Bill Text: CA SR37 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Relative to a day of remembrance for the Institute for Sexual Research.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2023-07-07 - July 11 hearing canceled at the request of author. [SR37 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SR37-Introduced.html
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Resolution
No. 37
| Introduced by Senator Cortese (Coauthors: Senators Eggman and Wiener) |
May 04, 2023 |
Relative to a day of remembrance for the Institute for Sexual Research.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SR 37, as introduced, Cortese.
Digest Key
Bill Text
WHEREAS, During World War II in Nazi Germany, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people faced inhumane treatment; and
WHEREAS, Paragraph 175 of German law criminalized sexual acts between men, punishable by imprisonment, and was revised during the Nazi regime to apply more broadly to gestures as simple as looking at or touching another man; and
WHEREAS, According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the police arrested about 100,000 men, along with many transgender women, nonbinary people, and gender nonconforming people whose identities were not recognized by the Nazi government, for allegedly violating this statute during the Nazi period, and approximately 50 percent were convicted; and
WHEREAS, Ten thousand to fifteen thousand of those who were detained were then sent to concentration camps where many were subject to medical experiments and castration, and more than one-half of them did not survive these conditions; and
WHEREAS, Paragraph 175 was not fully repealed until 1994, nearly 50 years after the end of World War II; and
WHEREAS, The Institute for Sexual Research (Institute) in Berlin was founded in 1919 by Magnus Hirschfeld, a leading researcher of sexuality and gender and a German Jewish doctor; and
WHEREAS, The Institute was an academic foundation devoted to research and advocacy for LGBT rights and health care, and it served thousands of LGBT patients for free; and
WHEREAS, By 1930, the Institute provided a space for some of the first modern gender-affirming surgeries and prescribed gender-affirming hormones; and
WHEREAS, The Institute housed a large library of art and research on gender and sexuality, including many rare and irreplaceable documents; and
WHEREAS, On May 6, 1933, a group of Nazi-supporting youth, the German Student Union, attacked and occupied the Institute; and
WHEREAS, Four days later, these youth publicly removed and burned the entire contents of the library in Berlin’s Bebelplatz square in one of the first Nazi book burnings, and it is estimated that tens of thousands of books were burned; and
WHEREAS, Ninety years have passed since this act of hatred and violence; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, That the Senate recognizes the impact of Magnus Hirschfeld’s research and advocacy on LGBT history and the LGBT community; and be it further
Resolved, That the Senate recognizes May 10, 2023, as the anniversary the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin was occupied and burned and that Californians are urged to observe this day of solemn remembrance in an appropriate manner; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
