May 6, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode Brett sits down with Milo Todd to talk about his debut book, "The Lilac People". They discuss Berlin in the 30s before the ascension of Hitler, The Institute for Sexual Science, Hitler's enemy number one, and the explanation of what was known as a transvestite card.
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https://www.milotodd.com
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https://www.instagram.com/todd_milo/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brett Benner (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner and welcome or
welcome back to another episodeof Behind the Stack.
It's one of these big publishingdays.
There seems to be, we're on aroll of a lot of them now as we
gear up into the summer, andthere's a couple books I wanted
to talk about before we get intotoday's conversation.
The first is the Jenna Pick ofthe Month, which is the names by
(00:23):
Florence Knapp.
This has gotten so muchpre-publication Buzz, a kind of
sliding doors.
that deals with a person's name.
Another big book that is outtoday that, I was hoping to have
read already and I have not, isthe new Wally Lamb book.
The river is waiting.
I'm sure it's going to containlots of pathos and tragedy and
(00:47):
ultimately redemption.
I'm really, really excited forthat one though.
Another Biggie is My Friends byFrederick Bachman.
Do you know I've never read anyFrederick Bachman and I have
Beartown because people seem tobe so crazy about that.
But this one is kind of reallycalling to me.
It says it's an unforgettably,funny, deeply moving tale of
four teenagers who friendshipcreates a bond so powerful that
(01:10):
it changes a complete stranger'slife 25 years later.
So I'm definitely gonna bechecking this out.
Also out today is the Manner ofDreams by Christina Lee, which
is described as American Gothicmeets the seven husbands of
Evelyn Hugo, about the secretsthat lion weight and the
crumbling mansion of a formerHollywood starlet and the
intertwined fates of the twofamilies fighting to inherit it.
(01:37):
So that sounds reallyinteresting.
Then there's an anthology outtoday called Edge of the World,
an Anthology of Queer Travelwritings.
That's an inclusive lgbtq plustravel anthology that explores
what it means to be a queerperson moving through the world
with contributors like AlexanderChi, Edward White, Daisy
(01:57):
Hernandez.
Den, Michelle Norris, GarrettConley, Genevieve Hudson.
So this looks really cool.
And that's out today as well.
And then the last book I wannagive a shout out today is by
debut author Jemima Wei.
It's called The OriginalDaughter.
In this dazzling debut, Stagnerfellow Jemima Way explores the
(02:17):
formation and dissolution offamily bonds and his story of
ambition and sisterhood in turnof the Millennium Singapore.
I absolutely loved this book,and Jemima was just named, one
of five authors under 35,fiction writers whose work
promises to leave a lastingimpression on the literary
landscape from the National BookFoundation.
(02:38):
All this to say also Jemima willbe my guest next week on Behind
the Stack, so look for that aswell.
But let us get on to today'sauthor.
today I'm sitting down with MiloTodd, who.
Has written this incredible bookcalled The Lilac People.
I was first drawn to this bookbecause of its cover, which is
so incredible.
(02:59):
It's been getting amazingpre-publication reviews.
The book came out last week.
it had gotten incrediblepre-publication reviews.
I read this and was completelyblown away, and I have to say.
Of all the conversations I'vehad so far on this podcast, this
right now is probably one of themost pertinent And unfortunately
(03:19):
timely books for what'shappening in the United States
at this moment.
especially in regards to transpeople, but frankly all
marginalized groups.
It's a really interestingconversation and frankly, I felt
just fortunate to be able tohave this discussion.
a little bit about Milo.
He is the CO EIC at Fog LifterJournal runs the Queer Writer
Newsletter and teaches creativewriting in history primarily to
(03:43):
queer and trans adults.
He's received awards, accolades,and fellowships from such places
as Lambda Literary Tin House,pitch Wars, grub Street, Monson
Arts, and the MassachusettsCultural Council.
and this is his literary debut.
So please enjoy this episode ofBehind the Stack.
(04:07):
I'm thrilled to be sitting downtoday with Milo Todd, whose new
book The Lilac People is just,it's so beautiful.
I, I was, I was so incrediblymoved by it and it feels beyond
timely and, and necessary.
So thank you so much for or forsitting down with me today.
Milo Todd (04:26):
Oh, absolutely.
And again, I'm really, reallyhappy to be here.
Thanks for getting in touch andall that lovely stuff, Brett.
And yeah.
Was not.
Intended to be timely, but herewe are.
So, yeah.
Brett Benner (04:40):
Yeah.
You know, I remember when Ifirst saw this, first of all,
for our listeners, this cover isso gorgeous.
I mean, it's gorgeous, which wasone of the first things that,
that drew me in.
Can you talk for just a momentabout the artist who did the
cover?
Milo Todd (04:54):
Sure.
Absolutely.
So the cover artist, I, I, well,I remember they gave me a few
different options to choose fromand, I saw this one and was
like, oh, absolutely have tohave this cover.
It's wonderful.
And so the cover designer Iactually, I also have my, in my
acknowledgements which is AnaYasmin and just I thought did
(05:18):
fantastic work on this cover,really embodied what the book
was all about.
I never.
I never really imagined what mycover would look like.
Mm.
But when I saw this, I was like,Ooh.
Like that's just, it's, I, I, I,you know, and maybe everyone
says this about their own cover,but I was like, this is
beautiful.
Like, this is just, and itreally embodies what the book is
about.
And I feel also really you know,you first, I like to think, you
(05:40):
know, a reader will first seethe cover and be like, oh,
that's beautiful.
And then when they finish thebook and look at the cover
again, they're like, there's alot more happening in this
cover.
Sure.
Like after the fact with thecontext.
And I just, I adore this cover.
Brett Benner (05:53):
Yeah, no, it's beautiful.
And for our listeners, it almostlooks like a watercolor of a man
standing in a wheat field.
Mm-hmm.
Kind of putting his hands out,but the colors and the clouds
and it's beautiful.
But also just the texture of thecover is so amazing as well.
Yeah.
And what she's done with.
With texture and it's reallystunning.
You know, this is truly a casewhere you can judge a book by
(06:13):
its cover.
Milo Todd (06:15):
Well, thank you.
I, I, I can take no creditobviously for the cover itself,
but I do think they did a greatjob with that cover.
I.
Brett Benner (06:22):
Yeah.
They really did.
So for our listeners, do youhave an elevator pitch of the
book?
Oh,
Milo Todd (06:28):
sure.
So the elevator pitch isessentially this.
What we would now call a transman relinquish his freedoms of
pre-war Berlin, meaningpre-World War ii.
And he first survives the Nazisby hiding in plain sight, and
then has to survive the Alliedforces for reasons that I'm sure
we'll get into today while wetalk.
(06:49):
Right?
And he, he needs to protect, youknow, his, his his loved ones
from, from this, this new, thisnew threat, unfortunately.
Brett Benner (06:59):
Yeah.
And so the action moves fromroughly 19 31, 32, and then 19.
Is it 1945?
Am I correct?
Yeah,
Milo Todd (07:06):
yeah.
1932 is like the quote unquotepast storyline timeline there.
And then 1945 is the, the morequote unquote present timeline
because it's just before Hitlercame to power and then just a
week or so after the war endedfor Germany.
Brett Benner (07:23):
Yeah.
And so the, the obviousquestion.
That begs to be asked is, youknow, what inspired this for
you?
How did you go down this kind ofrabbit hole?
Because it really is a rabbithole.
And I have to say, one of thethings that the book does is, I
found myself finding out so manythings I didn't.
No.
Mm-hmm.
And it was interesting going inand reading people's comments
(07:44):
about reviews of the book, andso many people don't know parts
of this history, which isanother reason why I think that
the book has such particularvalue beyond being just a great
story.
But yeah.
What started this for you?
Milo Todd (07:56):
Yeah.
Well, th again, you know, thankyou for the, for the kind words.
And all of that.
I've been really, reallygrateful for the response.
This book has gotten so far,really grateful for it.
And so the origin story was backin, I wanna say maybe 20 16, 20
17, something like that.
And I, back when social mediawas not the cesspool that it is
(08:16):
now, I was like, you know, goingthrough whatever, and I was
scrolling through something, myfeed on somewhere, and I don't
even remember who posted this.
I think it was just a strangerout in the world.
So whoever that was.
Thank you very much, stranger.
So I was scrolling through andjust saw this little like meme
like post that just saidsomething like, do you know or
(08:37):
did you know that when theAllied forces came to liberate
the camps, the concentrationcamps.
That they let everyone go exceptfor the queer and trans people,
and they put them in jailinstead for the crime of being
queer and trans.
And so I'm looking at this andI'm like, that can't be true.
Like that can't be true.
And me being me, I looked it upand it was true, and that just
(09:00):
broke open that whole.
Just like, he's like just wentinto that rabbit hole and I was
just like, I need to find outmore about this.
What the heck?
And I just started uncoveringmore and more and more and more
stuff.
And that in some ways I feel thebook kind of wrote itself.
I was like, all this is truestuff.
So I just kind of put astoryline to it.
And yeah, that's the shortversion.
That's the origin story.
(09:21):
It was a meme.
On social media.
Brett Benner (09:23):
And then how long did it take you to write?
Like when did you start theactual writing of it?
Milo Todd (09:27):
Yeah, so the whole process I, I really wanted this
to be as accurate of a book aspossible.
So a lot of the time actuallywent into the research and I
wanna say I, among other things,I had to learn German.
All right.
And if there's, if there's onething, I do not regret this
book, I'm so proud that Ifinished this book, but if
there's one thing President Milowould go back in time for, for
(09:50):
past Milo, it's just to slap himat least once in the face to be
like, in what universe?
You're like, yeah, I'll learnGerman.
Okay.
Like it was, you know, I don'tregret it, but I was like, oh my
God, what were you thinking?
But it was so important to meand I really wanted, you know.
As an English speaking person inthe United States, really wanted
to know more about this history.
So anyway, so I wanna say theresearch and the outlining of
(10:14):
the book itself, I wanna saymaybe three years, something
like that, really committed to.
I'm also very big on planning mybooks before I write them.
'cause the last thing I everwanna do is write a whole book
and then find out somethingfactually is wrong and I have to
rip the entire book apart, youknow?
Yeah, that's a big nightmare forme.
So anyway, so a lot of it wasplanning, outlining all the
(10:35):
research for maybe, I wanna saylike three years or so, the
rough draft.
I'm very tough, love with myselffor rough drafts.
And so, because I had all theplanning done, the rough draft I
think took me maybe three tofour months to write.
Wow.
And then all the rest of thattime was editing, drafting beta
readers, all that stuff whichmaybe was another year or so.
(10:55):
And then any remaining time, Ican't do math, but any remaining
time that's in there.
Was working with my agent on thebook a little bit, cleaning it
up more, him sending it out topublishers, waiting to hear back
from publishers.
'cause you know, that takesforever.
And then of course someoneacquired it.
Counterpoint Press.
I adore them.
Shout out to Dan Lopez, who wasthe editor that was like, yes.
(11:15):
And also, I should do a shoutout to my, my agent Mike Duo,
who sadly left the agency jobforce to a much bigger, very
exciting job.
But anyway, so I miss him, but Ilove him.
And so anyway, so then the restof the time was just all that
stuff and, you know, the wholeslow production slog of doing
even more editing and all that.
(11:36):
And so here we are.
So it was, it was a lot, theactual writing.
The rough draft, three to fourmonths.
Everything else was lots of workthough.
Wow,
Brett Benner (11:44):
okay.
And so you have these, likecentral to the book are Birdie,
Sophie, Gert.
Mm-hmm.
And Carl.
Now some of these people areactually based on loosely, at
least mm-hmm.
Based on factual people,correct?
Milo Todd (11:57):
Yeah.
Yes and no.
So I have this weird thing whereI, unless I really, really need
to, I don't like using.
People like by name, who reallyexisted and using them in
fiction.
I don't like kind of taking realpeople and making them My
puppet.
Obviously a big exception hereis Dr.
Hirschfeld.
'cause you can't write this bookwithout hirschfeld.
Right?
(12:17):
But I tried to be sparing withthat anyway.
So ultimately the transmasculinecharacters, birdie, Carl and
Gert.
Were in their first names namedafter known trans-masculine,
intersex people who survived allthis mess.
And so I just kind of named themafter those people kind of as an
honor.
But otherwise, their lives don'treally have a lot in common.
(12:41):
That being like individually,that being said.
Birdie, Carl and Gert, theirlives are extremely factual in
terms of the trans, the, the,the transvestite community as it
was in the day.
That's very much factuallyaccurate, if that makes sense.
So it's like splitting hereslightly, but yeah.
Brett Benner (12:59):
No, a hundred percent.
Was there one character inparticular that you started
with?
Did you, let me also say this.
Did you know from the get gothat you were gonna break this
into you know, two seeminglyparallel storylines?
Milo Todd (13:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my intention and I'mglad it did work out because it
was ultimately, it's all of likea, a, a 30 year, length, really.
And so again, you know, youknow, Hitler comes to power 1933
in January, and then the warends for Germany in spring of
1945.
And so there's not that muchtime there.
(13:34):
And so, yeah, actually it's lessthan 30 years, but, I really
wanted to do both ends of thewar because I really wanted to
show how times can change andsometimes how quickly and how
precious human rights are andlike all this stuff and how, you
know, people will live throughthese huge changes in rights and
everything.
(13:54):
And just showing someone's kindof.
Not day-to-day, but justsomeone's particular experience
with that.
I really just wanted to get thatacross to folks and so I also,
so I knew I wanted to writeabout both those things, but I
also knew that I didn't want towrite about the time during
World War II itself, and this isnot an insult to anything else
(14:15):
that's out there, but I feelthere are plenty of books about
World War II itself out therethese days that I was like, you
know, there's really nothing newthat I can add.
To, to that genre, if we cancall that a genre like the World
War II genre.
Yeah.
So I wanted to do pretty muchthe before and the after,
because to me those were themost important parts for the
(14:36):
trans community and that likehuge whiplash of changes in, in
human rights.
So yes.
Brett Benner (14:43):
One of of the things I would love for you to
explain, first of all, a noteabout terminology.
Mm-hmm.
And you talk about this in thebeginning of the book and how
trans people.
Identified or what, what theywere even called.
The term third sex mm-hmm.
Comes up a lot.
But can you talk a little bitabout that?
I just found that fascinating.
Milo Todd (15:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the things I love aboutdoing research like this is
digging up the.
Former terminologies that thequeer and trans communities
used.
You know, I just think, I justfind that stuff so fascinating.
So yeah, there were multiplewords and, and terms and things
like that that the communityused or like.
Other folks used toward thecommunity?
(15:23):
Nothing necessarily meant to beinsulting, but yeah.
So there was the third sex, likeyou said this was I feel did
incorporate in sexualorientation in addition to
gender identity.
Mm-hmm.
The interesting thing about thethird sex is in German, and I'm
gonna mess up the pronunciation,sorry, German folks, Reta.
(15:46):
And so, interestingly enough.
When interpreted means gender,but also means sex.
So it's the same word.
And so I just find thatfascinating from a language
perspective.
So, you know, and I still wrapmy head around it and it's very
interesting.
So anyway, but yeah, it was usedtoward the trans community as
(16:06):
well as toward the, the, the gaycommunity and the queer
community as well.
And then of course there weredistinctions such as
transvestite, which was muchmore geared toward gender
identity versus a word likeinvert, which was geared much
more toward sexual orientation.
And then there were just somefun ones that they.
(16:27):
They both kind of shared the oneoff the top of my head is
stepchildren of Nature, which Iwas like, we need to bring that
term back.
Like, yeah, I like that.
I love that.
Yeah, I, I really like that one.
I know in one of, like one ofthe last drafts, I snuck that in
somewhere, so I don't even thinkit's in the arc, but
stepchildren of nature, I waslike, oh, I gotta put that in.
So, oh, I love that.
(16:48):
And then, you know, stuff likethat.
And then the one other thing Iwanna mention with terminology,
which is fascinating about thisera is.
This was around the time that atleast in the medical community
distinctions were being madebetween sexual orientation and
gender identity.
It used to be more lumpedtogether, and Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld and theInstitute of Sexual Science, the
(17:09):
Institute for Sexual VisionShift really started to piece
out those two differences.
And so this is when a word liketransvestite really started to
come up to be like, no, this isgender identity.
This isn't necessarily the same.
As sexual orientation.
So it was also a really bigmoment for that as well.
Brett Benner (17:26):
It's what's so kind of startling when you read
the book.
You know, the first thing being,again, I was one of those people
that didn't know about queer andtrans people being jailed when
they were liberated from camp.
So that's the first shock.
But you know, I understand it'sBerlin, it's 30, you know, 32
for anyone who has a limitedcapacity of really getting a
visual on that.
I was like, cabaret.
(17:47):
Yeah.
Oh, exactly.
Which is the world.
Right.
And especially like I, you know,this recent cabaret I I saw in
London mm-hmm.
The production, and it's such avisual counterpoint to this, and
it's so that is this world.
However, it's shocking the kindof things that were happening
just as we're talking here, thatnow would like, it seems so much
(18:10):
further ahead of it time.
Mm-hmm.
First of all, and we'll get intoit, the whole Institute for
Sexual Science, which, mm-hmm.
Again, when I first read it, Iwas like, well, this isn't real.
I mean, this is something he'smaking up and knowing that this
was a real institution was mindblowing.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'd love to get that in asecond, but the first thing I
wanna talk about is thetransvestite cards.
(18:30):
Mm-hmm.
Because this blew me away too.
I was like, that this actuallyexisted, which in a way was such
a protection for trans peopleand thinking about that in
today's day and age, I was like,this is mind baffling.
Can you talk about that for amoment?
Milo Todd (18:45):
Absolutely.
I, I love talking about thatstuff.
And to back up slightly firstthough, you had brought up
cabaret and I have this littlefun fact, which is, so at the
institute they also had likelittle living quarters sometimes
for guests, special guests,things like that.
And one of the people that theyhad a special guest was the
author, Christopher Isherwood.
(19:06):
Wow.
And he would then frequent.
Places like the El Dorado Club,which features in the, in my
book.
And he then wrote the book toBerlin, which ultimately became
cabaret.
And they believe the El DoradoClub was actually the
inspiration for the Kit KatClub.
Wow.
So just a fun fact there that I,I like to share.
(19:26):
'cause you brought up cabaret.
I'm like, oh, absolutely.
Cabaret.
They're actually very closelylinked.
Brett Benner (19:30):
Yeah, I have all of those is Isherwood diaries.
Yes.
And now I wanna dive into thoseand look, you know, with this
new knowledge, like, look stuffup and just dig in to see what's
in there.
Curious.
Yeah.
The one,
Milo Todd (19:42):
the one unfortunate thing and this is not, you know
a slight toward, towardChristopher Isherwood,'cause I
love his books, butunderstandably for the time, he,
he tries to straight wash it asmuch as possible, I'm sure.
But he was gay.
It's very gay.
You just have to look for thepieces.
So that's the one.
I wish it was gayer and he hadfelt free to just really, but I
understand that he couldn't, atthe time it was not safe.
(20:03):
Sure.
But but anyway, so yeah, thetrans, the transvestite cards, I
love talking about this.
So, here's the whole littlestory about that.
So in Berlin, in Germany, therewas lots of, you know, queer
rights that were being gainedand all this stuff, or
attempting to be gained and allthis lovely stuff.
And Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld was one of thepeople kind of leading that
charge.
And there were two differentparagraphs on, on the laws that
(20:27):
he was trying to get taken down.
The one was the, the infamousparagraph 1 75, which was the it
was anti sodomy law.
So that was, you know, againstqueer men and queer cis men and
all that stuff.
A paragraph called paragraph 1803.
And this was the anticross-dressing law.
And so he was unsuccessful ingetting these laws off the
books, unfortunately.
(20:47):
So he tries to do the next bestthing.
And in terms of paragraph 180 3,he's like, well, trans people
should be allowed to go outsidedressed as themselves without.
Getting arrested.
Right.
So he decides, well one of hisbig things was all about public
education, which we can talkmore about later if you'd like.
But for now, he was like, publiceducation education's the way to
go forward, and so I am going toeducate the police.
(21:11):
So he goes, the police, and heeducates them.
He has them come to theinstitute.
Look at the museum stuff.
Look at the library, talk withtrans people, all this stuff.
And it's like, look, these arejust normal people trying to
live their lives, right?
So let's like do something forthem.
So the police and hirschfeldcome up with the transvestite
(21:31):
card.
And this may sound a littledystopian to today's listeners,
which is understandable, butwhat happened was you would
basically be registered as atransvestite, as a trans person
through the institute, and Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld would talkwith you and be like, yes, it
sounds like quote unquote, youknow, wearing the clothes of the
opposite sex would be beneficialto you mentally.
(21:52):
And so.
They then would, with thepolice, take a, a photo of the
person dressed as themselves andpaste that to this little paper
card that essentially would sayyou know, so and so who lives at
such and such a dress.
And if applicable is like, worksat such and such place is hereby
known as wearing.
(22:13):
You know, men's clothes orwomen's clothes.
And so that was meant to be, youknow, leave this person alone.
Yes.
Paragraph 180 3 is in, is inplay, but don't, this person
doesn't count, if that makessense.
Mm-hmm.
So it was this really early wayof recognizing of what was quote
unquote cross-dressing and whatwas like a more of like a trans
(22:34):
identity thing.
And of course there's plenty ofcrossover, but they were
starting to kind of tease outthat distinction.
Not that cross-dressing shouldbe illegal, but you know what I
mean.
Right.
There's still that, still thoseearly signs of being able to
recognize trans people and theirspecific needs.
And so, you did have to carryyour card around all the time
which is, you know, sucks alittle bit.
(22:54):
And also I wanna recognize thatthis was very binary.
You know, this is very earlystages.
So if you were non-binary or youknow, didn't always identify as
a man or always identify as awoman or dress that way or what
have you, you were not as welloff with these cards.
But again, it was thebeginnings.
So anyway, you had to carry thiscard around you, but essentially
(23:15):
if someone on the street or apolice officer or someone like
say like, you didn't pass orsomeone suspected you and they
tried to stop you to like harassyou or arrest you or whatever,
you could pull out this card andthey'd be like, oh my bad.
Like, sorry.
And from what we know, it wasfairly effective.
so Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld and theInstitute were like famous by
(23:37):
this point.
It was a tourist stop forinternational tourists, it was a
whole thing'cause they wanted togo to the museum and get
education and stuff.
So Hirschfelds kind of famousand well respected and the
police respected him.
So, that people respected thecard and were like, oh, sorry.
Okay.
Basically you're one ofHirschfelds kids, is the way I
(23:57):
see it.
They're like, oh, we're notgonna mess with his kids.
And so it was very, veryeffective for the most part.
And the, the police toparaphrase, even made a public
statement saying thattransvestites were not.
Evil people.
They were not spies.
They were just people, whichagain, was very big for the
time.
And they were like, Heyeverybody, leave these folks
(24:19):
alone.
And one last piece I'll say fornow about the transvestite cards
is that based on my research,there's only one known surviving
card, and it is at the MagnusMagnus Hirschfeld Society in
Berlin.
And it's a place that started togather whatever remaining
materials there were.
For Hirschfeld and that time inthat institute, and so there's
(24:40):
one card left.
It belongs to Gerd Katter,K-A-T-T-E-R, and bless him, he
was a trans-masculine person.
Went to the Institute forHealthcare and stuff, wanted to
become a sexologist himself.
Did all this outreach for youthand stuff like that.
And he survived the war, heldonto all of his materials.
(25:02):
And as soon as the war was overin 1945, it's like, somebody,
please send this, someone,please take this stuff from me.
So it's safe.
I'm getting older, I'm gettingup there in years.
Unfortunately, nobody wanted it.
He was not successful until, Iwanna say the eighties when he
came across Ralph Doza, who wasa co-founder of the Magnus
Hirschfeld Society.
(25:23):
And.
Ralph dos is like, oh my God,gimme, gimme, gimme.
Like gimme all this stuff.
Yeah.
And GERD was really getting upthere in years by that point,
and I believe passed away in1996, something like that.
So bless Gerd Catter because himprotecting that stuff for
decades is, from what Iunderstand, one of the biggest
(25:43):
reasons we know what we knowabout the trans community.
At the institute at the time.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
That's
Brett Benner (25:49):
amazing.
Alright, so the institute, let'sget into it.
'cause I mean, it is, it's a,it's a really a central point in
this book.
It's a hub, it's a you know, somany of these characters meet
and come through there.
Can you kind of give an overviewof, of what it was?
Milo Todd (26:06):
Absolutely.
Yeah, so I love the instituteagain.
This is the Institute for SexualVision, shaft Institute for
Sexual Science.
And it was co-founded by Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld, who was a cisgay Jewish doctor.
And I believe it was founded in1919, somewhere around there.
And so yeah, this is a big deal.
(26:28):
It would be a big deal now.
It was a big deal back in theday.
Yeah.
And so this was this hugeinstitute that provided trans
related surgeries, like queerrelated healthcare as well.
They were some of the firstfolks trying to basically invent
hormone replacement therapy.
Ultimately, they wereunsuccessful, but they really
(26:49):
tried, and it actually did laythe groundwork for a lot of the.
HRT we have these days, which isawesome.
Anyone who's familiar with thetestosterone, HRT test Appel
that technically was invented atthe institute and was called
Titus Pearls.
But the institute was just hugefor the time.
So it, it was medical care.
It was psychiatric care in likethe positive way, not like the
(27:11):
detransition way for the record.
Yeah.
But psychiatric care, it was amuseum.
It was a library.
That's really important.
It was like tours.
They did tours all the time forthe public.
It was just an education place.
They would house special guestslike Christopher Isherwood.
They would sometimes hou whenthey could.
Safe space was very limited, butthey would house when they
(27:32):
could.
Trans people who couldn't findhousing'cause they were trans,
they would, when available, theywould try to hire trans people
as workers.
Because they also knew that wasdifficult for trans people to
do, to find work.
They did all sorts of stuff.
They had legal services, theyhad financial services.
If you were, if you could payfor this stuff, you paid for
this stuff.
If you couldn't, they would dowhat they could to cover it for
(27:54):
you.
And one of my favorite bits withthe public education thing is
they had this little box orlittle mailbox or something like
that outside, in the front ofthe, of the building on the
sidewalk.
And it was meant for you towrite down.
Questions anonymously and slipthem into the box.
And then once a week Dr.
Hirschfeld would gather up thosequestions and would lead an open
(28:16):
public like session as it wereat the institute in one of the
lecture halls.
And he would answer thesequestions.
For people.
And what's to me amazing aboutthis is just that really
welcoming energy of askingquestions to learn.
And also having this completelypublicly accessible, which meant
on any given week you would havelike the most renowned scientist
(28:38):
sitting next to a day laborerwho just wanted to learn more
about this.
So this was, all of this washuge, huge, huge, huge for the
time.
And this made.
The institute and Berlin likethe hub of trans and queer
rights education, medicine inthe entire colonized world.
And one last little fun bit isthat it got a very big thumbs up
(29:01):
from Albert Einstein among otherscientists.
Yeah, they had a, they had aframed photo of him in, in the
institute.
It, I believe it may have beensigned by Albert Einstein too,
but like he was very pro thisinstitute alongside all the
other scientists around
Brett Benner (29:17):
that.
That's incredible.
What I kept thinking the, theonly kind of a American
equivalent of anything close tothis was William Masters in
Virginia Johnson.
The whole Masters of Sex thing.
Yeah.
And that's what it reminded meof.
But on a grand scale, right?
Mm-hmm.
I, again, trying to wrap my headaround it.
(29:37):
In this current age of thisplace, actually existing, it
felt like some kind of Oz
Milo Todd (29:43):
yeah.
Yeah.
Like you could easily pass itoff as speculative fiction.
I'm like, oh, no, no, no.
This was over a hundred yearsago and it was 100% real.
Brett Benner (29:52):
Yeah.
And I know that Magnus was a,eventually, he, he was kind of
exiled to, to France Yes.
Where he ended up dying.
'cause he was put on, wasn't heput on Hitler's list as in terms
of someone who Yes.
Milo Todd (30:02):
So Magnus was so successful in all of his queer
and trans rights andanti-abortion stuff.
Like, and I mean like, he waspro-abortion.
He was trying to get theanti-abortion paragraph away.
So he was pro-abortion, pro allthat stuff.
And Hitler.
Was so angry about this, that,and I quote this, you know,
from, from German is Hitlercalled Hirschfeld the most
dangerous Jew in Germany.
(30:23):
And, and I'm not making a jokewhen I say coming from Hitler,
that is one hell of a statement.
Like, it's like he was publicenemy number one.
'cause he was such a threat tothe fascism and everything.
So this was like the massive dogwhistle for all of the Nazi
supporters and the Nazis and thefollowers and all that stuff to
be like, oh, we're gonna takeout hirschfeld.
And so Hitler came to powerJanuary 30th, 1933, or at least
(30:45):
became chancellor, excuse me.
And by just a few months later,May 6th.
1933, some Nazi youths came tothe institute and and ransacked
it.
They ripped it apart.
They stole all the materials,all from the library.
This was a huge loss to researchand history because the library
was known for holding or housingover 20,000 books and journals,
(31:08):
at least half of them.
Rare are the only known copies,and this was all about queer and
trans stuff from across theworld, as well as over 35,000
photographic slides of.
Queer and trans stuff from thearound the world.
And so a few days later, all ofthis stuff gets burned and this
giant bonfire at the opera platsin Berlin, and it's televised.
(31:29):
You know, Joseph gbo is there.
It's a whole propaganda thing.
It's a very frightening media tolook at, and it is the first
known queer, trans what have youbook banned in documented
history, which was a bookburning.
And I know going.
Off topic here, but I'll comeback.
But the other thing is that thephotographs that are often used
(31:49):
in, for instance, the historybooks of like the US talking
about book bans and you know,all this stuff that the Nazis
did, freedom of speech, all thisstuff, they will show photo
stills from that night.
They never seemed to actuallysay what specifically was being
burned that night.
So it's this weird doubleerasure.
(32:09):
They're like, look at thisterrible erasure that was
happening.
And then don't mention it wasjust the entirety of trans and
queer history that had beencollected up to that point.
It was a massive loss thatnight.
So anyway, this happens, it'stelevised, and originally the
Nazis were there to alsopresumably kill hirschfeld.
Because they're chanting thingslike Death to Hirschfeld and
(32:32):
Hirschfeld survived because hewasn't there.
He wasn't even in the country asluck would have it.
He was already on a world toureducating other countries about
queer and trans.
Wow stuff.
And so that saved his life.
And so he was in France by thetime he saw a movie reel, a film
(32:53):
reel that in a theater thatshowed all his stuff being
burned.
And obviously this was probablyincredibly devastating to him.
That was his life's work.
It was burned.
He knew he could never go back.
And so he never returned toGermany and he remained exiled
in France until his death, Iwanna say two years later on
his.
Birthday.
Unfortunately it was either aheart attack or a stroke most
(33:15):
likely.
But he did have a lovelybirthday, honestly, up until
that point.
So he was surrounded by lovedones.
But you know, I sometimes wonderif it was like one of those
broken heart scenarios.
'cause that's a lot to take.
Brett Benner (33:26):
Oh my God.
I mean, it's that whole.
Part of the book is its own.
It could be its own book.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because Ikept thinking, wow, this could
be a series unto itself.
Mm-hmm.
Just this institute and this manand this kind of world that all
of these characters comethrough.
One of the things you talkedabout, workers there many times
(33:46):
were employed, were transindividuals.
And I love that.
This quote that you talkedabout, there was a.
Character in the book named DoraRichter, who worked there.
She was one of the housekeepers.
Mm-hmm.
At the institute.
But it said Birdie who Birdiealso works at the Institute.
Mm-hmm.
It said Birdie sometimes spottedher and the four other
housekeepers with the souls ofwomen sitting close together.
(34:09):
And when I first read that, thatkind of took my breath away
because it said everything aboutwho they were, the souls of
women.
And I love that so much.
It brings up so much stuff thatyou take that you know, so many
things we take for granted, liketalking about hormones.
Talking about things that, theway that people presented
themselves before, what is beenin a lot of ways readily
(34:30):
available now.
I kept thinking about that,about changing your appearance
and how you changed yourappearance.
And there's a, a wonderfulsequence because clarification,
just for.
For our listeners, birdie andSophie are two of the
characters.
They do escape the initial risein what happens.
So everything happening in 1945really centers around them.
And this character Carl, whothey find who has, once the
(34:54):
camps are liberated, escapesbefore he is captured.
And so they help him, which iswhat the kind of, the second
part of the book, or thealternate part I should say, of
the book is, but there's a,there's a.
It's a kind of almost sweetsequence of birdie teaching
Carl.
Yeah.
Have kind of masculinemannerisms and how to kind of,
(35:15):
to blend effectively, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Milo Todd (35:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
To essentially pass, becauseYeah, their lives literally
depend on it, so, yeah.
Brett Benner (35:22):
Yeah.
It's, it's a weird resonancebecause pulling up to current
day when Trump.
Got elected.
Mm-hmm.
Again, I know that watching somany, you know, I follow a lot
of trans individuals onInstagram, but a lot of them
talking about either, oh gosh, Ihope I get this terminology rate
(35:45):
going dark, or in terms of youngpeople Yeah.
Protecting themselves mm-hmm.
Over these next four years, andit broke my heart, but I thought
of this so much like, again,doing what you have to do to
protect yourself.
To get through this effectively.
Yeah, yeah.
It's heartbreaking.
Milo Todd (36:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And it is, again, book wasn'tmeant to be timely, but here we
are and it is, you know, therewere multiple things that the
whole, like birdie kind ofguiding.
Carl in terms of passing and howto talk and your mannerisms and
your walking and all, and youknow how to dress, you know, all
this stuff.
You know, I, I do think it, it'svery bittersweet because there's
(36:27):
a, there's a wonderfultenderness there, but also it's
very sad that this has to bedone because, at least for Carl.
You know, it's not so much thatit's, it's dysphoria for him
necessarily, but it is, herecognizes I need to do this if
I wanna survive.
And so it's this touching onsometimes to this day, you know,
trans people need to go stealthor, or go dark in either
(36:50):
direction.
Brett Benner (36:51):
I.
Because stealth, that
Milo Todd (36:51):
was it.
Yeah.
Or just try to pass or what haveyou, because sometimes it's not
so much dysphoria.
It is a survival technique,which, you know, a lot of folks
still need to this day.
So I wanted to recognize that.
Recognize that, you know, it'snot as easy as like, oh, you cut
your hair and put on pants, andnow you pat like it's, it's.
It's not that easy and there's alot of work that goes into it.
(37:13):
A lot of energy, a lot of mentalenergy, a lot of physical
energy.
And the other thing beingcommunity.
Yeah.
And especially how the olderones look after the younger ones
and it kind of doesn't reallymatter what your age is.
If you're older, you are thementor to the, to the younger
ones and it kind of tricklesdown that way.
And so it's just also trying toembody that as well.
(37:36):
So.
Yeah.
I'm glad that that resonatedwith you to some degree because
there, there was a lot ofsymbolism I tried to put into
those passages that are quitebittersweet.
Brett Benner (37:45):
No, and I think one of the things that the book,
kind of, the messaging of thebook ultimately is about what
you just said is community, andit's about the importance
because, you know.
Look, you're not a soothsayer.
And I, as I'm reading this, myfirst thought was like, how does
the queer community, but mostspecifically the trans
community, because they're beingtargeted.
So you know, front and centerright now, the ridiculousness of
(38:09):
it is, is beyond, I mean.
You know, anyone with half abrain can see how silly this all
is.
As, as I saw someone wroteyesterday, they were like, fun
fact, Donald Trump has moreallegations of sexual assault
against him than there are transathletes.
I.
I saw that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's so true.
And, but, but this is whateverybody, this is what the
(38:32):
Republican party wants to focuson now because we have to make
an enemy, right?
Mm-hmm.
We have to make, someone's gonnacome into the bathroom and
assault you.
And as someone else said, ifwhat you're afraid of is a man
in a dress coming into thebathroom Yeah.
You're not afraid of a transperson.
Milo Todd (38:46):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And that's
Brett Benner (38:48):
really, that's really the truth.
And again, it's what I startedto say in the beginning there, I
think.
This novel, you know, you didn'tplan it, of course.
Mm-hmm.
But the value of it is soimportant to not only show and
humanize again, that these arejust people trying to live their
lives and live their best livesand their most authentic lives
(39:09):
against this authoritarianregime, which is exactly what's
happening.
Again, the parallels arehorrifically.
for everything that's going onnow in terms of erasure and in
terms of, with the blackcommunity as well and what
they're doing and, and it's justtaking all kinds of identity
away from people.
And so it did give me, by thetime I finished this, an
(39:32):
incredible amount of hope forperseverance and that, look,
this book shows.
Trans people have always beenaround.
Queer people have always beenaround.
They will always be around.
They will never be eradicated,and they will never be,
regardless of what anybody triesto do or what they try to say,
(39:52):
it's, it's just not gonnahappen.
Yeah,
Milo Todd (39:54):
yeah,
Brett Benner (39:55):
absolutely.
And and, and that's anotherreason I just, I think the book
is so great because it showsthat, it shows that, you know
what?
And it brings up so manyquestions too, about just
survival, what people need to doto survive.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I questioned the ideaof, you know, what would you do
in this situation?
How would you react?
Is it that one should stand upand fight at the risk of death?
(40:18):
Or is it that one should surviveat all costs?
And I don't know the answer tothat necessarily.
Milo Todd (40:23):
Yeah.
And, and that, and thank you forbringing that up.
'cause I that is something Itried to grapple with in this
book where there isn'tnecessarily only ever one answer
when it comes to like survivalor standing up for human rights
and stuff.
It is I mean, and at least thisis, this is how I do things, but
like, sometimes survival meansyou have to pick your battles.
Brett Benner (40:43):
Yeah.
And
Milo Todd (40:43):
so there are certain situations that Birdie and the
others get into and it's like,okay, like.
Will we live to see tomorrow ifwe actually stand up for what is
genuinely right or is thatbasically just, just suicide?
Like, you know, is it reallyhelpful for us to take the, the
death route essentially knowingwe stood up for what was right
(41:04):
versus staying quiet and livingto kind of tell our story later?
You know, there, there are prosand cons to both and it's really
just analyzing your particularsituation and how to move
forward with survival and it'svery messy.
It's very, very messy stuff andlike you said, people don't
really know what they are or arenot gonna do until they are in
(41:24):
that actual situation.
Brett Benner (41:27):
A hundred percent.
It's also an interesting thingtoo, looking at Carl versus
Sophie and Birdie who, whoavoided Luckily, yeah.
The camps and they escaped.
But Carl who went through it,yeah.
Who was actually in the campsand then escaped.
So there's a whole differentmindset for him in terms of
survival and in terms of wherehe's at when we first see him.
(41:50):
Mm-hmm.
Which is really fascinating.
Milo Todd (41:52):
Yeah, he is.
He is, and I say this verylovingly, he's a very broken
character when he comes on thescene.
He has seen some stuff and.
Going back briefly to the whole,like, how long this book take
you to write thing there, youknow, no spoilers for the
listeners, but there's a chapterthat I just refer to as Carl's
monologue and yeah, you'll knowit when you get to it.
We'll put it that way.
(42:12):
And that, and it's all of like,I don't know, four pages.
It's a very small amount of, ofpage length, and yet the
research and the planning andthe editing that went into that.
Honestly took me that scenealone, I wanna say, took me
somewhere between six and 12months.
It was, and I was like just sodedicated to it.
And it's kind of wild when yousee how tiny that passage is in
(42:36):
the end.
But it was, it was worth it forme, but it was, so, yeah, he's,
he's a very broken character andI really tried to illustrate
that, especially in that type ofscene.
Brett Benner (42:45):
No.
And, and, and, and how could younot be?
Milo Todd (42:48):
Yeah.
Brett Benner (42:48):
You know, how really, how could you not be?
So, I just wanna say thank youso much for this book.
It's, it's, it's reallyincredible.
It's really beautiful.
I mean, I, I, I, I found myselfweeping at the end of it and I
just, it's so incredibly movingand I, as I said.
I started to say in thebeginning, I, I think there is,
is such value in this and alsojust the history and I think
(43:12):
it's so important.
You know, that whole, what wedon't learn, it repeats itself
and here we are.
And I think it's important alsofor the queer community to know
all of this.
And I just think many peopledon't, frankly.
So I so appreciate.
The time you put into this, theresearch you put into this?
(43:33):
Just the sharing of all thisinformation.
I, I, I, I I think it's not onlygreat in a literature part of
it, but just the, the, thehistory and on what you've
given.
So thank you so much.
Milo Todd (43:47):
Well thank you so much.
That's really, really sweet ofyou to say it.
It does mean a lot to me.
'cause that's.
All I ever wanted from this bookwas for these, this community to
be remembered and for people toknow what they went through and
kind of do my part to undo someof that erasure and come back,
bring back the kind of the honorof this community.
So thank you all for all ofthat.
That's all I ever wanted and I.
You know, anyone listening outthere, we got really tough times
(44:10):
right now.
There's gonna be probablytougher times ahead'cause that's
just how history works.
But as I've been telling folks,you know, look back at your
transistors, you know, look backat history and all these folks
that have endured things before,you know, so as I've been
telling folks, you know, theghost of history are watching.
Kissing our foreheads.
So kind of hold onto that.
We'll get through this and, youknow, thank you everyone for,
(44:32):
for listening to me nerd out onthis history with Brett.
No, it's, I mean, it, no, it's,
Brett Benner (44:36):
it's, it's, it's so funny'cause we, we talked so
lightly about the actual plotpoints of the book, which I kind
of wanted to be that way becauseI don't want to.
Ruin any of that part of thebook for the people.
And so much of it to me is aboutthe history and it is about the
world that these people areinhabiting.
Mm-hmm.
And so thank you for this'causeit's, you know, been an
incredible history lesson, butplease buy the book, buy
(44:58):
independent.
If you can, congratulations.
Thank you.
It's truly a, a terrific noveland good luck with all of it.
Milo Todd (45:05):
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for having mehere, Brett.
I love talking with you andwonderful questions that you
asked, and thank you everyonefor, for listening as well.
Thank you again, Milo.
And if you like thisconversation and are enjoying
this podcast, please considerliking and subscribing from your
podcast platform of choice.
(45:25):
Also, if you have a little bitof extra time and you wouldn't
mind giving a review, that wouldbe amazing.
Reviews help move a podcast upthrough the, uh, reviews help.
Okay.
Reviews absolutely help with thealgorithm in terms of making
(45:47):
more people become aware ofparticular podcasts.
So if you do like this podcast,please consider leaving a review
as well.
Thank you so much for listening,and I'll be back again next
week.
Thanks again for listening, andI'll be back again next week.
Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner and welcome or
welcome back to another episodeof Behind the Stack.
It's one of these big publishingdays.
There seems to be, we're on aroll of a lot of them now as we
gear up into the summer, andthere's a couple books I wanted
to talk about before we get intotoday's conversation.
The first is the Jenna Pick ofthe Month, which is the names by
(00:23):
Florence Knapp.
This has gotten so muchpre-publication Buzz, a kind of
sliding doors.
that deals with a person's name.
Another big book that is outtoday that, I was hoping to have
read already and I have not, isthe new Wally Lamb book.
The river is waiting.
I'm sure it's going to containlots of pathos and tragedy and
(00:47):
ultimately redemption.
I'm really, really excited forthat one though.
Another Biggie is My Friends byFrederick Bachman.
Do you know I've never read anyFrederick Bachman and I have
Beartown because people seem tobe so crazy about that.
But this one is kind of reallycalling to me.
It says it's an unforgettably,funny, deeply moving tale of
four teenagers who friendshipcreates a bond so powerful that
(01:10):
it changes a complete stranger'slife 25 years later.
So I'm definitely gonna bechecking this out.
Also out today is the Manner ofDreams by Christina Lee, which
is described as American Gothicmeets the seven husbands of
Evelyn Hugo, about the secretsthat lion weight and the
crumbling mansion of a formerHollywood starlet and the
intertwined fates of the twofamilies fighting to inherit it.
(01:37):
So that sounds reallyinteresting.
Then there's an anthology outtoday called Edge of the World,
an Anthology of Queer Travelwritings.
That's an inclusive lgbtq plustravel anthology that explores
what it means to be a queerperson moving through the world
with contributors like AlexanderChi, Edward White, Daisy
(01:57):
Hernandez.
Den, Michelle Norris, GarrettConley, Genevieve Hudson.
So this looks really cool.
And that's out today as well.
And then the last book I wannagive a shout out today is by
debut author Jemima Wei.
It's called The OriginalDaughter.
In this dazzling debut, Stagnerfellow Jemima Way explores the
(02:17):
formation and dissolution offamily bonds and his story of
ambition and sisterhood in turnof the Millennium Singapore.
I absolutely loved this book,and Jemima was just named, one
of five authors under 35,fiction writers whose work
promises to leave a lastingimpression on the literary
landscape from the National BookFoundation.
(02:38):
All this to say also Jemima willbe my guest next week on Behind
the Stack, so look for that aswell.
But let us get on to today'sauthor.
today I'm sitting down with MiloTodd, who.
Has written this incredible bookcalled The Lilac People.
I was first drawn to this bookbecause of its cover, which is
so incredible.
(02:59):
It's been getting amazingpre-publication reviews.
The book came out last week.
it had gotten incrediblepre-publication reviews.
I read this and was completelyblown away, and I have to say.
Of all the conversations I'vehad so far on this podcast, this
right now is probably one of themost pertinent And unfortunately
(03:19):
timely books for what'shappening in the United States
at this moment.
especially in regards to transpeople, but frankly all
marginalized groups.
It's a really interestingconversation and frankly, I felt
just fortunate to be able tohave this discussion.
a little bit about Milo.
He is the CO EIC at Fog LifterJournal runs the Queer Writer
Newsletter and teaches creativewriting in history primarily to
(03:43):
queer and trans adults.
He's received awards, accolades,and fellowships from such places
as Lambda Literary Tin House,pitch Wars, grub Street, Monson
Arts, and the MassachusettsCultural Council.
and this is his literary debut.
So please enjoy this episode ofBehind the Stack.
(04:07):
I'm thrilled to be sitting downtoday with Milo Todd, whose new
book The Lilac People is just,it's so beautiful.
I, I was, I was so incrediblymoved by it and it feels beyond
timely and, and necessary.
So thank you so much for or forsitting down with me today.
Milo Todd (04:26):
Oh, absolutely.
And again, I'm really, reallyhappy to be here.
Thanks for getting in touch andall that lovely stuff, Brett.
And yeah.
Was not.
Intended to be timely, but herewe are.
So, yeah.
Brett Benner (04:40):
Yeah.
You know, I remember when Ifirst saw this, first of all,
for our listeners, this cover isso gorgeous.
I mean, it's gorgeous, which wasone of the first things that,
that drew me in.
Can you talk for just a momentabout the artist who did the
cover?
Milo Todd (04:54):
Sure.
Absolutely.
So the cover artist, I, I, well,I remember they gave me a few
different options to choose fromand, I saw this one and was
like, oh, absolutely have tohave this cover.
It's wonderful.
And so the cover designer Iactually, I also have my, in my
acknowledgements which is AnaYasmin and just I thought did
(05:18):
fantastic work on this cover,really embodied what the book
was all about.
I never.
I never really imagined what mycover would look like.
Mm.
But when I saw this, I was like,Ooh.
Like that's just, it's, I, I, I,you know, and maybe everyone
says this about their own cover,but I was like, this is
beautiful.
Like, this is just, and itreally embodies what the book is
about.
And I feel also really you know,you first, I like to think, you
(05:40):
know, a reader will first seethe cover and be like, oh,
that's beautiful.
And then when they finish thebook and look at the cover
again, they're like, there's alot more happening in this
cover.
Sure.
Like after the fact with thecontext.
And I just, I adore this cover.
Brett Benner (05:53):
Yeah, no, it's beautiful.
And for our listeners, it almostlooks like a watercolor of a man
standing in a wheat field.
Mm-hmm.
Kind of putting his hands out,but the colors and the clouds
and it's beautiful.
But also just the texture of thecover is so amazing as well.
Yeah.
And what she's done with.
With texture and it's reallystunning.
You know, this is truly a casewhere you can judge a book by
(06:13):
its cover.
Milo Todd (06:15):
Well, thank you.
I, I, I can take no creditobviously for the cover itself,
but I do think they did a greatjob with that cover.
I.
Brett Benner (06:22):
Yeah.
They really did.
So for our listeners, do youhave an elevator pitch of the
book?
Oh,
Milo Todd (06:28):
sure.
So the elevator pitch isessentially this.
What we would now call a transman relinquish his freedoms of
pre-war Berlin, meaningpre-World War ii.
And he first survives the Nazisby hiding in plain sight, and
then has to survive the Alliedforces for reasons that I'm sure
we'll get into today while wetalk.
(06:49):
Right?
And he, he needs to protect, youknow, his, his his loved ones
from, from this, this new, thisnew threat, unfortunately.
Brett Benner (06:59):
Yeah.
And so the action moves fromroughly 19 31, 32, and then 19.
Is it 1945?
Am I correct?
Yeah,
Milo Todd (07:06):
yeah.
1932 is like the quote unquotepast storyline timeline there.
And then 1945 is the, the morequote unquote present timeline
because it's just before Hitlercame to power and then just a
week or so after the war endedfor Germany.
Brett Benner (07:23):
Yeah.
And so the, the obviousquestion.
That begs to be asked is, youknow, what inspired this for
you?
How did you go down this kind ofrabbit hole?
Because it really is a rabbithole.
And I have to say, one of thethings that the book does is, I
found myself finding out so manythings I didn't.
No.
Mm-hmm.
And it was interesting going inand reading people's comments
(07:44):
about reviews of the book, andso many people don't know parts
of this history, which isanother reason why I think that
the book has such particularvalue beyond being just a great
story.
But yeah.
What started this for you?
Milo Todd (07:56):
Yeah.
Well, th again, you know, thankyou for the, for the kind words.
And all of that.
I've been really, reallygrateful for the response.
This book has gotten so far,really grateful for it.
And so the origin story was backin, I wanna say maybe 20 16, 20
17, something like that.
And I, back when social mediawas not the cesspool that it is
(08:16):
now, I was like, you know, goingthrough whatever, and I was
scrolling through something, myfeed on somewhere, and I don't
even remember who posted this.
I think it was just a strangerout in the world.
So whoever that was.
Thank you very much, stranger.
So I was scrolling through andjust saw this little like meme
like post that just saidsomething like, do you know or
(08:37):
did you know that when theAllied forces came to liberate
the camps, the concentrationcamps.
That they let everyone go exceptfor the queer and trans people,
and they put them in jailinstead for the crime of being
queer and trans.
And so I'm looking at this andI'm like, that can't be true.
Like that can't be true.
And me being me, I looked it upand it was true, and that just
(09:00):
broke open that whole.
Just like, he's like just wentinto that rabbit hole and I was
just like, I need to find outmore about this.
What the heck?
And I just started uncoveringmore and more and more and more
stuff.
And that in some ways I feel thebook kind of wrote itself.
I was like, all this is truestuff.
So I just kind of put astoryline to it.
And yeah, that's the shortversion.
That's the origin story.
(09:21):
It was a meme.
On social media.
Brett Benner (09:23):
And then how long did it take you to write?
Like when did you start theactual writing of it?
Milo Todd (09:27):
Yeah, so the whole process I, I really wanted this
to be as accurate of a book aspossible.
So a lot of the time actuallywent into the research and I
wanna say I, among other things,I had to learn German.
All right.
And if there's, if there's onething, I do not regret this
book, I'm so proud that Ifinished this book, but if
there's one thing President Milowould go back in time for, for
(09:50):
past Milo, it's just to slap himat least once in the face to be
like, in what universe?
You're like, yeah, I'll learnGerman.
Okay.
Like it was, you know, I don'tregret it, but I was like, oh my
God, what were you thinking?
But it was so important to meand I really wanted, you know.
As an English speaking person inthe United States, really wanted
to know more about this history.
So anyway, so I wanna say theresearch and the outlining of
(10:14):
the book itself, I wanna saymaybe three years, something
like that, really committed to.
I'm also very big on planning mybooks before I write them.
'cause the last thing I everwanna do is write a whole book
and then find out somethingfactually is wrong and I have to
rip the entire book apart, youknow?
Yeah, that's a big nightmare forme.
So anyway, so a lot of it wasplanning, outlining all the
(10:35):
research for maybe, I wanna saylike three years or so, the
rough draft.
I'm very tough, love with myselffor rough drafts.
And so, because I had all theplanning done, the rough draft I
think took me maybe three tofour months to write.
Wow.
And then all the rest of thattime was editing, drafting beta
readers, all that stuff whichmaybe was another year or so.
(10:55):
And then any remaining time, Ican't do math, but any remaining
time that's in there.
Was working with my agent on thebook a little bit, cleaning it
up more, him sending it out topublishers, waiting to hear back
from publishers.
'cause you know, that takesforever.
And then of course someoneacquired it.
Counterpoint Press.
I adore them.
Shout out to Dan Lopez, who wasthe editor that was like, yes.
(11:15):
And also, I should do a shoutout to my, my agent Mike Duo,
who sadly left the agency jobforce to a much bigger, very
exciting job.
But anyway, so I miss him, but Ilove him.
And so anyway, so then the restof the time was just all that
stuff and, you know, the wholeslow production slog of doing
even more editing and all that.
(11:36):
And so here we are.
So it was, it was a lot, theactual writing.
The rough draft, three to fourmonths.
Everything else was lots of workthough.
Wow,
Brett Benner (11:44):
okay.
And so you have these, likecentral to the book are Birdie,
Sophie, Gert.
Mm-hmm.
And Carl.
Now some of these people areactually based on loosely, at
least mm-hmm.
Based on factual people,correct?
Milo Todd (11:57):
Yeah.
Yes and no.
So I have this weird thing whereI, unless I really, really need
to, I don't like using.
People like by name, who reallyexisted and using them in
fiction.
I don't like kind of taking realpeople and making them My
puppet.
Obviously a big exception hereis Dr.
Hirschfeld.
'cause you can't write this bookwithout hirschfeld.
Right?
(12:17):
But I tried to be sparing withthat anyway.
So ultimately the transmasculinecharacters, birdie, Carl and
Gert.
Were in their first names namedafter known trans-masculine,
intersex people who survived allthis mess.
And so I just kind of named themafter those people kind of as an
honor.
But otherwise, their lives don'treally have a lot in common.
(12:41):
That being like individually,that being said.
Birdie, Carl and Gert, theirlives are extremely factual in
terms of the trans, the, the,the transvestite community as it
was in the day.
That's very much factuallyaccurate, if that makes sense.
So it's like splitting hereslightly, but yeah.
Brett Benner (12:59):
No, a hundred percent.
Was there one character inparticular that you started
with?
Did you, let me also say this.
Did you know from the get gothat you were gonna break this
into you know, two seeminglyparallel storylines?
Milo Todd (13:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my intention and I'mglad it did work out because it
was ultimately, it's all of likea, a, a 30 year, length, really.
And so again, you know, youknow, Hitler comes to power 1933
in January, and then the warends for Germany in spring of
1945.
And so there's not that muchtime there.
(13:34):
And so, yeah, actually it's lessthan 30 years, but, I really
wanted to do both ends of thewar because I really wanted to
show how times can change andsometimes how quickly and how
precious human rights are andlike all this stuff and how, you
know, people will live throughthese huge changes in rights and
everything.
(13:54):
And just showing someone's kindof.
Not day-to-day, but justsomeone's particular experience
with that.
I really just wanted to get thatacross to folks and so I also,
so I knew I wanted to writeabout both those things, but I
also knew that I didn't want towrite about the time during
World War II itself, and this isnot an insult to anything else
(14:15):
that's out there, but I feelthere are plenty of books about
World War II itself out therethese days that I was like, you
know, there's really nothing newthat I can add.
To, to that genre, if we cancall that a genre like the World
War II genre.
Yeah.
So I wanted to do pretty muchthe before and the after,
because to me those were themost important parts for the
(14:36):
trans community and that likehuge whiplash of changes in, in
human rights.
So yes.
Brett Benner (14:43):
One of of the things I would love for you to
explain, first of all, a noteabout terminology.
Mm-hmm.
And you talk about this in thebeginning of the book and how
trans people.
Identified or what, what theywere even called.
The term third sex mm-hmm.
Comes up a lot.
But can you talk a little bitabout that?
I just found that fascinating.
Milo Todd (15:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the things I love aboutdoing research like this is
digging up the.
Former terminologies that thequeer and trans communities
used.
You know, I just think, I justfind that stuff so fascinating.
So yeah, there were multiplewords and, and terms and things
like that that the communityused or like.
Other folks used toward thecommunity?
(15:23):
Nothing necessarily meant to beinsulting, but yeah.
So there was the third sex, likeyou said this was I feel did
incorporate in sexualorientation in addition to
gender identity.
Mm-hmm.
The interesting thing about thethird sex is in German, and I'm
gonna mess up the pronunciation,sorry, German folks, Reta.
(15:46):
And so, interestingly enough.
When interpreted means gender,but also means sex.
So it's the same word.
And so I just find thatfascinating from a language
perspective.
So, you know, and I still wrapmy head around it and it's very
interesting.
So anyway, but yeah, it was usedtoward the trans community as
(16:06):
well as toward the, the, the gaycommunity and the queer
community as well.
And then of course there weredistinctions such as
transvestite, which was muchmore geared toward gender
identity versus a word likeinvert, which was geared much
more toward sexual orientation.
And then there were just somefun ones that they.
(16:27):
They both kind of shared the oneoff the top of my head is
stepchildren of Nature, which Iwas like, we need to bring that
term back.
Like, yeah, I like that.
I love that.
Yeah, I, I really like that one.
I know in one of, like one ofthe last drafts, I snuck that in
somewhere, so I don't even thinkit's in the arc, but
stepchildren of nature, I waslike, oh, I gotta put that in.
So, oh, I love that.
(16:48):
And then, you know, stuff likethat.
And then the one other thing Iwanna mention with terminology,
which is fascinating about thisera is.
This was around the time that atleast in the medical community
distinctions were being madebetween sexual orientation and
gender identity.
It used to be more lumpedtogether, and Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld and theInstitute of Sexual Science, the
(17:09):
Institute for Sexual VisionShift really started to piece
out those two differences.
And so this is when a word liketransvestite really started to
come up to be like, no, this isgender identity.
This isn't necessarily the same.
As sexual orientation.
So it was also a really bigmoment for that as well.
Brett Benner (17:26):
It's what's so kind of startling when you read
the book.
You know, the first thing being,again, I was one of those people
that didn't know about queer andtrans people being jailed when
they were liberated from camp.
So that's the first shock.
But you know, I understand it'sBerlin, it's 30, you know, 32
for anyone who has a limitedcapacity of really getting a
visual on that.
I was like, cabaret.
(17:47):
Yeah.
Oh, exactly.
Which is the world.
Right.
And especially like I, you know,this recent cabaret I I saw in
London mm-hmm.
The production, and it's such avisual counterpoint to this, and
it's so that is this world.
However, it's shocking the kindof things that were happening
just as we're talking here, thatnow would like, it seems so much
(18:10):
further ahead of it time.
Mm-hmm.
First of all, and we'll get intoit, the whole Institute for
Sexual Science, which, mm-hmm.
Again, when I first read it, Iwas like, well, this isn't real.
I mean, this is something he'smaking up and knowing that this
was a real institution was mindblowing.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'd love to get that in asecond, but the first thing I
wanna talk about is thetransvestite cards.
(18:30):
Mm-hmm.
Because this blew me away too.
I was like, that this actuallyexisted, which in a way was such
a protection for trans peopleand thinking about that in
today's day and age, I was like,this is mind baffling.
Can you talk about that for amoment?
Milo Todd (18:45):
Absolutely.
I, I love talking about thatstuff.
And to back up slightly firstthough, you had brought up
cabaret and I have this littlefun fact, which is, so at the
institute they also had likelittle living quarters sometimes
for guests, special guests,things like that.
And one of the people that theyhad a special guest was the
author, Christopher Isherwood.
(19:06):
Wow.
And he would then frequent.
Places like the El Dorado Club,which features in the, in my
book.
And he then wrote the book toBerlin, which ultimately became
cabaret.
And they believe the El DoradoClub was actually the
inspiration for the Kit KatClub.
Wow.
So just a fun fact there that I,I like to share.
(19:26):
'cause you brought up cabaret.
I'm like, oh, absolutely.
Cabaret.
They're actually very closelylinked.
Brett Benner (19:30):
Yeah, I have all of those is Isherwood diaries.
Yes.
And now I wanna dive into thoseand look, you know, with this
new knowledge, like, look stuffup and just dig in to see what's
in there.
Curious.
Yeah.
The one,
Milo Todd (19:42):
the one unfortunate thing and this is not, you know
a slight toward, towardChristopher Isherwood,'cause I
love his books, butunderstandably for the time, he,
he tries to straight wash it asmuch as possible, I'm sure.
But he was gay.
It's very gay.
You just have to look for thepieces.
So that's the one.
I wish it was gayer and he hadfelt free to just really, but I
understand that he couldn't, atthe time it was not safe.
(20:03):
Sure.
But but anyway, so yeah, thetrans, the transvestite cards, I
love talking about this.
So, here's the whole littlestory about that.
So in Berlin, in Germany, therewas lots of, you know, queer
rights that were being gainedand all this stuff, or
attempting to be gained and allthis lovely stuff.
And Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld was one of thepeople kind of leading that
charge.
And there were two differentparagraphs on, on the laws that
(20:27):
he was trying to get taken down.
The one was the, the infamousparagraph 1 75, which was the it
was anti sodomy law.
So that was, you know, againstqueer men and queer cis men and
all that stuff.
A paragraph called paragraph 1803.
And this was the anticross-dressing law.
And so he was unsuccessful ingetting these laws off the
books, unfortunately.
(20:47):
So he tries to do the next bestthing.
And in terms of paragraph 180 3,he's like, well, trans people
should be allowed to go outsidedressed as themselves without.
Getting arrested.
Right.
So he decides, well one of hisbig things was all about public
education, which we can talkmore about later if you'd like.
But for now, he was like, publiceducation education's the way to
go forward, and so I am going toeducate the police.
(21:11):
So he goes, the police, and heeducates them.
He has them come to theinstitute.
Look at the museum stuff.
Look at the library, talk withtrans people, all this stuff.
And it's like, look, these arejust normal people trying to
live their lives, right?
So let's like do something forthem.
So the police and hirschfeldcome up with the transvestite
(21:31):
card.
And this may sound a littledystopian to today's listeners,
which is understandable, butwhat happened was you would
basically be registered as atransvestite, as a trans person
through the institute, and Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld would talkwith you and be like, yes, it
sounds like quote unquote, youknow, wearing the clothes of the
opposite sex would be beneficialto you mentally.
(21:52):
And so.
They then would, with thepolice, take a, a photo of the
person dressed as themselves andpaste that to this little paper
card that essentially would sayyou know, so and so who lives at
such and such a dress.
And if applicable is like, worksat such and such place is hereby
known as wearing.
(22:13):
You know, men's clothes orwomen's clothes.
And so that was meant to be, youknow, leave this person alone.
Yes.
Paragraph 180 3 is in, is inplay, but don't, this person
doesn't count, if that makessense.
Mm-hmm.
So it was this really early wayof recognizing of what was quote
unquote cross-dressing and whatwas like a more of like a trans
(22:34):
identity thing.
And of course there's plenty ofcrossover, but they were
starting to kind of tease outthat distinction.
Not that cross-dressing shouldbe illegal, but you know what I
mean.
Right.
There's still that, still thoseearly signs of being able to
recognize trans people and theirspecific needs.
And so, you did have to carryyour card around all the time
which is, you know, sucks alittle bit.
(22:54):
And also I wanna recognize thatthis was very binary.
You know, this is very earlystages.
So if you were non-binary or youknow, didn't always identify as
a man or always identify as awoman or dress that way or what
have you, you were not as welloff with these cards.
But again, it was thebeginnings.
So anyway, you had to carry thiscard around you, but essentially
(23:15):
if someone on the street or apolice officer or someone like
say like, you didn't pass orsomeone suspected you and they
tried to stop you to like harassyou or arrest you or whatever,
you could pull out this card andthey'd be like, oh my bad.
Like, sorry.
And from what we know, it wasfairly effective.
so Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld and theInstitute were like famous by
(23:37):
this point.
It was a tourist stop forinternational tourists, it was a
whole thing'cause they wanted togo to the museum and get
education and stuff.
So Hirschfelds kind of famousand well respected and the
police respected him.
So, that people respected thecard and were like, oh, sorry.
Okay.
Basically you're one ofHirschfelds kids, is the way I
(23:57):
see it.
They're like, oh, we're notgonna mess with his kids.
And so it was very, veryeffective for the most part.
And the, the police toparaphrase, even made a public
statement saying thattransvestites were not.
Evil people.
They were not spies.
They were just people, whichagain, was very big for the
time.
And they were like, Heyeverybody, leave these folks
(24:19):
alone.
And one last piece I'll say fornow about the transvestite cards
is that based on my research,there's only one known surviving
card, and it is at the MagnusMagnus Hirschfeld Society in
Berlin.
And it's a place that started togather whatever remaining
materials there were.
For Hirschfeld and that time inthat institute, and so there's
(24:40):
one card left.
It belongs to Gerd Katter,K-A-T-T-E-R, and bless him, he
was a trans-masculine person.
Went to the Institute forHealthcare and stuff, wanted to
become a sexologist himself.
Did all this outreach for youthand stuff like that.
And he survived the war, heldonto all of his materials.
(25:02):
And as soon as the war was overin 1945, it's like, somebody,
please send this, someone,please take this stuff from me.
So it's safe.
I'm getting older, I'm gettingup there in years.
Unfortunately, nobody wanted it.
He was not successful until, Iwanna say the eighties when he
came across Ralph Doza, who wasa co-founder of the Magnus
Hirschfeld Society.
(25:23):
And.
Ralph dos is like, oh my God,gimme, gimme, gimme.
Like gimme all this stuff.
Yeah.
And GERD was really getting upthere in years by that point,
and I believe passed away in1996, something like that.
So bless Gerd Catter because himprotecting that stuff for
decades is, from what Iunderstand, one of the biggest
(25:43):
reasons we know what we knowabout the trans community.
At the institute at the time.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
That's
Brett Benner (25:49):
amazing.
Alright, so the institute, let'sget into it.
'cause I mean, it is, it's a,it's a really a central point in
this book.
It's a hub, it's a you know, somany of these characters meet
and come through there.
Can you kind of give an overviewof, of what it was?
Milo Todd (26:06):
Absolutely.
Yeah, so I love the instituteagain.
This is the Institute for SexualVision, shaft Institute for
Sexual Science.
And it was co-founded by Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld, who was a cisgay Jewish doctor.
And I believe it was founded in1919, somewhere around there.
And so yeah, this is a big deal.
(26:28):
It would be a big deal now.
It was a big deal back in theday.
Yeah.
And so this was this hugeinstitute that provided trans
related surgeries, like queerrelated healthcare as well.
They were some of the firstfolks trying to basically invent
hormone replacement therapy.
Ultimately, they wereunsuccessful, but they really
(26:49):
tried, and it actually did laythe groundwork for a lot of the.
HRT we have these days, which isawesome.
Anyone who's familiar with thetestosterone, HRT test Appel
that technically was invented atthe institute and was called
Titus Pearls.
But the institute was just hugefor the time.
So it, it was medical care.
It was psychiatric care in likethe positive way, not like the
(27:11):
detransition way for the record.
Yeah.
But psychiatric care, it was amuseum.
It was a library.
That's really important.
It was like tours.
They did tours all the time forthe public.
It was just an education place.
They would house special guestslike Christopher Isherwood.
They would sometimes hou whenthey could.
Safe space was very limited, butthey would house when they
(27:32):
could.
Trans people who couldn't findhousing'cause they were trans,
they would, when available, theywould try to hire trans people
as workers.
Because they also knew that wasdifficult for trans people to
do, to find work.
They did all sorts of stuff.
They had legal services, theyhad financial services.
If you were, if you could payfor this stuff, you paid for
this stuff.
If you couldn't, they would dowhat they could to cover it for
(27:54):
you.
And one of my favorite bits withthe public education thing is
they had this little box orlittle mailbox or something like
that outside, in the front ofthe, of the building on the
sidewalk.
And it was meant for you towrite down.
Questions anonymously and slipthem into the box.
And then once a week Dr.
Hirschfeld would gather up thosequestions and would lead an open
(28:16):
public like session as it wereat the institute in one of the
lecture halls.
And he would answer thesequestions.
For people.
And what's to me amazing aboutthis is just that really
welcoming energy of askingquestions to learn.
And also having this completelypublicly accessible, which meant
on any given week you would havelike the most renowned scientist
(28:38):
sitting next to a day laborerwho just wanted to learn more
about this.
So this was, all of this washuge, huge, huge, huge for the
time.
And this made.
The institute and Berlin likethe hub of trans and queer
rights education, medicine inthe entire colonized world.
And one last little fun bit isthat it got a very big thumbs up
(29:01):
from Albert Einstein among otherscientists.
Yeah, they had a, they had aframed photo of him in, in the
institute.
It, I believe it may have beensigned by Albert Einstein too,
but like he was very pro thisinstitute alongside all the
other scientists around
Brett Benner (29:17):
that.
That's incredible.
What I kept thinking the, theonly kind of a American
equivalent of anything close tothis was William Masters in
Virginia Johnson.
The whole Masters of Sex thing.
Yeah.
And that's what it reminded meof.
But on a grand scale, right?
Mm-hmm.
I, again, trying to wrap my headaround it.
(29:37):
In this current age of thisplace, actually existing, it
felt like some kind of Oz
Milo Todd (29:43):
yeah.
Yeah.
Like you could easily pass itoff as speculative fiction.
I'm like, oh, no, no, no.
This was over a hundred yearsago and it was 100% real.
Brett Benner (29:52):
Yeah.
And I know that Magnus was a,eventually, he, he was kind of
exiled to, to France Yes.
Where he ended up dying.
'cause he was put on, wasn't heput on Hitler's list as in terms
of someone who Yes.
Milo Todd (30:02):
So Magnus was so successful in all of his queer
and trans rights andanti-abortion stuff.
Like, and I mean like, he waspro-abortion.
He was trying to get theanti-abortion paragraph away.
So he was pro-abortion, pro allthat stuff.
And Hitler.
Was so angry about this, that,and I quote this, you know,
from, from German is Hitlercalled Hirschfeld the most
dangerous Jew in Germany.
(30:23):
And, and I'm not making a jokewhen I say coming from Hitler,
that is one hell of a statement.
Like, it's like he was publicenemy number one.
'cause he was such a threat tothe fascism and everything.
So this was like the massive dogwhistle for all of the Nazi
supporters and the Nazis and thefollowers and all that stuff to
be like, oh, we're gonna takeout hirschfeld.
And so Hitler came to powerJanuary 30th, 1933, or at least
(30:45):
became chancellor, excuse me.
And by just a few months later,May 6th.
1933, some Nazi youths came tothe institute and and ransacked
it.
They ripped it apart.
They stole all the materials,all from the library.
This was a huge loss to researchand history because the library
was known for holding or housingover 20,000 books and journals,
(31:08):
at least half of them.
Rare are the only known copies,and this was all about queer and
trans stuff from across theworld, as well as over 35,000
photographic slides of.
Queer and trans stuff from thearound the world.
And so a few days later, all ofthis stuff gets burned and this
giant bonfire at the opera platsin Berlin, and it's televised.
(31:29):
You know, Joseph gbo is there.
It's a whole propaganda thing.
It's a very frightening media tolook at, and it is the first
known queer, trans what have youbook banned in documented
history, which was a bookburning.
And I know going.
Off topic here, but I'll comeback.
But the other thing is that thephotographs that are often used
(31:49):
in, for instance, the historybooks of like the US talking
about book bans and you know,all this stuff that the Nazis
did, freedom of speech, all thisstuff, they will show photo
stills from that night.
They never seemed to actuallysay what specifically was being
burned that night.
So it's this weird doubleerasure.
(32:09):
They're like, look at thisterrible erasure that was
happening.
And then don't mention it wasjust the entirety of trans and
queer history that had beencollected up to that point.
It was a massive loss thatnight.
So anyway, this happens, it'stelevised, and originally the
Nazis were there to alsopresumably kill hirschfeld.
Because they're chanting thingslike Death to Hirschfeld and
(32:32):
Hirschfeld survived because hewasn't there.
He wasn't even in the country asluck would have it.
He was already on a world toureducating other countries about
queer and trans.
Wow stuff.
And so that saved his life.
And so he was in France by thetime he saw a movie reel, a film
(32:53):
reel that in a theater thatshowed all his stuff being
burned.
And obviously this was probablyincredibly devastating to him.
That was his life's work.
It was burned.
He knew he could never go back.
And so he never returned toGermany and he remained exiled
in France until his death, Iwanna say two years later on
his.
Birthday.
Unfortunately it was either aheart attack or a stroke most
(33:15):
likely.
But he did have a lovelybirthday, honestly, up until
that point.
So he was surrounded by lovedones.
But you know, I sometimes wonderif it was like one of those
broken heart scenarios.
'cause that's a lot to take.
Brett Benner (33:26):
Oh my God.
I mean, it's that whole.
Part of the book is its own.
It could be its own book.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because Ikept thinking, wow, this could
be a series unto itself.
Mm-hmm.
Just this institute and this manand this kind of world that all
of these characters comethrough.
One of the things you talkedabout, workers there many times
(33:46):
were employed, were transindividuals.
And I love that.
This quote that you talkedabout, there was a.
Character in the book named DoraRichter, who worked there.
She was one of the housekeepers.
Mm-hmm.
At the institute.
But it said Birdie who Birdiealso works at the Institute.
Mm-hmm.
It said Birdie sometimes spottedher and the four other
housekeepers with the souls ofwomen sitting close together.
(34:09):
And when I first read that, thatkind of took my breath away
because it said everything aboutwho they were, the souls of
women.
And I love that so much.
It brings up so much stuff thatyou take that you know, so many
things we take for granted, liketalking about hormones.
Talking about things that, theway that people presented
themselves before, what is beenin a lot of ways readily
(34:30):
available now.
I kept thinking about that,about changing your appearance
and how you changed yourappearance.
And there's a, a wonderfulsequence because clarification,
just for.
For our listeners, birdie andSophie are two of the
characters.
They do escape the initial risein what happens.
So everything happening in 1945really centers around them.
And this character Carl, whothey find who has, once the
(34:54):
camps are liberated, escapesbefore he is captured.
And so they help him, which iswhat the kind of, the second
part of the book, or thealternate part I should say, of
the book is, but there's a,there's a.
It's a kind of almost sweetsequence of birdie teaching
Carl.
Yeah.
Have kind of masculinemannerisms and how to kind of,
(35:15):
to blend effectively, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Milo Todd (35:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
To essentially pass, becauseYeah, their lives literally
depend on it, so, yeah.
Brett Benner (35:22):
Yeah.
It's, it's a weird resonancebecause pulling up to current
day when Trump.
Got elected.
Mm-hmm.
Again, I know that watching somany, you know, I follow a lot
of trans individuals onInstagram, but a lot of them
talking about either, oh gosh, Ihope I get this terminology rate
(35:45):
going dark, or in terms of youngpeople Yeah.
Protecting themselves mm-hmm.
Over these next four years, andit broke my heart, but I thought
of this so much like, again,doing what you have to do to
protect yourself.
To get through this effectively.
Yeah, yeah.
It's heartbreaking.
Milo Todd (36:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And it is, again, book wasn'tmeant to be timely, but here we
are and it is, you know, therewere multiple things that the
whole, like birdie kind ofguiding.
Carl in terms of passing and howto talk and your mannerisms and
your walking and all, and youknow how to dress, you know, all
this stuff.
You know, I, I do think it, it'svery bittersweet because there's
(36:27):
a, there's a wonderfultenderness there, but also it's
very sad that this has to bedone because, at least for Carl.
You know, it's not so much thatit's, it's dysphoria for him
necessarily, but it is, herecognizes I need to do this if
I wanna survive.
And so it's this touching onsometimes to this day, you know,
trans people need to go stealthor, or go dark in either
(36:50):
direction.
Brett Benner (36:51):
I.
Because stealth, that
Milo Todd (36:51):
was it.
Yeah.
Or just try to pass or what haveyou, because sometimes it's not
so much dysphoria.
It is a survival technique,which, you know, a lot of folks
still need to this day.
So I wanted to recognize that.
Recognize that, you know, it'snot as easy as like, oh, you cut
your hair and put on pants, andnow you pat like it's, it's.
It's not that easy and there's alot of work that goes into it.
(37:13):
A lot of energy, a lot of mentalenergy, a lot of physical
energy.
And the other thing beingcommunity.
Yeah.
And especially how the olderones look after the younger ones
and it kind of doesn't reallymatter what your age is.
If you're older, you are thementor to the, to the younger
ones and it kind of tricklesdown that way.
And so it's just also trying toembody that as well.
(37:36):
So.
Yeah.
I'm glad that that resonatedwith you to some degree because
there, there was a lot ofsymbolism I tried to put into
those passages that are quitebittersweet.
Brett Benner (37:45):
No, and I think one of the things that the book,
kind of, the messaging of thebook ultimately is about what
you just said is community, andit's about the importance
because, you know.
Look, you're not a soothsayer.
And I, as I'm reading this, myfirst thought was like, how does
the queer community, but mostspecifically the trans
community, because they're beingtargeted.
So you know, front and centerright now, the ridiculousness of
(38:09):
it is, is beyond, I mean.
You know, anyone with half abrain can see how silly this all
is.
As, as I saw someone wroteyesterday, they were like, fun
fact, Donald Trump has moreallegations of sexual assault
against him than there are transathletes.
I.
I saw that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's so true.
And, but, but this is whateverybody, this is what the
(38:32):
Republican party wants to focuson now because we have to make
an enemy, right?
Mm-hmm.
We have to make, someone's gonnacome into the bathroom and
assault you.
And as someone else said, ifwhat you're afraid of is a man
in a dress coming into thebathroom Yeah.
You're not afraid of a transperson.
Milo Todd (38:46):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And that's
Brett Benner (38:48):
really, that's really the truth.
And again, it's what I startedto say in the beginning there, I
think.
This novel, you know, you didn'tplan it, of course.
Mm-hmm.
But the value of it is soimportant to not only show and
humanize again, that these arejust people trying to live their
lives and live their best livesand their most authentic lives
(39:09):
against this authoritarianregime, which is exactly what's
happening.
Again, the parallels arehorrifically.
for everything that's going onnow in terms of erasure and in
terms of, with the blackcommunity as well and what
they're doing and, and it's justtaking all kinds of identity
away from people.
And so it did give me, by thetime I finished this, an
(39:32):
incredible amount of hope forperseverance and that, look,
this book shows.
Trans people have always beenaround.
Queer people have always beenaround.
They will always be around.
They will never be eradicated,and they will never be,
regardless of what anybody triesto do or what they try to say,
(39:52):
it's, it's just not gonnahappen.
Yeah,
Milo Todd (39:54):
yeah,
Brett Benner (39:55):
absolutely.
And and, and that's anotherreason I just, I think the book
is so great because it showsthat, it shows that, you know
what?
And it brings up so manyquestions too, about just
survival, what people need to doto survive.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I questioned the ideaof, you know, what would you do
in this situation?
How would you react?
Is it that one should stand upand fight at the risk of death?
(40:18):
Or is it that one should surviveat all costs?
And I don't know the answer tothat necessarily.
Milo Todd (40:23):
Yeah.
And, and that, and thank you forbringing that up.
'cause I that is something Itried to grapple with in this
book where there isn'tnecessarily only ever one answer
when it comes to like survivalor standing up for human rights
and stuff.
It is I mean, and at least thisis, this is how I do things, but
like, sometimes survival meansyou have to pick your battles.
Brett Benner (40:43):
Yeah.
And
Milo Todd (40:43):
so there are certain situations that Birdie and the
others get into and it's like,okay, like.
Will we live to see tomorrow ifwe actually stand up for what is
genuinely right or is thatbasically just, just suicide?
Like, you know, is it reallyhelpful for us to take the, the
death route essentially knowingwe stood up for what was right
(41:04):
versus staying quiet and livingto kind of tell our story later?
You know, there, there are prosand cons to both and it's really
just analyzing your particularsituation and how to move
forward with survival and it'svery messy.
It's very, very messy stuff andlike you said, people don't
really know what they are or arenot gonna do until they are in
(41:24):
that actual situation.
Brett Benner (41:27):
A hundred percent.
It's also an interesting thingtoo, looking at Carl versus
Sophie and Birdie who, whoavoided Luckily, yeah.
The camps and they escaped.
But Carl who went through it,yeah.
Who was actually in the campsand then escaped.
So there's a whole differentmindset for him in terms of
survival and in terms of wherehe's at when we first see him.
(41:50):
Mm-hmm.
Which is really fascinating.
Milo Todd (41:52):
Yeah, he is.
He is, and I say this verylovingly, he's a very broken
character when he comes on thescene.
He has seen some stuff and.
Going back briefly to the whole,like, how long this book take
you to write thing there, youknow, no spoilers for the
listeners, but there's a chapterthat I just refer to as Carl's
monologue and yeah, you'll knowit when you get to it.
We'll put it that way.
(42:12):
And that, and it's all of like,I don't know, four pages.
It's a very small amount of, ofpage length, and yet the
research and the planning andthe editing that went into that.
Honestly took me that scenealone, I wanna say, took me
somewhere between six and 12months.
It was, and I was like just sodedicated to it.
And it's kind of wild when yousee how tiny that passage is in
(42:36):
the end.
But it was, it was worth it forme, but it was, so, yeah, he's,
he's a very broken character andI really tried to illustrate
that, especially in that type ofscene.
Brett Benner (42:45):
No.
And, and, and, and how could younot be?
Milo Todd (42:48):
Yeah.
Brett Benner (42:48):
You know, how really, how could you not be?
So, I just wanna say thank youso much for this book.
It's, it's, it's reallyincredible.
It's really beautiful.
I mean, I, I, I, I found myselfweeping at the end of it and I
just, it's so incredibly movingand I, as I said.
I started to say in thebeginning, I, I think there is,
is such value in this and alsojust the history and I think
(43:12):
it's so important.
You know, that whole, what wedon't learn, it repeats itself
and here we are.
And I think it's important alsofor the queer community to know
all of this.
And I just think many peopledon't, frankly.
So I so appreciate.
The time you put into this, theresearch you put into this?
(43:33):
Just the sharing of all thisinformation.
I, I, I, I I think it's not onlygreat in a literature part of
it, but just the, the, thehistory and on what you've
given.
So thank you so much.
Milo Todd (43:47):
Well thank you so much.
That's really, really sweet ofyou to say it.
It does mean a lot to me.
'cause that's.
All I ever wanted from this bookwas for these, this community to
be remembered and for people toknow what they went through and
kind of do my part to undo someof that erasure and come back,
bring back the kind of the honorof this community.
So thank you all for all ofthat.
That's all I ever wanted and I.
You know, anyone listening outthere, we got really tough times
(44:10):
right now.
There's gonna be probablytougher times ahead'cause that's
just how history works.
But as I've been telling folks,you know, look back at your
transistors, you know, look backat history and all these folks
that have endured things before,you know, so as I've been
telling folks, you know, theghost of history are watching.
Kissing our foreheads.
So kind of hold onto that.
We'll get through this and, youknow, thank you everyone for,
(44:32):
for listening to me nerd out onthis history with Brett.
No, it's, I mean, it, no, it's,
Brett Benner (44:36):
it's, it's, it's so funny'cause we, we talked so
lightly about the actual plotpoints of the book, which I kind
of wanted to be that way becauseI don't want to.
Ruin any of that part of thebook for the people.
And so much of it to me is aboutthe history and it is about the
world that these people areinhabiting.
Mm-hmm.
And so thank you for this'causeit's, you know, been an
incredible history lesson, butplease buy the book, buy
(44:58):
independent.
If you can, congratulations.
Thank you.
It's truly a, a terrific noveland good luck with all of it.
Milo Todd (45:05):
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for having mehere, Brett.
I love talking with you andwonderful questions that you
asked, and thank you everyonefor, for listening as well.
Thank you again, Milo.
And if you like thisconversation and are enjoying
this podcast, please considerliking and subscribing from your
podcast platform of choice.
(45:25):
Also, if you have a little bitof extra time and you wouldn't
mind giving a review, that wouldbe amazing.
Reviews help move a podcast upthrough the, uh, reviews help.
Okay.
Reviews absolutely help with thealgorithm in terms of making
(45:47):
more people become aware ofparticular podcasts.
So if you do like this podcast,please consider leaving a review
as well.
Thank you so much for listening,and I'll be back again next
week.
Thanks again for listening, andI'll be back again next week.
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