06/05/2025
Today is Trans History Day, commemorating the date in 1933 when N***s looted the Institute of Sexology in Berlin.
The Institute of Sexology was led by Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, who was gay and Jewish. He was also a pioneering researcher of trans and q***r lives and healthcare, all of which made him a target for the N***s. The N***s removed the entire contents of the Institute's library and burnt the books in the street. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was travelling abroad at the time, so he was unharmed. He was never able to return to Germany.
Many societies in world history have attempted to crack down on gender diversity, just as many others have celebrated the same. Trans+ people have always been there, even when societies have tried to crush their voices out of existence.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Scotland's trans+ community were making their voices heard with their own zine, The Tartan Skirt, edited by Anne Forrester. Initially subtitled "the magazine of the Scottish TV/TS Group" (TV/TS for "transvestite" and "tr*******al", the terminology in common use at the time), it was later known as "the Scottish magazine for the gender community". It featured reports from gender conventions abroad, tips on clothes and makeup, and discussion of community issues.
The Scottish TV/TS Group met monthly in Edinburgh in St Colme Street, often continuing the evening in The Laughing Duck on Howe Street (sadly long gone now!). Members would often travel from other parts of Scotland for the meetings, and issues of the zine contain happy reports from first-time attendees about feeling accepted, sometimes for the first time in their lives.
The Tartan Skirt went out of print in the late 90s, but it serves as an important reminder that trans people were present and involved in the gay liberation movement in Scotland, as well as finding community and advocating for themselves. Many of the concerns expressed in its pages are sadly still here today – often more so.
