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Scientific-Humanitarian Committee SCIENTIFIC-HUMANITARIANCOMMITTEE 4 could be written out of an author's desire (1971), where the inhabitants of a future to hold a satirical mirror up to the homo- Earth can change sex at will; Frederick phobia of his culture, but in practice seem Turner's A Double Shadow (1978),whose to reflect the writer's own paranoia about hero is a hermaphrodite; and JohnVarleyls homosexuality. The classic tale of this "Eight Worlds" series, in which human type was the short story by Charles beings can and do change gender as easily Beaumont, "The Crooked Man" (see as haircuts. above]. In this story, however, the "genu- ine" homosexuals are cruel and depraved. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Camilia Decamin, Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, eds., Worlds Novels dealing with this theme include Apart, Boston: Alyson Publications, Anthony Burgess' The Wanting Seed 1986; Samuel R. Delaney, The Motion of (1962))in which homosexuality is required Light in Water, New York: Arbor House/ for official employment in Britain and Morrow, 1988; Eric Garber and Lyn violent warfare breaks out between the Paleo, Uranian Worlds:A Reader's Guide to Alternative Sexuality in sexes, while Nature goes on strike: crops Science Ficrion and Fantasy, Boston: G. fail and animals will not reproduce; Suzy K. Hall & Co., 1983. M. Charnas' Walk to the End of the World Stephen Donaldson (1974),which sets out an Earth of sexual apartheid and the subjugation of females; the Frenchman Robert Merle's The Viril- SCIENTIFIC-HUMANITAR- ity Factor (1974),in which men are hit by IAN COMMITTEE a disease which leaves a despotic lesbian The Wissenschaftlich-human- tyranny in charge and the remaining men itare Komitee, the world's first homosex- become second-class citizens; Naomi ual rights organization, was founded in Mitchinson's Solution Three (1975),basi- Berlin on May 14,1897, the twenty-ninth cally an expansion of the Beaumont set- birthday of Magnus Hirschfeld (1868- ting; and Eric Norden's The Ultimate So- 19351, a physician of Jewish origin who lution (1973), in which homosexuality is became the leading authority on homo- the social norm in a Nazi America. sexuality in the first third of the twentieth Settings in which sexuality in- century. Under the pseudonym of "Dr. volves more than two genders have been Ramien," Hirschfeld had in 1896published presented in the venerable Isaac Asimovls a bookentitled Sappho undsokrates, oder The Gods Themselves (19721, which de- wie erklijrt sich die Liebe der Manner und picts a three-sexed race, two of whom are Frauen zu Personen des eigenen Gesch- more or less male; Samuel R. Delaney's ' lechts! (Sapphoand Socrates, or How Is the seminal The Einstein Intersection (1967), Love of Men and Women for Persons of also trisexual; and John Varley's Gaia se- 1 Their Own Sex to Be Explained?).Moved ries, in which the native intelligent spe- by the suicide of a young homosexual cies undergoes extremely complex pat- officer on the eve of a marriage into which terns in order to reproduce. his family had pressured him, Hirschfeld A final major category of novels went on to create an organization that does away with gender distinctions alto- would campaign for legal toleration and gether, presenting worlds of androgyny. social acceptance for what he called the Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Dark- third sex. ness (see above) is the classic of this type. Writing in an era when biology Other novels in this area include the leg- and medicine uncritically accepted the endary Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No notion of "inborn traits" of all kinds, Evil (19701, which puts a man's brain into Hirschfeld maintained that homosexuals a woman's body through a transplant were members of a third sex, an operation; Robert Silverberg's Son of Man evolutionary intermediate (or intergrade) 4 SCIENTIFIC-HUMANITARIANCOMMITTEE between the male and the female, and he criminal underworld. As early as January bolstered his thesis with data of all kinds 1898 August Bebel, the leader of the Ger- showing that the mean for the homosex- man Social Democratic Party, spoke on ualsubjects whom he studied by interview the floor of the Reichstag in favor of the and questionnaire fell almost exactly be- petition, while the other parties denounced tween those for male and female respec- it in horror. Among the educated elite tively. Accordingly the journal which the Hirschfeld's views soon won a large meas- Scientific-humanitarian Committee pub- ure of support, but they were totally re- lished from 1899 onward was entitled the jected by the churches and by the conser- Ia6rbuch flir sexuelle Zwischenstufen vative jurists of the Wilhelmstrasse en- mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der gaged in drafting a new criminal code. Homosexualitiit (Annual for Sexual Inter- The Committee was in practice grades with Special Reference to Homo- the world's first center for the study of all sexuality]. aspects of homosexuality. Though ignored Aims andMethods. The first and by academic scholars, Hirschfeld collected foremost goal of the committee was legal material from various sources on the fre- reform, as following the establishment of quency of homosexual behavior in the the North German Confederation and then population and the psychological profile of the German Empire, a new penal code of the homosexual personality. In 1904 was adopted that went into force on the Hirschfeld concluded that 2.2 percent of entire territory of the Reich on January 1, the population was exclusively homosex- 1872. Its Paragraph 175 made criminal ual, and that the figure was surprising only widernatiirliche Unzucht zwischen Man- because so many of his subjects success- nem (lewd and unnatural acts between fully hid their inclinations from a hostile males), with a maximum penalty of two world. The private lives of his subjects he years. The repeal of this paragraph was the examined from numerous aspects, in ev- main object of the Committee's endeavors ery one of which he found evidence that during its 36 years of existence. For this supported his theory of an innate third sex. purpose it drafted a petition "to the Legis- Difficulties and Rivals. As the lative Bodies of the German Empire" that years passed, the Committee was beset was ultimately signed by some 6000 Ger- with problems from within and without. mans prominent in all walks of life. But it Hirschfeld's theories placed undue em- also sought to enlighten a public that as phasis on the effeminate male and the yet knew nothing of the literature that had viraginous female as the homosexual types been appearing sporadically in the psychi- par excellence, a standpoint that alienated atric journals since 1869, or of the earlier the pederasts who fell into neither cate- apologetic writings of Heinrich Hoessli gory and were often bisexual as well. and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. By means of Benedict Friedlaender, an independent pamphlets, public lectures, and later even scholar, denouncedHirschfeld'sviews and films, the Committee sought to convince contrasted them with the Hellenic ideal of the world that homosexuals were an un- man-boy love which was a virile, state- justly persecuted sport of nature, who could building phenomenon in his Renaissance not be blamed for their innate and un- des Eros Uranios (Renaissance of Eros modifiable sexual orientation. Because Uranios; 1904). A rival organization, the they lived in a society that was wholly Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community intolerant of homosexual expression, they of the Exceptional J,was founded in 1902, had to hide their orientation and their and adopted as its journal Der Eigene, sexual activity, and so were peculiarly edited by Adolf Brand, which had been exposed to blackmail if their true nature publishing literary and art work on the came to the knowledge of members of the subject of pedetasty since 1898. The in- SCIENTIFIC-HUMANITARIANCOMMITTEE 9 compatibility of the two approaches shows code published late in 1909. This elicited that the umbrella concept of "homosexu- a statement in support of the Committee ality" united biological and psychological from theDeutsche Bund fiir Mutterschutz phenomena which had only this in com- (German League for the Protection of mon, that they both ran afoul of the Judeo- Motherhood), an organization devoted to Christian taboo on same-sex relations; the welfare of the unwed mother, whom socially and politically they were-and public opinion in Germany stigmatized still are-incompatible. The Committee almost as cruelly as it did the male homo- had even anticipated the split by propos- sexual. In this way the various groups ing in its petition an age of consent of 16 advocating reform in the sphere of sexual for homosexual relations-which would morality were brought closer together by in effect have excluded the boy-lover the moves of the opposition. from the benefit of law reform. Scholarly Achievements. Aided The other critical juncture in the by the experts in various disciplines who history of the Committee was the Harden- had been attracted to the Scientific-Hu- Eulenburg affair, which began in Novem- manitarian Committee, Hirschfeld set ber 1906 with accusations by Maximilian about writing a major work that was pub- Harden, a sort of Walter Lippmann of the lished in January 1914 under the title Die Second Reich, in his journal Die Zukunft, Homosexualitat des Mannes und des to the effect that two of the Kaiser's inti- Weibes (Male and Female Homosexual- mates, Prince Philipp zu Eulenberg and ity). This vast tome summarized every- Count Kuno von Moltke, were members thing that had been learned from the lit- of a homosexual clique whose inner sanc- erature of the past, and especially of the tum had been penetrated by another of preceding decade and a half, as well as the their ilk, the First Secretary of the French 10,000 case histories that Hirschfeld had Legation inBerlin, RaymondLecomte, who taken in that time.
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