I keep seeing people comparing the push to remove transphobia and transphobic hate speech from public spaces with "Nazism" and "book burnings" and I think it's important we address exactly why those comparisons are so abhorrent.

It is fair to say that trans people were quite possibly the community that was most affected by Nazi book burnings, and to this day trans people across the globe are still suffering due to the irreplaceable documents destroyed in one particular incident...

In May 1933 the library and archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, a pioneering institution conducting research into trans people and their lives and medical needs was burnt by Nazis in the street.

The loss of this research has put trans medical care back decades.

Alongside the loss of this irreplaceable knowledge, vast numbers of names and addresses were taken from the institute, and unknown numbers of trans people were persecuted and committed to concentration camps during that period.

Comparing trans people's requests for rights and dignity with "Nazism" and "book burnings" is not just tasteless and offensive but deeply ahistoric and cruel when the above history is considered.