In brief:
Activists living under Germany’s Weimar Republic worked to separate homosexuality from pedophilia in the minds of the public, laying the groundwork for what is taught in the U.S. today, like the idea that children are “sexual from birth.”
The idea of consent was key; these activists said children could consent to things like sex-change surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and sex with adults.
Sex activist Harry Benjamin believed some people were not homosexuals but were instead “born in the wrong body” and could be ‘cured’ through ‘transition.’
Influenced by earlier activists, leaders in the transgender movement helped to establish standards for sex education, a model still used today for sex ed curricula in schools. Their ideas infiltrated every institution in the U.S.