The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights movement lays claim to a broad and diverse history. As Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Delhi and Chennai gear up to celebrate LGBT Pride this week (Kolkata’s will be on July 5), it’s a good time to take a quick look at this history.
Many people mark the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement with Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) — a gay, German-jewish physician. In 1896, he wrote a pamphlet titled Sappho and Socrates or How to Explain the Love of Men and Women for Persons of Their Own Sex? under the pseudonym Th Ramein, which spoke about homosexual love.
In 1897 he, along with several friends, founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee. The group aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175, the section of the German Penal Code that since 1871 had criminalised homosexuality. In 1935, the year of Hirschfeld’s death, Nazi Germany expanded paragraph 175, and those prosecuted under the law were sent to concentration camps, and were marked by, the now iconic, pink triangle. Unlike the other prisoners, homosexual prisoners had to undergo the remainder of their sentences in prisons run by the German republic, upon the end of the second world war.
Several years later, in 1941, Ismat Chugtai, an urdu feminist writer, published her short story Lihaaf or The Quilt. The story deals with a young girl who tries to make sense of the love-making between her cloistered aunt and her aunt’s masseuse. In 1942, Ismat received summons to appear before the High Court of Lahore to answer charges of obscenity. She recounts the trial:
There was a big crowd in the court. Several people had advised us to offer our apologies to the judge, even offering to pay the fines on our behalf. The proceedings had lost some of their verve, the witnesses who were called in to prove that Lihaaf was obscene were beginning to lose their nerve in the face of our lawyer’s cross-examination. No word capable of inviting condemnation could be found.
After a great deal of searching a gentleman said, “The sentence ‘she was collecting ‘aashiqs’ (lovers) is obscene.”
“Which word is obscene,” the lawyer asked. “‘Collecting,’ or ‘aashiqs’?”
“The word ‘aashiqs,’” the witness replied, somewhat hesitantly.
“My Lord, the word ‘aashiqs’ has been used by the greatest poets and has also been used in na‘ts. This word has been given a sacred place by the devout.”
“But it is highly improper for girls to collect ‘aashiqs,’” the witness proclaimed.
The case against Ismat was dimissed as her lawyer successfully argued that the story could not be a corrupting influence because the subject would be understood by only by someone who has had a lesbian experience.
While sex-reassignment was not unknown in 1952, Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926-May 3, 1989) was the first widely-known individual to have sex reassignment surgery. Born George William Jorgensen, Jr, she was drafted into the army in 1945. Unable to live in her male body, she began looking into the prospect of sex-reassignment surgery after her discharge from the Army. At that time, sex-reassignment surgery was illegal in most countries, and no surgeon was willing to perform the surgery in the US at that time.
Denmark was the only place George could go to have surgery, as castration was used to treat sex offenders there. Christine had her penis and testicles removed and began hormone therapy. Years later, she received a vaginoplasty in the US, when the procedure became available.
Christine contemplated marriage with John Traub, a labour union statistician, but a license was denied by authorities in New York, as she was still legally a man.
Starting in 1966, when the The Mattachine Society (the earliest lasting homosexual organisation in the US) stages a “Sip-In” at
Julius Bar in New York City challenging a New York State Liquor Authority prohibiting serving alcohol to homosexuals, there are an increasing number of altercations between homosexuals, transgender men, and the New York City Police, culminating in the Stonewall Riots of June 29, 1969 — the event which Queer pride events around the world commemorate. That night, undercover policemen raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City, and arrested many present in the bar. Crowds of gay men and transgender men began protesting the arrest. Riots lasted five days and from then on, it became of a symbol of Queer Pride and resistance to oppression.
In August 1992, India’s first visible event that marked the collective presence of homosexuals was a protest by the AIDS Bhedbav Virodhi Andolan in New Delhi. It highlighted the atrocities committed against homosexuals and the illegal arrest of 18 people suspected of being homosexual from a public park.
When cities across India celebrate Queer Pride this week, it’s a time not only to celebrate who we are and come out with pride, but also a time to remember how far we’ve come, and how much further we must go.
mayur.suresh@gmail.com