This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 20th century before 1949.
Events
1900s
1901
June 8 — The first documented
same-sex marriage in Spain in post-Roman times is performed. Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sanchez Loriga were married by a parish priest in
A Coruña (
Galicia), with Elisa using the male identity "Mario Sánchez". The priest later discovered the deception but the marriage certificate was never officially voided.
1907
German newspaper writer Maximillian Harden publicly outed the homosexuality of Prince Eulenburg, April 27, in the newspaper Die Zukunft, after previously outing General Kuno Grof von Moltke in 1906. Public trials followed, and, while neither were proven to have taken part on homosexual actions, both Eulenburg and Moltke lost their credibility and reputation.
1910s
1912
November — Following his arrest in
Portland, Oregon, for shoplifting, 19-year-old Benjamin Trout tells police that he was "corrupted" by adult men in the town.[1] This news incites a
moral panic which comes to be known as the
Portland vice scandal. Dozens of men and boys are arrested on charges ranging from lewd behaviour to sodomy,[2] and the state legislature responds by passing a law allowing for the forced sterilization of "sexual perverts".[3]
1913
Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is published in France, marking the first time a modern Western author treats homosexuality openly in literature.
1916
The United States military begins issuing
blue discharges, a form of
Military discharge that was neither honorable nor dishonorable. During
World War II the blue discharge became the discharge of choice for commanders seeking to remove homosexuals from the ranks.
1917
Following the
Russian Revolution, the
Bolshevik government abolishes the entirety of the
Empire's criminal code. This includes Article 995, which criminalized anal sex between males.[4]
May 23 —
Harvard University establishes an ad hoc committee to investigate homosexual activity at the school. Following two weeks of inquiries, Harvard expels several students. The tribunal becomes known as the "
Secret Court" after records filed under that name are discovered in 2002.[5]
December 10 — The
Society for Human Rights (SHR), the first LGBT rights organization in the United States, is founded by
Henry Gerber and chartered by the state of
Illinois.[7] SHR published the first known American LGBT publication, Friendship and Freedom.[8] The Society existed for only a few months before it collapsed in the wake of the arrests of Gerber and several Society members.[9]
1927
The
New York Assembly amends the state's obscenity code to ban the appearance or discussion of homosexuality on the public stage.[10]
November 9 — The obscenity trial for The Well of Loneliness begins. On the 16th, Chief Magistrate Sir
Chartres Biron declares the book obscene.[12]
1929
Section 171 of the Criminal Code of Cyprus is enacted as part of a new criminal code in the country, criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting male adults. It would be repealed in 1998.
A committee of the
Reichstag votes 15–13 to repeal
Paragraph 175. However, in the wake of the worldwide Depression the full body never votes.[13]
March — The Soviet Union criminalizes consensual sexual acts between adult males as a crime against the State. Conviction carries a penalty of five years' hard labor.[15]
1935
June 28 — The Nazis expand the language of
Paragraph 175 to cover virtually any contact between men. Arrests under the expanded law skyrocket from under 1,000 in 1932 to over 8,500 in 1938.[16]
1936
The Nazis establish the Federal Security Department for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality.[16]
1938
A new Nazi directive allows for men convicted of gross indecency with another man to be sent directly to a
concentration camp.[16]
1939
January 12 — The
Georgia Supreme Court rules that "The crime of sodomy as defined by statute cannot be accomplished between two women."[17]
1940s
1940
A new Nazi directive requires men arrested for homosexual activities with more than one partner be transferred to a concentration camp after completing his prison term.[16]
May — Psychiatrists
Harry Stack Sullivan and
Winfred Overholser formulate guidelines for the psychiatric screening of United States military inductees. While both believe homosexuals should not be inducted, their proposal does not explicitly exclude homosexuals.[18]
1941
May — The
United States Army Surgeon General's office issues a circular that for the first time classifies "homosexual proclivities" as disqualifying inductees for military service. Similar exclusive policies are adopted by the
United States Navy and the Selective Service.[19]
1942
August 6 — The
Vichy government introduced a discriminative law in penal code: article 334 (moved to article 331 on February 8, 1945,[20] by the
Provisional Government of the French Republic) increased the age of consent to 21 for homosexual relations and 15 for heterosexual ones.
1943
Heinrich Himmler issues a directive that allows homosexuals to be released from concentration camps if they underwent
castration. However, those who were released under this edict were sent to fight in the
Dirlewanger Brigade, which for practical purposes was a death sentence.[21]
As
Allied forces begin liberating Nazi concentration camps, some American and British jurists conclude that the camps did not technically constitute prisons. If a gay man had served part of a prison sentence for violating Paragraph 175, he could be returned to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. It is unknown how many men were returned to prison.[22]
1944
October — TB MED 100 establishes homosexuality as a reason for disqualifying recruits into the
Women's Army Corps.[23]
1945
The
Veterans Administration institutes a policy of denying
G.I. Bill benefits to veterans holding
blue discharges,[24] despite the explicit language of the Bill that the only discharge that disqualified a veteran was a dishonorable one.[25] The VA renewed this directive in 1946 and 1949.[24]
Four honorably discharged gay World War II veterans found the
Veterans Benevolent Association. Although primarily a social club, VBA formed in part in response to the sense of injustice that many gay veterans felt about being given blue discharges,[26] with its attendant negative legal and societal connotations. VBA worked in coalition with Black and labor organizations against the arbitrary issuance of blue discharges.[27]
1946
January 30 — The
House Committee on Military Affairs issues a report called Blue Discharges. The committee finds that the use of the blue discharge is discriminatory and singles out the VA for special criticism for denying blue discharge holders G.I. Bill benefits.[28]
1947
July 1 — Congress discontinues the blue discharge, replacing it with two new classifications, general and undesirable.[29] At the same time, however, the Army changes its regulations to ensure that gay and lesbian service members would not qualify for general discharges.[30]
1948
Harry Hay conceives of the idea of a homosexual activist group.[31] He develops this idea over the next two years, co-founding the
Mattachine Society, the first sustained LGBT rights group in the United States, in 1950.[32]
The Préfet de Paris issues a decree banning men from dancing together in public places.[33]
October — The newly consolidated
United States Department of Defense standardizes anti-homosexual regulations across all branches of the military: "Homosexual personnel, irrespective of sex, should not be permitted to serve in any branch of the Armed Forces in any capacity, and prompt separation of known homosexuals from the Armed Forces is mandatory."[34]
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