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Magnus Hirschfeld
(1868-1935), a German pysician, was the most important pioneer of sexology.
In 1897, he and a few friends founded the world’s first “gay rights” organization, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich- humanitäres Komitée, WhK)
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When Magnus Hirschfeld, on his trip around the world, came to Japan in 1931, he was asked by a Japanese doctor: “Why is it that one hears so much about homosexuality in Germany and nothing about it here in Japan?” Hirschfeld’s answer is truly worth pondering, even today: ”That, my dear colleague, is because it is forbidden by us and permitted by you.”
Indeed, Hirschfeld himself had, very early in his career, realized that the “homosexual problem” was basically nothing more than society’s refusal to accept the sexual realities. Germany’s law against male homosexual intercourse produced a great deal of hypocrisy, threatened many respectable ordinary citizens and men in high places, invited blackmail and extortion, and led to sensational public scandals ruining many brilliant, otherwise blameless careers. France and Italy, which had no such law, also never had any of these problems, and, of course, neither did Japan. In short, the German law served no useful purpose, but was actually harmful to the country. Hirschfeld and some friends therefore founded the world’s first “gay rights” organization in 1897, the WhK. It collected signatures from many prominent people (including Albert Einstein) for a petition to the German parliament demanding legal reform. However, Hirschfeld did not see the reform in his lifetime. In fact, it became reality only in 1994, almost 100 years after his first effort.
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