Advocating direct action and the outing of homophobes, Brand denounced Hirschfeld’s “queeny committee” as a talking shop of respectable, middle-class homosexualists. Some of it’s more radical supporters adapted the battle cry of the French Revolution, demanding: “Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite, Homosexualite!”Īs well as having to contend with the complacency and disparagement of other gay people, Hirschfeld was also attacked from left by militant OutRage!-style campaigners led by Adolf Brand. The 1890s equivalent of the UK gay lobby group Stonewall, the SHC’s motto was: “Justice through science”. Its strategy was to promote research and education on all sexual matters in particular to debunk homophobic prejudice and to present a rational case for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Realising that his lone efforts were not enough, in 1897 Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (SHC). They refused to co-operate with his sex surveys and law reform campaigns. They mostly accepted their second-class legal status. One of Hirschfeld’s biggest problems was hostility from other gays and lesbians. Hirschfeld’s prescription? Lots of gay parties and plenty of boyfriends!
When his family advised him to study something more worthy and respectable like cholera, arguing that research into homosexuality will not bring him any acclaim or joy, Hirschfeld riposted: “What are you saying: that cholera brings you more joy than sexuality?”Īs his pro-gay reputation spread, more and more men who were unhappy with their homosexuality came to him as patients. Hirschfeld’s terrible guilt and remorse motivated him to begin studying homosexuality and, eventually, to write a pamphlet calling for the decriminalisation of gay sex, which was then outlawed under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code. Overnight, however, the soldier committed suicide. Hirschfeld resisted the soldier’s pleading for a consultation there and then, telling him to come to his surgery the next day. All the others, even his best friend, viewed it as normal and justified.įurther trauma ensued when, soon after setting up himself as a doctor in Berlin in 1893, he was waylaid outside his apartment at night by a soldier who was deeply disturbed by his homosexuality. Hirschfeld was the only student revolted by such mistreatment. Against the conventions of his era and the moralism of his elders, even as a young boy he viewed sexuality as something entirely natural and wholesome.Īt medical school, he was traumatised by a lecture on ‘sexual degeneracy’, where a gay man – who had been incarcerated in an asylum for 30 years because of his homosexuality – was paraded naked before the students like a laboratory animal.
During his childhood he developed a curiosity and fascination with sex. Hirschfeld was born into a conservative Jewish family in what was then Prussia in 1868. A similar movement did not emerge in Britain until the 1960s, over half a century later. His Scientific Humanitarian Committee, founded in Germany in 1897, trail-blazed the struggle for homosexual emancipation. Whereas Wilde merely lamented the persecution of LGBTI people, Hirschfeld organised to fight it. While Oscar Wilde was being tormented in Reading Gaol, Hirschfeld launched the world’s first gay rights organisation in Berlin. He was battling against the ignorance and prejudice of centuries. That took immense courage – and determination. Over 100 years ago, the gay German sexologist Dr Magnus Hirschfeld pioneered the understanding of human sexuality and the advocacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) human rights at a time when it was deeply unpopular to do so. Gay, Jewish & socialist, he challenged Weimar & Nazi homophobia
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