The Pink Scar (Paperback)

Thomas R. Dunn

ISBN 10: 0271100168 / ISBN 13: 9780271100166

Published by Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. The Third Reich subjected some one hundred thousand individuals to a pernicious anti-homosexual campaign that included censorship, surveillance, medical experimentation, and death. Credible scholarship suggests that as many as fifteen thousand were interned in concentration camps, though the actual names and numbers of all those who suffered and died will never be known.Today, prevailing historical narratives hold that the persecution of homosexuals under Hitler was discovered in the 1970s by a post-Stonewall gay and lesbian community, who were the first to use these tragic eventsemblematically symbolized by the pink triangleto advance the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights around the world. The Pink Scar tells a different story. This book shows that Americans had ample opportunity to learn about this persecution before and during the war and explores how activists in the United States made Hitlers anti-homosexual campaign a central, animating force in their arguments at almost every major turning point in the lesbian and gay struggle since 1934.Victims of the Nazi regime were among the most important and the most contested symbols in the history of lesbian and gay rights rhetoricperhaps even more contested than the pink triangle itself. This book shows us how, nearly one hundred years after Hitler came to power, remembering the people persecuted by the Nazi regime is once again essential for defending LGBTQ+ rights in a new age of growing fascism and anti-queer/trans oppression. "Examines how American LGBTQ+ activists invoked Nazi persecution of homosexuals to advance rights before the HIV/AIDS era. Highlights how early narratives of suffering shaped advocacy and influenced a distinct American vision for LGBTQ+ rights prior to the pink triangle's emergence as a dominant symbol"-- Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780271100166

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Pink Scar (Paperback)
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271100168
• ISBN 13: 9780271100166
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The Third Reich subjected some one hundred thousand individuals to a pernicious anti-homosexual campaign that included censorship, surveillance, medical experimentation, and death. Credible scholarship suggests that as many as fifteen thousand were interned in concentration camps, though the actual names and numbers of all those who suffered and died will never be known.

Today, prevailing historical narratives hold that the persecution of homosexuals under Hitler was “discovered” in the 1970s by a post-Stonewall gay and lesbian community, who were the first to use these tragic events―emblematically symbolized by the pink triangle―to advance the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights around the world. The Pink Scar tells a different story. This book shows that Americans had ample opportunity to learn about this persecution before and during the war and explores how activists in the United States made Hitler’s anti-homosexual campaign a central, animating force in their arguments at almost every major turning point in the lesbian and gay struggle since 1934.

Victims of the Nazi regime were among the most important and the most contested symbols in the history of lesbian and gay rights rhetoric―perhaps even more contested than the pink triangle itself. This book shows us how, nearly one hundred years after Hitler came to power, remembering the people persecuted by the Nazi regime is once again essential for defending LGBTQ+ rights in a new age of growing fascism and anti-queer/trans oppression.

About the Author

Thomas R. Dunn is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. He is the author of Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past and the founder and director of the Queer Memory Project of Northern Colorado.