Early Homosexual Rights Movement, 1864-1935 by John Lauritsen

by John Lauritsen

Important early work on gay history.

Genres: History, LGBT, Politics, Nonfiction

91 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Beginning in 1966, John Lauritsen established a career as a market research executive and analyst. But he also has been a gay activist and scholar since the earliest days of the gay liberation movement.

In the summer of 1969 he joined the Gay Liberation Front, and edited Come Out!, the first publication of the post-Stonewall gay movement. He joined the Gay Activists Alliance in 1974, and served as Delegate-At-Large. And in the same year he joined the Gay Academic Union, of which he later became a National Director. He was a member of the Columbia University Seminar on Homosexualities.

With the advent of the gay health crisis in the early 80s, Lauritsen became an investigative journalist and a leading “AIDS critic” (one who rejects the official AIDS model, including the HIV-Causes-AIDS hypothesis). His main outlet was the New York Native, which from 1985 to 1996 published over 50 of his articles. These articles have been described by the leading science and medical correspondent of the Sunday Times (London) as “the most trenchantly informative, irreverent, funny and tragic writing of the Aids years” (Neville Hodgkinson, Aids: The Failure of Contemporary Science, London 1996).

In addition to the Native, John Lauritsen’s articles have appeared in publications as diverse as Gay Books Bulletin, Gay Times (London), Civil Liberties Review, The Freethinker (London), Journal of Homosexuality, Christopher Street, Gay & Lesbian Humanist, Gay & Lesbian Review, Bio/Technology, and The Lancet. His writings have been translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.

Reviews

[Sky Harrison]

An interesting and rare book. Seems that it did not receive much interest in it's time.
The politics of the text are excellent using a light Trotskyist analysis of the early LGBT+ movement. Specifically his understanding of the russian revolution and counter revolution of Stalin are excellent albeit embellished at moment.

Double check facts due to its age but excellent read. A logical follow up would be "Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia" by Dan Healy

[James]

A work that is, admittedly, dated, yet still captures a previously unexplored time and place in the study of those who fought, protested, agitated, and risked much to champion sexual identities before World War II. While, again, some of the language and arguments may be seen as dated, the references to historical figures and their works, pamphlets, and speeches provides insight into how arguments for gender and sexual equality have a global history that warrant attention. Worth a read to anyone looking at the history of social organizing for equality.

[Marc Lichtman]

There is some very valuable material here, as well as some material that doesn't fit, like about gay members of the Stormtroopers (SA).

I haven't seen the updated version. David Thorstad went on to join the reactionary Man-Boy Love Association. I really never knew John Lauritsen.

[arthur]

interesting short read, albeit limited in many ways! i found this book useful for tracking the documented history of European homosexual rights thinkers and activists from 1864 to 1935. overall the book’s shortcomings are eurocentrism and gay male-centrism—which would be one thing if it were self-consciously that way, but its perspective is more totalizing, making it seem like this slice of history is all there is. i feel like this limited scope makes for an oversight in what lesbians and trans people were up to at the time. although, they did manage to hit on the interesting point that many European lesbians, rather than joining the gay rights movement, subsumed into the larger women’s rights movement as a whole, since many anti-gay laws were directed at male homosexuals specifically and lesbians were oppressed on the mere basis of being women

some of my biggest post-read takeaways: the origins of the word “Uranian” (and how popular that terminology was to describe gays in the late 1800’s), how intertwined the communist movements were with gay rights movements (even though back then they had their fair share of anti-gay reactionaries as well), how disappointing and devastating Stalinism’s rightward turn on gay rights was, and how interesting the various strains of thoughts were about gays in Europe in this time period (i.e., is it inborn or socialized? are gay people a distinctly third sex?). now, other things i thought were cool in a list format:
- It’s always inspiring to read about historical figures who were waaayyyy ahead of their time in many ways, like Edward Carpenter and Benedict Friedlander. his defense of gay people being revolutionary echoes Huey Newton’s famous statement that “perhaps the homosexual is the most revolutionary of all”
- interesting how Magnus Hirschfeld started out thinking gays were a distinct third/intermediate sex, and the book traces out how his thinking evolved over the course of his life, eventually coming into more alignment with historical materialism (p. 55)
- fucked up what happened to Oscar Wilde, i never knew about the trial and jailtime that eventually cost him his life :,(
- found it fascinating how the World League for Sexual Reform ultimately dissolved because of the differing political bends of its presidents!!: Haire was a liberal who thought their activist program should exclude all revolutionary activity, while Leunbach thought the only way the WLSR could reach its goals was *through* revolution (p. 50). So many similarities to today!

coda: the afterword on the second publication makes some valid critiques on the contemporary gay rights’ movement’s focus on assimilation and gay marriage (hard agree!!), but the author totally lost me by advocating to naturalize pederasty and discontinue use of the word “queer”, lol, as well as arguing mainstream gay rights orgs are too “politically correct”, which is a whole can of worms

[María]

UranistaS berlineses que sorpresa