The following column is meant to shed light on certain days or events that have shaped LGBTQ+ history. In the past few years and decades alone, there have been so many changes and events all around the world that have shaped the lives of the members of this group. In this column, however, I would like to go all the way back to the end of the 19th century, or December 1897 to be more precise, in order to delve further into the history and to look at some of the stepping stones when it comes to LGBTQ+ activism.
During this month, German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) started a petition to repeal paragraph 175 in the German penal code. He has done this together with the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee) – that he had founded earlier that year together with publisher Max Spohr (1850-1905), lawyer Eduard Oberg (1858-1917), and writer Franz Joseph von Bülow (1861-1915). This action was the first step in a decade-long fight against said paragraph.
The paragraph in question was a provision that made homosexual acts between men a crime. It was first adopted in 1871, shortly after the unification of Germany, and was deleted only over a century later in 1994. An attempt had been made to broaden the provision to criminalize homosexual acts between women as well, but the proposal was abandoned in 1907. Overall, a number of around 140,000 men were convicted under this law, especially many of them during the Nazi era.
To tie it all back to the petition launched in December 1897, paragraph 175 has been seen as controversial since its introduction, and had specially gathered attention during the 1890s, when sexual reformers fought against this "disgraceful paragraph". With the start of the petition in December 1897, said reformers hoped to repeal the paragraph before it could cause immense harm. Under the leadership of Magnus Hirschfeld, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee managed to amass over 5000 signatures, including some very prominent signatories, such as physician Albert Einstein (1879-1955), poet Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), and novelist Thomas Mann (1875-1955). In 1898, the petition was eventually brought forward to the Reichstag with Hirschfeld's friend and member of the Social Democratic Party, August Bebel (1840-1913), as a sponsor.
Unfortunately, the petition only received minor support and was dismissed. It was brought up later on during the Weimar Republic, but eventually failed again due to the increased activity of the Nazi-party. It was only many decades later, in the 1990s, when the "disgraceful paragraph" 175 was finally abolished, and homosexual acts between men were no longer considered a crime in Germany. It might seem like the effort that had been put in back in December 1897 had been for nothing as the petition's main goal had only been achieved almost a century later, but I personally believe that this moment of fighting back has had a major impact on LGBTQ+ history in general and Germany specifically.
While the petition itself had been unsuccessful, it had brought awareness to the German people on different issues related to sexuality, certainly also due to the support of many influential and prominent individuals. Additionally, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee did not simply stop their work once the petition had been made. They were not only the first LGBTQ+ rights organization, but also went on to lead several campaigns for the social recognition of gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women and also against their legal persecution.
All in all, I find that this example of LGBTQ+ history shows that it is important to stand up and fight against discrimination of any sort as much as possible. Even if attempting to do so might seem useless and might fail similar to the petition launched in December 1897, giving up is not the right way to go. Sometimes it takes several attempts over the span of several decades, or in this case, even over the span of a century and more to achieve certain goals, and while we might not be the ones that see a world where everyone is seen as equal and as having the same rights, we should still try our best to give the people in the future this opportunity. It might take a century and the work of several generations but if there is a chance to speed up this process by doing something even small, it seems reasonable to think that we should actually do that something.
