Racism and the Making of Gay Rights
Books | Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / Gay Studies
Laurie Marhoefer
In 1931, a sexologist arrived in colonial Shanghai to give a public lecture about homosexuality. In the audience was a medical student. The sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, fell in love with the medical student, Li Shiu Tong. Li became Hirschfeld’s assistant on a lecture tour around the world.Racism and the Making of Gay Rights shows how Hirschfeld laid the groundwork for modern gay rights, and how he did so by borrowing from a disturbing set of racist, imperial, and eugenic ideas.Following Hirschfeld and Li in their travels through the American, Dutch, and British empires, from Manila to Tel Aviv to having tea with Langston Hughes in New York City, and then into exile in Hitler’s Europe, Laurie Marhoefer provides a vivid portrait of queer lives in the 1930s and of the turbulent, often-forgotten first chapter of gay rights.
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Author
Laurie Marhoefer
Pages
334
Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Published Date
2022-05-04
ISBN
1487523971 9781487523978
Community ReviewsSee all
"An interesting and much needed revisiting of Magnus Hirschfeld’s theories and legacy. A bit repetitive at times, and I’m not entirely sold on how the author framed their speculation about Li in earlier chapters, but other chapters were really solid and hard-hitting (the chapter on Hirschfeld’s strong connection to eugenics, in particular)"
rungemaille
"Thank you NetGalley and the University of Toronto Press for an ARC in return for an honest review. This is such an interesting book on the gay rights movement dating back to the early 1900s Germany and the world. The main point of this book is to examine the life of a man, who was a sexologist, and his fight for white male gay rights but not for all. It’s a book that connects racism to gay rights and how they can’t/shouldn’t be separated. Publication date May 17, 2022."
Brittanee