LGBTQ activists may gain insights into dealing with Trump by looking back at the different but still relevant experience of government repression faced by the Institute of Sex Research in the Weimar Republic. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

Trump is not the first politician to suddenly pull the plug on protections for transgender people. In 1933, the Nazi Party in Germany banned LGBTQ organizations and shut down a cutting-edge research institute that offered specialized health care for trans men and women. The situations are distinct, but US activists today would still do well to study the experience of the Weimar Republic's Institute of Sex Research.