like proposed bills in Oklahoma and Tennessee, attempt to ban gender-affirming care and block the dissemination of educational materials about it in schools and libraries.
By criminalizing both the practice of care and the sharing of knowledge, these laws echo the fascist tactic of not just attacking marginalized communities directly, but isolating them by cutting off information, solidarity and support.
Knowledge is Survival: Why This Moment Matters
Erasing information about a people is a precursor to erasing the people themselves. Fascist movements have always understood that controlling what can be known is the first step toward controlling who can be. When trans healthcare is stripped from shelves, discredited in media and criminalized in law, it is not only trans lives that are endangered — it is the foundational principle that knowledge itself should be free.
As historian Timothy Snyder warns in On Tyranny: “the defense of truth depends upon the institutions that enable its discovery,” and when those are attacked, democracy itself weakens.
>> This is just one piece of the pattern. See the full series tracing the warning signs of authoritarianism here.
TLDR Quick Summary:
In 1933, Nazis destroyed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, erasing groundbreaking transgender research, community and cultural memory.
Today, bans on trans-affirming books, attacks on healthcare providers and criminalization of gender-affirming care echo these early acts of authoritarian erasure.
Suppressing knowledge is a foundational step toward isolating and persecuting marginalized communities.
Defending truth, care and public memory is critical to resisting the resurgence of fascist tactics.
