Recently in the magazine, Alex Ross wrote about the little known history of gay rights in Germany in the late nineteen and early twentieth century. He joins Amelia Lester on this week’s Out Loud podcast to discuss how many of the ideas that we consider foundational to the modern gay-rights movement were first articulated in Germany more than a hundred years ago, and why this period is often overlooked. “German culture over the last couple centuries is so often seen through the lens of Hitler, of the Nazi period,” he says. “We tend to omit aspects of the story that don’t fit that narrative. And this astonishingly progressive movement around gay rights is an example of something that just doesn’t fit our stereotype.”​