Milo: When Hitler came to power, it was very much "I am going to take control" and it was a literal rise of power. Compared to the current moment in the United States where I am quite convinced that what we are looking at is not a rise in power. What we are looking at is an extinction burst.

Jess: Welcome back to the Gender IQ Podcast and to part two of our conversation with Milo Todd about the Lilac people, which came out this past Tuesday on April 29th. When Milo discovered that after World War II, allied forces continued to imprison queer and trans people who'd survived concentration camps, he couldn't let that knowledge go. That erasure and our ongoing struggle against it becomes a thread that connects past and present. Today, we're gonna shift our focus from the craft of the book to a lot of the questions that many of us have. Right now, like why does this history matter and what can it teach us?

A heads up before we begin this episode includes some historical terminology about queer and trans folks that reflects the language of the era. And would be considered outdated or offensive terms for today.

If you've been wondering how to find some joy and courage or just root into our history during a difficult time, this conversation is for you. Let's begin.

Jess: "We've received word that is one of the first orders of business. Transvestite cards will no longer be granted. All persons currently in possession of a transvestite card will have it revoked. We repeat transvestite cards will no longer be granted nor honored. We're also receiving reports that most new name changes for transvestites are being rejected.

Take heart fellow souls. Let us hope that this dark day is short."

There is a reason that people are looking back to time periods like this to try and understand what's happening today.

When Hitler came to power and some of those first orders came down. One of the first things that happened after the inauguration was passports.

Milo: Yep. Yep.

Jess: The day after the election, I went to the post office to get my passport changed the next day. I was like, they're gonna take it away. I need to do this while I still can. And how can someone feel, like how to feel more calm when that action is the same first action that Trump took.

Milo: Yeah. No, it is quite scary. And thank you for sharing all that as well. And it's on my to-do list to officially record a - basically - little PowerPoint presentation about the differences in similarities between Nazi Germany and Trump 2.0 as I call it. Because there is crossover, but there are also differences. And I feel it's just important, especially because I wrote this book - accidentally, timely book - was never the intention. I feel it's a little bit my responsibility to also further just provide information regarding our current times. It is very much the same that Hitler and Trump, their first two targets have been political opponents and queer people. This time around, even more specifically, trans people first. 

As soon as the election results were in I'd written this book and the first thing, just like what you did, I took out my passport, I checked everything my passport was good for another two years, but I was like, that's not long enough, I want the full 10. It's - so I renewed early. It was like the first thing I did, I happened to already have one of those real IDs.

Jess: Oh, nice.

Milo: I happened to be like one of the first people to get it done pre-pandemic, and I've never been happier with past Milo because that -

Jess: Yes. Who knew? He took, you know, he took care of you.

Milo: I just wanted to get it done before it was mandatory to beat the lines. That was the first thing - was to get my documents as updated as possible so they last as long as possible, because again, we're never gonna hit the Nazi Germany levels, but when the first step is "take out trans people's movement of body - right to live as yourself, to be out in public as yourself, to travel even within your own country." I wanna take care of that first because it was likely that was what was going to happen first.

And because it's the first step, it'll be one of the more, quote unquote successful steps, however temporary in my mind.

But - and this is actually another fact that people don't know about - not to take away from Jewish suffering whatsoever during the Holocaust, but the very first concentration camp that was built was Dachau. And the reason it was built, and it was like as soon as Hitler went to power Dachau was started to be built, and it was specifically meant to house - or to jail they said house - to jail political opponents of Hitler and queer and trans people. 'Cause they were the first on the chopping block. So they were actually the first ones to go to the camps. Now, to be fair, it was a labor camp and not a death camp, which is where Jewish folks were sent.

Those are two different things technically, but they were just worked literally to death rather than put into the gas chambers. And used for experimentation and target practice and all this really awful stuff. But yeah, so it is like trans people and queer people again, are like first and these political opponents. It will not be for forever, but it is scary. Back to your original question of how do we not panic when we look to that particular part of the book. Yes, we're following this timeline and yes, it's very panic inducing, but there's going to be much more of a cap on it. The Nazi Germany had.

Jess: Okay. But I feel like I need to understand a little bit more about why, like what are the differences between Nazi Germany and the United States that lead you to say we're never gonna get there.

Milo: I know it doesn't feel like it, but we are a lot better off than germany was when Hitler came to power because the Weimar Republic - was brand new - baby new - like it was - they were just getting their feet in the concept of a democracy. It was very vulnerable and it shows.

There were a lot of holes. The Weimar Republic and the US, those are both democracies, but they're very different in a lot of ways. In the United States the whole point was for a monarch to never take over the entire country. That was the point, right? And so we have these foundational laws in places and checks and balances that really make it pretty much impossible to hit the point that Hitler hits in Germany. Even if the executive branch and the Senate and the House, like everyone's in agreement. It's - there's still checks and balances in place.

A great example being what I call the Hitler clock. And that was when Hitler came the power January 30th, 1933. Happened to be 10 days after Trump took office. It just, just weird. 

Jess: There's parallels, man. There are parallels. Help us feel a little bit better. Please.

Milo: So the Hitler clock, is the first 53 days? Yeah, I wanna say - when Hitler became chancellor and within those 53 days, he essentially ripped their democracy apart. He wasn't 100% in power just yet, but he was really close. Yeah, really close. He had gained a lot of power during that time because that's how vulnerable they were.

As of this podcast, the Hitler clock has run out. In America, in the United States. And if you compare the two, we are doing so much better than Germany was by that point. We are doing extremely well comparative wise. Because, people have said, "oh Trump's going by the Hitler handbook." And in some ways he is, there are a lot of similarities -

Jess: Eerie similarities, when you look at the language of some of the early executive orders, even the current ones, what he's trying to do to dismantle science.

Milo: Yes. And it's - and it is very scary. And there is damage being done has been done.

There's gonna be a lot of cleanup. When all this is over it's gonna - it's still gonna be bad. It's not gonna be pleasant. But I just want people to think about - Trump and Hitler, essentially, were trying to do the same exact things at the same exact time. By this point, especially when you hit the 53 days, Hitler pretty much had won.

Trump is nowhere near that. And so that, I feel, really shows how much more complicated and how many more checks and balances there are in the United States. Our country, the United States is broken up into individual states and yes, there are federal laws and it gets very complicated very quickly, but also is a wonderful thing because it's part of that checks and balances system.

There are a lot of states that are bucking against this as well and obviously it doesn't make it okay for the folks in states where it's really bad, but it is not this all encompassing, full countrywide thing.

Jess: And it never will be.

Milo: And the people of the United States, are part of that checks and balances system. We do have a lot of power in our own way, so that's why, definitely be concerned, be active in whatever is speaking to you and you have the capacity for, but also don't curl up in the corner and like panic.

And I, and I also say this, not saying, oh, you can lie back and not worry, you know, there's a, there's plenty to -

Jess: You're not saying this we're gonna be fine. That's a - that's not what you're saying at all. You're saying "look at the specific differences between the state of these two democracies."

Milo: Yes.

Jess: He's trying to do some of the same stuff. He's been successful in some of these ways.

Milo: Yeah.

Jess: But he can't be that successful. And actually he has not been as successful as Hitler was.

Milo: Yes. We have, I feel, been knocked back trans wise into the nineties, the 1990s.

And there are plenty of people, me included, that lived through that time. We got through it, I feel worst case scenario is we're gonna get knocked back into the 1950s, the lavender scare. We're seeing echoes of that.

Jess: Yeah. And that would suck. That would be terrible. Yeah. But it is not Nazi Germany. Yeah.

Milo: Progress is not linear. I see wellness. Instagrammers saying this stuff all the time. They're like, progress isn't linear, it's okay if you fall off the wagon. And that's - it's true though, for history and community and rights.

Jess: Yeah. I've always thought of progress as a spiral staircase.

Milo: Yes. I like that. I like that - so all of this, I truly believe is temporary. "How long" is the question. I don't really know. I am not a political science major or anything, I know much more about the Weimar republic and how it compares than being like this nitty gritty US law person. But I - the way I understand it - it would be impossible to dismantle like all trans rights at a federal level, the way our system is put together, but would be even more impossible to actually pull off in the next four years.

Jess: Yeah.

Milo: So again, he tried every Hitler tactic these first 53 plus days. And he actually - comparatively - has made very little traction.

Jess: Yeah.

Milo: So there's just, there's gonna be a lot of anxiety and unknown and chaos. That's the point. I believe that the current Trump administration deep down knows that it can't be Nazi Germany. It cannot like actively take trans people out - and I mean by like camps or mass murder or whatever. They know they can't do that. And so I believe they're going for the next best thing, which is they wanna make trans lives so miserable the best they can, that we are then provoked to do the job ourselves. And so this is why I am very big on people taking care of their mental health the best they can right now.

Don't get too sucked into this stuff. Really take care of yourselves. And I don't mean it as don't be sad or despair 'cause that's what they want. Feel your feelings. 

Jess: Yeah we are anti - just for to say this - we are both anti dualistic thinking people here, as you talk about - even as we talk about queer folks during the Holocaust, that focusing on that community and that struggle, not taking anything away from what Jewish folks went through during that time.

You can have, there can be a "both and" here too. Yes, it makes sense to have anxiety. If I didn't have anxiety, I wouldn't have got my passport changed and it would say female on my passport right now. And if we stay too long there, that can be playing right into their hands, but we can't do this on our own. I think we need community to be able to lift us up and remind us of what this life is, what this lilac life is that we're fighting to keep in the first place.

Milo: Yeah. Yeah. So it's definitely a "take care of ourselves, take care of each other we're gonna get through this" type thing.

And I don't mean that as like a belittling, diminishing thing. It's gonna - it's gonna suck, but it's - it's not going to be as bad.

Jess: One of the things that feels really relevant is. The concept of erasure. How that has shaped our narratives around what transness is and isn't. And you could go - there's a lot there. We could talk about the medicalization of trans identity through Christine Jorgensen in 1952, just a few years after this. But how would you characterize the impact of this specific erasure that was done during the Nazi regime on our current consciousness around queerness and transness?

Milo: Yeah. So that is a wonderful question. And I actually do touch on this on, in my - my upcoming essay. Looking at Germany during the time, when Hitler rose to power, the classic example is Dr. Magnus Hirschfelds Institute of Sexual Science and one of the things it had was this huge library that was like over 20,000 rare books, 35,000 photographic slides he had collected from all over the world. A lot of stuff, and like rare or only copies.

And Hitler was like, "nope." And some Nazi folks came in and ransacked the place and a few days later - they gathered up all the materials and these wagons and took 'em away. And a few days later burned everything. This gigantic bonfire at the Opernplatz, I believe in Berlin.

And so that is documented, or that is believed to be the first known documented queer book ban, which was a book burning. And we lost a lot of history that day.

The book goes into it a bit - like a lot outta trans history. The institute was ransacked on May 6th, 1933. So just a few months after Hitler rose to power. I think he came the power, so almost at the anniversary 30th of this. It has not it has not been lost on me that my book just happens to be coming out, I think almost exactly a week before the 92nd anniversary of when the institute was ransacked. That was a complete coincidence. Complete coincidence that did not escape me,

Jess: Yeah. It's funny, you know, how your - so the thing that you learned that became this hook you could not like, get your teeth out of was about how the Allied Forces treated queer folks after the war. For me it was the most famous picture - we see a Nazi book burning.

Milo: Yes.

Jess: Like the one that I remember seeing in books when I was like 10. I recognize this image. That was the burning of the institute of sexual science. That was absolutely them burning the books about queer and trans people.

Milo: Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Of course that's not something I'm able to put in the book 'cause it would be like, "how did" - and it'd be anachronistic.

Jess: Yeah.

Milo: But no, absolutely. And I take those photo stills and I share them whenever I'm teaching a course on, on trans history when we get to this point. I'm like, "who recognizes these?" These are used in history books in the United States all the time to talk about, the evils of book bans and book burnings.

And it's just this terrible double erasure where the history books like never mention what's actually being burned. And it's just, it's wild to me. Sometimes folks will play a game of Gotcha and say if trans people were always in history, how come we don't really see them popping up until the 1950s? This is because -

Jess: Well if you didn't burn everything -

Milo: You burn everything. Yeah. And then the war ended for Germany in 45. And so think about the timeline. So anyway, so that big erasure happened and so that's one little kind of breadcrumb trail where we now look at today and there's a lot of book bans happening and people are, to a certain degree likening it to the the Institute of Sexual Science.

And they, again, there is definitely similarity because this was one of Hitler's first moves was to take out the queer people because they were considered one of the most dangerous folks to what he wanted in the world. And so the same can be said for now queer and especially trans people are the first to be taken out first to be disproven as having ever existed so this is happening again now with the book bans. It's not only an erasure of history, but a denial of this existence in itself.

This shaped the United States, essentially to the point that we're in right now. If you really follow the breadcrumbs, it's - it's wild. So yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. That's an important piece too.

Jess: Hey, Jess here with just a quick note that if the Lilac people has got you curious about trans history and wanting to learn more, check out our website, my gender iq.com/podcast, and then navigate to this episode where you'll find our trans history course. It's eligible for continuing medical education for a number of provider types and is a fascinating deep dive into queer and trans history.

It's also the first module of a number of the courses that I have available at mygenderiq.com because as you're probably learning with these episodes of The Lilac People, to even understand what we're looking at today and what trans patients need, you have to understand how we got here. So again, check that out at mygenderiq.com/podcast, and you can find a course that satisfies your curiosity. Okay, back to the episode.

Jess: Talk to me about those breadcrumbs - from your perspective how do you think that does bring us to today?

Milo: Yeah. As this book mentions the United States in particular made some choices. And one of those was they entered - they entered the war for other reasons too, but - claimed that they did not agree with what the Nazis were doing. But they decided, they agreed with the queer and trans stuff. So choices were being made at a government level and an example being - The United States government decides to actively recruit, like, Nazis, literal Nazis, people who, oversaw the Holocaust and all this horrible stuff. These soldiers - and actively are recruiting them to live in the United States, and this is right after the war.

And the reason they did this was because they wanted to recruit spies with the Cold War, the lavender scare, the red scare, all of this stuff. And the logic was, quote unquote, "we don't agree with the Nazis about things, but we wanna shake hands with them because the only people who hate communists and queer people more than us are the Nazis."

So that is how we started to really bring in this mentality into the United States, and they gave these folks homes to live in. They gave, all this stuff and rarely checked on them. They were like, "yeah, okay."

And the real kicker is it turns out that the Nazis were terrible at being spies. One of the best and quickest examples I can remember is this one Nazi, now in the United States, an American citizen, all this stuff. And they were like, "okay here's a really important suitcase, take it to so and so." The dude fricking forgot about the suitcase at the train station. And it was like, this was the stuff that was good - they were really bad at it. So like - 

Jess: It's the - really funny that you do all this and then they're just really bad at their job that you brought them you to do. You'd be a bad side character in a spy movie.

Milo: It's really, really bad. Yeah. Like the person, you're like, "oh, what? I can't believe he did that again." So I could go on with this stuff for forever. There's a lot of fascinating history that is just the surface of it.

Jess: Yeah.

Milo: "When people hurt bad enough, they'll grab any idea to make their own lives better, no matter how illogical, it's been tough since we lost the war, and they're quite alluring in their promises."

Jess: That feels like a really haunting quote to me as we think about, 'cause obviously, so for me, and I think I've told you this before, we might approach the current era with some similarities, you and I, because I've described it as, I like to understand the water that I'm drowning in - they're trying to drown me in. So in 2024, with everything that was going on, I was reading all sorts of books on the history of democracy and authoritarianism to just try and understand what the hell was happening.

And that feels like it gets to the core of when authoritarianism is a more compelling ideology to people. Because when they're hurting bad enough. But nowadays it's - I've heard a historian say this, people don't have to be in pain, you can actually create pain. Then the ideas can still be that compelling. Like how do you see this play taking place today when we don't have the, we have income inequality, but we don't have the pain that Germany was in following World War I. So why is this still working today?

Milo: Yeah. That's a wonderful question. So one of the things that I've been thinking about is - yeah, we don't have the - a lot of the terrible times that Germany was going through at the moment but we are going through our own issues with the wealth gap widening. So when it comes to poverty, it's not as bad as Germany, but it's pretty bad. And the whole price of eggs thing was apparently a big reason why some folks voted for Trump. And so that there are echoes of that- that was part of what the Nazis promised. They were like, "we'll make things better. You'll have money again. P.S. it's - it's the fault of the Jews." And so the modern version is "we're gonna make things better. You're gonna get money soon. P.S. it's the fault of the woke libs left."

Whatever the words are these days. I don't know. And, and a lot of that came down to gender. And the right to body, and so that's why trans people have become one of the first on the chopping block again. Because it, we just represent so many things. But another thing I like to tell folks about - has accidentally become my slogan I keep telling folks "the ghost of history are watching and they're kissing our foreheads."

Like they're just they've been there and -

Jess: Say that again.

Milo: "The ghosts of history are watching - kissing our foreheads."

Jess: I love that so much.

Milo: Yeah. It I said it off the cuff one day and it just stuck. So I just say that all the time now. Yeah. And I truly believe it.

And as the United States continued to, stumble, shall we say, it made me - lit even more of a fire under - for this book. One, because I wanted these people to be remembered, or this community to be remembered, but also it became more of a look at what our transcestors went through before us. And not like we're gonna be okay, but just take a breath.

Jess: I'm also, I'm gonna extend that metaphor a bit because that gives me a lot of - just - feelings of warmth and love. And I want to internalize that. I feel like at the same time I'm imagining a transcestor, like kissing me on the forehead, but then I'm imagining - like very strong drag queen vibes - like kissing me on the forehead, dusting me off, and then giving me a swift slap in the ass to like, "all right, get up. Let's go."  A little - a bit of both.

Milo: I love that. Yeah. I love that. It's - yeah it's - we're gonna kiss you on the forehead and now get to it.

Jess: Yeah. Get to it.

Milo: Go on. Get to it. You can do this. It's a lot of - it's a lot of the passing of the torch. It's like, all right, we - here's the next moment of stumble for our rights. Now it's your turn. And it - it's gonna - it's gonna be okay. And so it's a lot. There's a lot of feelings in this book. You've read it, but it's so many. It's this interesting balance for today of "please don't despair, but also, yes, there's plenty to worry about and that we need to work on. And work toward." One other little happy - I don't know, positive thing - I don't know - is again, this checks and balances system. We've hit a point with trying to dismantle trans rights just basic human rights. And I know we didn't have that many to begin with, but - where not only are they being blocked - taking away these rights are being blocked by various judges, they're not even necessarily liberal judges anymore. We have judges that were appointed by one of the Bushes that was like, "oh, leave trans people alone. What are you doing? This is against our first amendment. No." So it's - even the supposed conservatives are jumping in to protect us. 'Cause they're just like, this is nonsense.

Jess: This is about preserving actual fundamental principles of being an American  Right to bodily autonomy, right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Milo: That's it.

Jess: Yep. These things, and it's just over time we've been able to broaden the definition of what personhood is. And that, I think has actually been the challenge. One of the books that I ended up reading last year was How Democracies Die -

Milo: Oh yeah.

Jess: - and that- and the thing that was compelling about that - and I was thinking about this as you were comparing just the time period of the Weimar Republic being an incredibly, incredibly baby, baby democracy. Not long at all. And the United States comparatively has had a, over 200 year run with democracy, but actually though, true, like actual multiracial democracy, has only been in place since the 1960s. Black folks could not participate in our democracy to the same extent - and you've seen those timelines of the United States - when the area was first colonized to the modern era. And for most of that time we either had slavery or Jim Crow laws and so when you think about it that way, multiracial democracy has only been something that's been tested for the past 60 years.

Milo: Really good point.

Jess: And that book actually makes an argument that it's not the institution so much as it is the democratic norms and the maintenance of democratic norms within figures in the government that has been the most protective for holding a democracy together. And that those started eroding in the 1960s. And have continued to erode in different ways led by the Republican party, especially. A lot of it really accelerated in the 1980s. But the Democrats have followed. It's - this is not - it is largely on the Republican party after the southern strategy in the mid sixties.

But it's really - those democratic norms have really kind of hollowed over the years. And so in - in that way, I think the Weimar Republic and the United States - yes, there's a different length of time here, but it's actually more of the 60 year timeframe as opposed to the 200 year timeframe that we should be comparing.

Milo: Yeah, that's a very good point. Thank you for bringing that up. And it - yes to all of that, and it reminds me of another part of this where with the comparisons between, Nazi Germany and the current United States is - that when Hitler took over - that it was quite sudden in a lot of ways. Yeah, you could see the Nazis trying to come to power over a handful of years during the Weimar Republic, but it was pretty brief. And in the United States, this moment that we're in has been at least a few generations in the making.

Jess: Oh yeah.

Milo: And I think you're right on the money there when you're talking about civil rights. It also brings me to another, or reminds me of another kind of comparison, which is when Hitler came to power, it was very much like the beginning - the foundation of "I am going to take control" and it was a literal rise of power. Compared to the current moment in the United States where I am quite convinced that what we are looking at is not a rise in power. What we are looking at is an extinction burst. What's happening here is - this is not so much a, "I am going to take over and take control of power that I don't have." It is "we have this power right now and we are going to fight tooth and nail to the point of being unconstitutional to keep that power."

Jess: Yeah. No, I actually, I - that's a really great point, and I look at it similarly. I feel like when you look at the data about American demographics as well, you know, we've kind of known this for a while, it's been in the ether that whiteness will be in the minority by 2050. That's just a fact that's been around for a while. And so this feels like, you know, male, white, male power over making its last stand.

Milo: Yes. Yes. Exactly. And so this is less about someone coming to power and more about - say you want to hold a cat and the cat doesn't wanna be held. But you keep wanting to hold - that cat is gonna thrash around. It is gonna sit, it is going to bite, it is gonna scratch, it is gonna freak out. And you are gonna get cut up pretty bad. That's what the US is doing right now.

It is an extinction burst. It's a - it's a - a survival attempt as it were. So we just really need to hold on and push back as much as possible. 'Cause I genuinely believe this is temporary.

Jess: And it is a helpful reminder too. I think I saw this in a, I think it was a TikTok, honestly. Just a nice reminder that things like the KKK, were not born out of oppression. They were born out of progress.

Milo: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So this is not power growing and coming to life. This is power dying is - what we're looking at right now. And again, it's gonna be ugly because think about that cat. That cat is not happy right now.

Jess: Yeah.

Milo:  And there casualties, right? That's not to - that is not to make light of that either. Yes. But I do think it helps you look at it differently. 

Jess: I know, I've been trying to think - as I've talked with you, a metaphor is kind of solidified for me where I talked about - I need to look back to kind of figure out what I'm looking at today.

Milo: Yes.

Jess: But I think all of these histories that I read your book included in this conversation for me, they feel like I'm compiling the ingredients for some sort of recipe.

Milo: Yeah.

Jess: And we all are. But I could do a lot of different things with those ingredients, right? I could choose to take those ingredients and an attitude like, and try to feel hope. Take those ingredients and feel some hope for the future - measured. Or I could choose to throw it all in and burn it as well.

Yeah. Like I could choose to do a lot of different things and I think that's true for any one of us right now. But for me, the way I'm gonna get through is to be able to find the places where there is reason to hope.

Milo: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of hope here. I know it doesn't feel like it for a lot of folks, anyone who's listening, but it really is there - to me, I reframe it as not look at what the Trump administration has accomplished, but rather look at what they have failed to do. And that list - I look at what the people are going so much longer than what they've actually been able to pull off. So I keep it in that regard as well.

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Jess: I wanna go back and do two things. I want you to talk to me about this page 190, the monologue that you gave Hirschfeld about the canary. You don't have to read it. But this was just a really compelling, just a compelling thing for me as you think about today, of trans people being the canaries of a society.

Milo: Yeah. This is probably one of my favorite moments in the entire book. Hirschfeld goes through this whole monologue, which as I admit in the back of the book, I technically made up myself, but -

Jess: Yeah, I read that in the back. Because also, okay, I'm enough of a history nerd to know that Hirschfeld actually left Germany in 1930. So it started an entire, he actually wasn't here through the time of the book. 

Milo: Yeah. So I totally call myself out at the end of the book. No, and I knew that you would, 'cause I was like, yeah, he wasn't there, but whatever.

Jess: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm glad he was there to say this.

Milo: I take - I take the authenticity of my trans historical fiction very seriously. So I have this whole back section of the book that I just call myself out. For where I made changes. 'Cause I want people to know what was real and what wasn't.

Jess: I immediately saw - I was like, "oh, he has to - there's no way to tell this story by backing up to 1929." And forcing Hirschfeld to be there. 'Cause you really just needed to talk about this last piece. But he had to be there. 

Milo: So yeah, this is the moment where the main character Bertie is talking with Dr. Hirschfeld. This is before shit goes down. And he says, "why? You're not trans" - he was a gay cisman - But he was like, "why?" Bertie's like "why are you doing all you're doing for trans people, for these, for transvestites like me? Like, what are you doing?"

And Hirschfeld starts talking about the concept of canaries in a coal mine and how trans people are the canaries. Basically, when trans rights are threatened or taken away. A country's in trouble. We saw that with Nazi Germany - we are - that's why we are very nervous right now in the United States. It - this is throughout history again - I've looked at a lot of trans history all over the place. And when colonization happens, when authoritarianism happens, when fascism happens, when all of these power grabs happen, the very first people, pretty much always across the board are taken out or attempted to be taken out, is the gender non-conforming folks.

It is a distinct pattern and it appears to be because gender nonconforming people are one of the biggest, most immediate threats to fascism, authoritarianism, all that stuff. Colonialism. Because they are the most directly linked or the most immediately linked to the right to body. The right to movement. The right to - to all of that stuff. And everything else really seems to branch from that when it comes to human rights, I - if you have a right to body, you then have the right to decline a draft to fight in a war. Especially if you're like, I don't agree with what this war stands for. If you have - if people have the right to body - government sanctioned right to body - they have the right to housing, they have the right to adequate food sources, they have - it all comes back to the right to body. And that's just how trans people have become and have always been the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to a government's health. Like the health of the country itself.

So Hirschfeld just basically concludes after his big monologue and Bertie asking like, "why do you do it?" Hirschfeld says, "don't paint me as a hero because I'm not even doing it for you. I'm doing it because I love my country. I look after trans people because I care about my country." And I really think - again, wasn't meant to be timely - but I think that sentiment can - should and has been carried into now where it's if you care about the United States, look after trans people.

Jess: Yeah. That's actually an incredibly empowering viewpoint. It's more empowering than the one I had coming into this conversation. I think even after reading that page, I think I focus on our marginalized ability a bit more than I should. Because you're right, 'cause, we - you say like "you represent everything. You represent housing and job security and access to healthcare. You represent workers' rights and voting rights and full stomachs and freedom. And most importantly of all, we represent the right to body and personhood."

And yeah, like that's just so much more empowering. A viewpoint of what our threat to authoritarianism is. Our threat to power over - as opposed to even, I remember putting in the notes reading Judith Butler's newest book, Who's Afraid Of Gender - the idea of gender as fantasm to a mainstream society, that gender can be turned into this fantasm specter essentially that has nothing to do with gender, but represents order over chaos. Represents a nostalgic ordered past in the face of an uncertain future. And I think - while I think that's accurate, I love turning that on its head and talking about a - the threats we can be to power over - and the power that we hold and why it is patriotic to support trans people.

Milo: We are just threatening by existing, and again, this has been proven time and again throughout history, when people want to grab full control of something. It's very powerful in its own way, just knowing that - we - just by existing, we're causing this much panic and hand wringing and freakouts and three hour long YouTube videos of one person yelling at the camera. Just 'cause we exist. So there - oddly enough there's a lot of power there.

Jess: Yeah, there is. Our joy is powerful. Absolutely. What are - what's giving you a sense of queer joy, queer resistance, or just hope when you look at the responses to this today, either to your book or to anything going on?

Milo: Yeah there's like a - a personal queer joy, like the book itself has continued to get a lot of attention. And there there's more attention coming, shall we say. I can't - which I cannot speak of at this time. Yeah.

But a lot of attention is being given to this book, which means a lot to me. And so that's just very nice to see is that people are taking this so seriously, and hearing the research that was done here and helping bring back this memory of this community, this particular community in this particular point in time, that was all I ever really wanted.

That's why I wrote the book, again. It was never meant to be timely. I started this several years ago and just the fact that people are honoring that memory of these folks. Technically they're fictional characters in the book itself. It's based on real people though. It's very based on real people and the real community.

It's very real in a lot of ways. And so it's just wonderful to see so many people cis, trans what have you, are so eager to, boost this memory along. And so - I'm - giving it platform and stuff like you, so thank you, Jess. That's wonderful. It means a lot to me, but in general, I'm, again, I'm that nerdy person, I keep looking backwards into history and it just - seeing all these - beyond this particular book, all these different places in times and different ways of being gender non-conforming related to one's own culture. Just, there's so many of us.

There are so many, and just seeing all these different people living - sometimes thriving, sometimes struggling, but I just, I don't know. I think for me it's something I remember from something I learned about public speaking a long time ago. And I'm an introvert. I actually don't like public speaking much. I do it all the time, but I don't like it. Because, it can be a bit anxiety producing.

And I remember something someone once told me, and I should probably look this up - I believed the person but I should probably look it up myself, so maybe this isn't true - but the same part of the brain that processes anxiety or what have you, also processes things like gratefulness. And so instead, if you think about how grateful you are for this opportunity, it actually calms the anxiety. I just held it with me and it works for me on a, maybe it's a placebo effect. I don't know.

Jess: Honestly, man, we know - there's more we don't know about the brain than we do. So I'm all for something that is a helpful frame. If it's a helpful frame and concept, use it.

Milo: Yeah. And so I turn it into this gratefulness type thing where I look back at history and see what these other folks did, even if they were just living their lives. Every single one of those past gender non-conforming folks contributed in some way to the benefits that me as an individual in our modern era now has. And so I'm very grateful to them and just say - I might not know their faces, their names or anything. Yeah. And just be like, "thank you for everything that you did. You're, you've since passed away, yeah." But if there's some sort of. I don't know, Greek chorus out there that is watching us. I really like to think about how happy they would be even with our, how horrible our current situation is. How happy they would be to see all the stuff we have. That they would've loved to have. There are more surgeries happening these days. Like there, there have been advancements in that yes, we have the internet, and yeah. That sucks. The internet sucks in a lot of ways, but like the way these communities have come together.

I just - I just think about that stuff a lot and so I love looking back at history and seeing what they went through makes me feel that I can go through certain things. So I'm just a big history nerd.

And then I - and then the other thing that gives me joy is bringing that history to other people, especially other folks in the community, and most especially younger folks. I teach trans history at, colleges, online, stuff like that. And - probably unsurprisingly - it seems that those are mostly populated by younger, queer and trans people.

Jess: Of course.

Milo: And they - they love hearing the history even when it's really sad. They are just like, "oh my god, that happened." And I'm like, yeah.

Jess: What are things that you've heard from students that surprised you? Made you happy? Because I'm interested in what you would say to a trans adolescent right now, or to their family 'cause they don't have this long experience. You know how you can't be grateful for something bad you never experienced? It's hard to hold that. It's like, how can this help folks today with some broader context or vision?

Milo: Yeah, that's a really great question. Yeah, I feel like it's a little bit - I like how younger folks when they were born, smartphones were already a thing, or streaming services were a thing. You don't know what you - what wasn't there before. So it's kinda like a thing in some ways on the phone.

Jess: You couldn't use the internet. You never went through that. Like we - 

Milo: Yeah. It feels a little bit like that. And I don't mean to be, again, diminishing it or saying people are just taking - taking things for granted. But when you're born into it, you see it as the norm and it basic human rights should be the norm. Yes. Absolutely. So especially when these things shift backwards or get taken away, I feel it can cause understandably, a stronger sense of panic -

Jess: Yeah.

Milo: - because you were born into this. And it was not that long ago where there was like no fiction starring trans people written by trans people, especially not in ya. And now there's this beautiful amount. And so there are kids wonderfully growing up with all of this. So when these books are being banned or being uh, diminished or suppressed, or whatever words you wanna use, that understandably - and should cause a certain amount of alarm.

But for kids who always had these books around and always had access, it - it's a particularly large panic in general. So I just wanna recognize all of that first, especially with the kids.

But then the other thing that I like to tell folks if they want to hear these things is that A, again, there have been so many people who have survived not only these things, but things that are worse. And I don't mean that as a, "don't complain. Others - someone else has it worse than you do."

Jess: We don't mean that - do hierarchy of suffering here either.

Milo: There's been plenty of suffering. Not like it's the way it is, but this is again - progress is not linear. We're in one of those moments. We have this transcestry that has survived in the past in all different ways.

Jess: For me - it's - I don't know. For me, I get back to the quote in your book "I'm sorry, this is the only lilac like life you've ever known."

Milo: Mm-hmm.

Jess: "But for today, I would change it to - there will be so much joy."

Milo: Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing. There will be so much joy and where we currently are with rights the - where we've been pushed back - is a generation of trans people who are still alive today. And I wanna make that very clear.

It's not, this genocide of Nazi Germany. This is, we're in the nineties, maybe like eighties, seventies, stuff like that. And those folks are still alive today. The rights that we're losing, we have actually unfortunately not had for very long at all.

And actually that was a little bit of the book as well. This whole book encompasses Bertie's perspective over what, 30 years? And the huge swing in the pendulum there. Yeah. And it, and that's, that happens. And we'll get - we will - we'll get the rights back.

I encourage folks to take care of themselves, take care of each other. Because again, we are part of that checks and balances system as well. And there will be a day where we are the transcestry and there will be people in the future being like, "I might not know your name or your face, but thank you for what you went through during this particular time because now I have what I have because of you folks."

Jess: Mm-hmm. Can be a source of resilience for someone else.

Milo: Absolutely. Yes. Exactly.

Jess: Is there anything we didn't say about the book or about its applicability to today that has been on your mind you'd want to say?

Milo: There's one tiny little story that might work as like an extra little joyful thing because I know this is so  depression-laden stuff. I mentioned this in the back of the book, but I named the three main transmasculine characters Bertie, Gert, and Carl.

They are all named after three of the only known trans masculine people to have survived and were documented to be so as trans people. And I just - just first names only just named the characters after them as like an honor. But also their lives were entirely different. I wanna make that clear. I wasn't trying to actually appropriate their lives into fiction. But I wanted to - to a moment mention Gerd Katter, not Gert, but Gerd, I did change a little bit. Gerd Katter was this transmasculine person who palled around with Hirschfeld in a lot of ways and did a lot of outreach, especially with youths at the - the institute and all this lovely stuff. He's actually a big reason we have as much knowledge about trans people of the time as we do, because the moment the war was over, he still had all of his documents. He actually is the one that has the only known surviving transvestite card.

Jess: Wow.

Milo: And he held onto everything. And so as soon as the war was over was like, "I someone, some museum, please take this stuff from me. Please." And no one was taking it. No one was taking it. And then that Magnus Hirschfeld Society that was founded, I think in the eighties finally found him. And so he gave him the stuff and all this wonderful stuff. So anyway, side story. Wonderful.

But there's this one just fun little story that I love to tell folks was that he was someone who had top surgery back in the day at the institute. Yeah. And so he wanted to get top surgeries, totally cleared to get it done, blah, blah, blah. But his insurance wouldn't pay for it. Again, this is like a hundred years ago.

Jess: That's not familiar at all.

Milo: So his insurance wouldn't pay for it. So what the surgeon decided to do was put in a fake diagnosis code. So that the insurance covered his top surgery. And I just love that story because I was like, "man, something's never change."

And it could - it's like kind of bittersweet where it's, "yeah, even back then when it first, came out - surgery - like it wasn't being covered by insurance." We still struggle with that to this day, but also some things never change, where we always do have these really awesome cis allies in medicine and outside of medicine where they're like, "that's not right. You should be able to have this done." So he just, he purposely put in the wrong diagnosis code and I just, I love that story. So Gerd Katter got his top surgery for free because a cis doctor was - a hundred years ago was like, "nah, we're gonna mess with the insurance company." 

Jess: Like we're gonna do - the system is not just - and as a practicing healthcare provider with an active license, I can say nothing more specific than "what is right is not always lawful. And what is lawful is not always right."

Milo: Yeah. And again, that - that resistance, the checks and balances of people is a thing. We all just look after each other, yeah. So I love that story. It's one of my favorites,

Jess: Well thank you so much Milo, for being with us here today. I think we covered everything. I don't - I'm not looking back at a single thing that I feel like we have to circle back to. And I know we went way over and I really appreciate it, but

Milo: I appreciate with you too 'cause again, I know I can go on for a while 'cause I nerd out about this stuff, so -

Jess: No, so can I.

Milo: - I don't envy you the editing later 'cause I'm sure that's gonna be a situation.

Jess: Well that will wrap up our conversation with Milo Todd, author of The Lilac People. which you can find at a bookstore today. Check out our website also, 'cause you can see information about Milo's book tour. He may be coming to a place near you.

I am personally excited to see him on Thursday, May 15th in Washington DC at East City Bookshop, but there are a number of tour dates you can check out on his Instagram page. Todd Milo.

As Milo reminded us, these attempts at erasure that we're seeing now are not new. And what's different today is how many of us are refusing to forget, refusing to be silent, refusing to disappear. Trans and gender diverse people represent the biggest threat to fascism. To "power over" 'cause we represent the right to body. And if you have the right to make decisions about your own body,  authoritarianism cannot take hold.

As the book says, it's patriotic to support trans people, so again, The Lilac People debuted on April 29th. You can find it at Milo's or on any of the podcast pages.

Grab a copy gift one, request it at your library, or get the audio book version ' cause we need to make sure that this story gets the spotlight it finally deserves. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.