HISTORICAL READINGS: HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexuality has been an acceptable part of some indigenous societies of the Americas before European settlers arrived. They were called berdaches considered people with “two spirits” and were allowed to live as their chosen gender. “ By showing only one not very conspicuous gender attribute, they could make clear within their own culture that they were berdaches …” (Herdt 1994:235). The arrival of settlers to North America with their understanding of faith and morality eventually made it difficult for berdaches to find the acceptance and tolerance they once had. Foucault in his first of the three volume series, The history of sexuality explores the notion of sexuality as a construct with collective and intellectual genesis not directly bringing into discussion the gender identity of homosexuality but had opened the way for future discourse by scholars. Seidman (2010:98) in a discussion with a transgender female discussed that for her, “… gender is not something that is fixed … gender identity and expression can change depending on the situation and life’s circumstances”.


Same-sex sexuality became a topical issue between World War I and World War II. The German gay movement was in existence for thirty six years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany. It is important to make the differentiation between Transvestism and Homosexuality, though considered gender inversion by early sexologist with no differentiation between the two groups. “The term “gender inversion” developed from the work of Karl Ulrichs, a homosexual rights activist in Germany. His 1867 work Memnon introduced the concept of homosexuality as a “third sex”.” (Meyer 2010:61) The sexologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) who was a members of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee made the term “Third sex” a household phrase in Germany. (Herdt 1994: 231) “Hirschfeld’s Berlin dritte Geschlecht (1905) contributed immensely to our knowledge of the world of the third sex in turn-of-the-century Berlin”. Richard Melville in a 1995 article for the StoneWall Society notes; “Hirschfeld believed that sexual orientation was a naturally occurring trait worthy of scientific inquiry and political emancipation rather than social hostility… the German Nazis succeeded in wiping out most traces of the homosexual emancipation movement from German society and much of Europe. With so much of the documentation of the concentration camps destroyed toward the end of the war, there is no way to accurately gauge how many homosexuals died during the Holocaust. The most common estimate is, however, is that tens of thousands of homosexual men and women were killed at the hands of the Nazis”.The Holocaust did not however bring the fight for equality back as most homosexual’s interred in the camps we still considered lawbreakers and had to serve out their sentences in prison.


Homosexuality was not always a taboo, John Boswell (1994:298) shows a translation from the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale Coislin 213 (1027/29 C.E.) (Greek), of prayers for a Same-Sex Union. According to his writing he has found many accounts in the Vatican achieves and other achieves of Europe that span from 8th to the 18th centuries of prayer and documented same-sex unions. This cyclical tolerance and sudden persecutions is perfectly exhibited in pre-war Germany and the amendments to the then German constitution to make the punishment of homosexuality even more severe. Similar to what is occurring in some African states today and Isis controlled areas of the Middle East. Also note in the resent Indian laws reverting back to colonial statutes that outlaw homosexual sex. (Herdt 1994:421) “Indeed as Michel Foucault once noted. “For a long time hermaphrodites were criminals, or crime’s offspring, since their anatomical disposition, their very being, confounded the law that distinguished the sexes and prescribed their union”. The notion that distinguishing sexes on a purely physical level is at its root flawed in my opinion as physical sex does not determine gender preference and though some consider this an anomaly it does not explain why in the animal kingdom of which we are a part other species such as Bottlenose Dolphins, Rams, Laysan Albatrosses and African lions to name a few engage in same-sex relationships.