Germany’s foremost national history museum has launched an exhibition covering 150 years of the history, politics and culture of gays.

Homosexuality_ies, a collaboration between the Deutsches Historisches Museum and the Schwules Museum, examines how same-sex sexuality and non-conformist gender identities have been criminalised through legislation, pathologised in medicine and excluded from society.

The exhibition traces the legislative development of Paragraph 175 of the German penal code (rescinded in 1994), which criminalised “homosexual acts”, as well as documenting the increased persecution of gay citizens during the Nazi era.

German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters told AP that the show “puts the current debate about legal equality into a historical context” and that it shows “how hard-fought the progress we can speak of today was.”

Homosexuality_ies runs June 26-December 1 at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.