The Gay Capal of the Neteenth Century | The New Yorker

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

* berlin gay history *

Still, he had an effect: a few liberal-md lleagu accepted his notn of an nate gay inty, and a Bavarian official privately nfsed to siar yearngs. ”The first chapter of Robert Beachy’s “Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty” (Knopf) begs wh an acunt of Ulrichs’s dac act.

The tle of the chapter, “The German Inventn of Homosexualy, ” telegraphs a prcipal argument of the book: although same-sex love is as old as love self, the public disurse around , and the polil movement to w rights for , arose Germany the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri. This msage may surprise those who believe that gay inty me of age London and New York, sometime between the Osr Wil trials and the Stonewall rts. The btal reprsn of gay people durg the Nazi perd largely erased German gay history om ternatnal nscns, and even om German memory.

Beachy, a historian who teach at Yonsei Universy, Seoul, ends his book by notg that Germans hold gay-pri celebratns each June on what is known as Christopher Street Day, honor of the street where the Stonewall prott unfold. Gayns is st as an Amerin import. Ulrichs, sentially the first gay activist, enuntered censorship and end up gog to exile, but his ias very gradually took hold.

BERL & GAY LIBERATN LONG BEFORE STONEWALL

The right-wg rurgence Germany rells prewar Berl. It may signal an omo turn for the untry’s gay muny. * berlin gay history *

In 1869, an Atrian ltératr named Karl Maria Kertbeny, who was also opposed to sodomy laws, ed the term “homosexualy. ” In the eighteen-eighti, a Berl police missner gave up prosecutg gay bars and stead stuted a policy of bemed tolerance, gog so far as to lead tours of a growg mimon.

In 1896, Der Eigene (“The Self-Owng”), the first gay magaze, began publitn. The next year, the physician Magn Hirschfeld found the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, the first gay-rights anizatn. By the begng of the twentieth century, a non of gay lerature had emerged (one early advote ed the phrase “Stayg silent is ath, ” nearly a century before aids activists ed the slogan “Silence = Death”); activists were bemoang negative pictns of homosexualy (Thomas Mann’s “Death Venice” was one target); there were bat over the ethics of outg; and a schism opened between an clive, mastream factn and a more rto, anarchistic wg.

In the neteen-twenti, wh gay films and pop songs circulatn, a mass movement seemed at hand. In 1929, the Reichstag moved toward the crimalizatn of homosexualy, although the chaos ed by that fall’s stock-market crash prevented a fal did all this happen Germany?

10 FACTS ON THE ORIGS OF GAY RIGHTS BERL

Wh CSD and KCSD g up (Jun 27), glter and gaiety will be out on the streets full force, but Berl has always been ahead of the queer curve. Here's a timele of the LGBTQ rights movement gay ol' Berl. * berlin gay history *

The towerg legacy of German ialism and Romanticism, which helps to expla why the gay-rights movement took root Germany, has self bee somewhat obscure, pecially outsi the German school system. The episo suggts the gree to which the German cultural and tellectual tradn, particularly the Romantic age, which stretched om Goethe and Schiller to Schopenher and Wagner, embolned those who me to intify themselv as gay and lbian.

Lerary figur pursued a cult of iendship that borred on the homoerotic, although most of the time the fervid talk of embrac and kiss remaed jt talk.

Berl's Thrillg Gay History Long Before Stonewall

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Contents:

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

BERL & GAY LIBERATN LONG BEFORE STONEWALL

10 FACTS ON THE ORIGS OF GAY RIGHTS BERL

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM BERLIN GAY HISTORY

Berl's Thrillg Gay History Long Before Stonewall

Recent Posts

Tags

Contents:

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

BERL & GAY LIBERATN LONG BEFORE STONEWALL

10 FACTS ON THE ORIGS OF GAY RIGHTS BERL

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* BERLIN GAY HISTORY

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM BERLIN GAY HISTORY