Wwi gay lesbian
WWI’s Untold Queer History
Sarah Worthman, a historian and freelance researcher for the LGBT Purge Fund, released a stunning report last week about queer persecution in the First World War. Worthman writes: “There have been countless times throughout this research process where I have been told that ‘There may have been queer people in the First World War but the records of them simply do not exist.’”
Refusing to accept the historical record as silent, Worthman mined archives in Canada and the UK to find detailed records of queer sex, adore, and expression within the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). The report is free to download from the LGBT Purge Fund website.
She says on social media: “This project is the culmination of almost two years worth of analyze, writing, and activism. I left a little piece of my heart in this piece and I hope that translates to the reader.”
Worthman does an admirable job illuminating an unknown past and makes the report compelling to read. The research is both thorough and inspired. In the report, she identifies 19 men who were court-marshalled for organism queer—12 were imprisoned, and 7 were sent
We are pleased to share new analyze by Sarah Worthman on discrimination faced by 2SLGBTQ+ soldiers during World War One.
Sarah Worthman is a Master’s pupil from Memorial University in St John’s, Newfoundland. She reached out to the Fund last year to discuss a research project that she was undertaking to reveal the untold queer history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War One.
Through her research at Veterans Affairs Canada, Sarah had discovered records of some 35 men who were charged with gross indecency. It was a purge of men who were serving their country.
Drawing from records that had never been seen, Sarah’s research provides insights and reveals these histories for the first time. Her report chronicles stories of these courageous, young men and recounts the hardship they endured at the hands of the Canadian government. These are unhappy and harrowing tales.
The LGBT Purge Fund is proud to support this explore and to aid tell the stories of these men.
READ SARAH’S REPORT.
How WWI Sparked the Gay Rights Movement
Soldiers came dwelling from the Amazing War with a demand—full equality under the law
One of the World War I’s most enduring legacies is largely forgotten: It sparked the modern homosexual rights movement.
Gay soldiers who survived the bloodletting returned house convinced their governments owed them something – full citizenship. Especially in Germany, where gay rights already had a tenuous footing, they formed new organizations to advocate in public for their rights.
Though the movement that called itself “homosexual emancipation” began in the 19th century, my research and that of historian Jason Crouthamel shows that the war turned the 19th-century movement into queer rights as we know it today.
A death in Russia
In the winter of 1915, a German soldier died in a field hospital in Russia. The soldier, whose label is missing from the historical record, had been hit in the lower body by shrapnel when his trench came under bombardment. Four of his comrades risked their lives to carry him to the rear. There, he lay for weeks, wracked by pain in the mangled leg and desperately thirsty. But what troubled him most was loneliness. He sent letters to his bo
Homosexuality in the First Earth War
Homosexuality was illegal during WW1, and remained so up until 1967. As any evidence of lgbtq+ acts between men resulted in corporal punishment or two years imprisonment, records of experiences are sparse.
Although societal norms forbid lgbtq+ acts between women, what were referred to as ‘acts of gross indecency’, were never made illegal. This story focuses on the experiences of queer men in WW1.
Historical Background and the War
Noel Pemberton Billing
Not only was homosexuality illegal, but there were also strong social currents, particularly among the upper classes, opposing same sex relationships. Before the war, the Eulengburg Affair in Germany, in which members of the German Cabinet were publically tried for homosexual conduct, meant that homosexuality was associated with Germaness. This sentiment remained throughout the war; in 1918 Noel Pemberton Billing, a British MP, published an article in the Vigilante which alleged that a German Prince had a book containing the names of 47,000 English men and women and records of their alleged ‘moral and sexual weakness’ that made them targets for German agents. The article
Pre-war Homosexual life
Prior to the Holocaust and the Nazi rise to power, gay contact was legally banned under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which was introduced on the 15 May 1871. Despite this, there was still a thriving queer community in many areas.
In Berlin there were a large number of openly homosexual, transvestite and female homosexual bars where people met and socialised. The queer community was so well-known it even appeared in some tourist guides at the time.
At the shift of the twentieth century a growing gay rights movement formed, reaching its height in the 1920s. This movement was headed by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish physician and homosexual. Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Explore in 1919, the first institute of its courteous across the world.
Hostility towards gay men intensified obeying the Nazi rise to power. Homosexuals were viewed as weak and unlikely to make good soldiers, or contribute to the ‘Aryan’ race by having children. As such they were catagorised as ‘ a-social ‘ by the Nazis.
Homosexuals were imprisoned, tortured, and deported to concentration camps by the Nazis. The final number of homosexuals that perished a