Talk:First homosexual movement

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 03:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that the first homosexual movement emerged in Germany in the late nineteenth century and thrived until 1933?
  • ALT1: ... that many Germans' belief that homosexuality was a communicable disease limited the success of the first homosexual movement?
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Who Killed Canadian History?

Created by Buidhe (talk). Self-nominated at 02:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC).

• – New enough (created on December 27, 2021) and long enough (47,436 characters, nothing much, just 31.6 times the minimum requirement ...). Well cited, is neutral, and free of closed paraphrasing. A QPQ has been done, and not used elsewhere. The hooks are good; I'll prefer ALT1. The main hook in basically the summary of the article in single line. ALT 1 is inline cited to "Vendrell 2020, p. 4." and "Marhoefer 2015, pp. 43–44." AGF on sourcing. So, this one is "good to go". Nice work, Buidhe! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Friedrich Alfred Krupp

Our article on Krupp raises questions about whether he died by suicide or illness. Is that article correct, or should we update this one to match? Most sources I've seen support the claim of suicide, but the claim of illness is cited, though I cannot read the sources. BilledMammal (talk) 17:18, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

While Marhoefer does say it was a suicide I see slightly different reports depending on the source:

As the uproar in the press continued, Alfred suddenly died, supposedly of a stroke. His body was sealed in a closed casket at the funeral, so suicide was widely suspected. (Whisnant, p. 48)

Hunecke calls it "the most famous gay suicide of modern times"[1] In Gay Berlin, Beachy calls it an "apparent suicide", just a suicide, and "alleged suicide" on three different pages (72, 81, 113) according to Google books. The James book claims, "But on November 22, 1902, Krupp died— probably as a result of a stroke. Because of the Capri scandal, there were inevitably rumors of suicide."

Possibly the article could be edited to indicate some uncertainty. (t · c) buidhe 17:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

In fact I'm sort of ambivalent about whether it makes sense to even mention the Krupp affair in this article, or whether the sentence should be cut. (t · c) buidhe 18:08, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed it. (t · c) buidhe 01:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments while copy-editing

The article was well-written. There were a handful of grammatical errors, but for the most part my changes were stylistic in nature. Given that style is to a certain degree a matter of taste, I wouldn't be offended if you change anything back.

Since the article is imminently facing GA review, with FA review on the horizon, I thought I'd leave some comments on things that I noticed while reading through. Feel free to postpone addressing these comments until FAR, or to ignore them entirely.

• Lead
  • Personally I think the first image in Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement is better, as the current image is dark and difficult to make out in thumbnail size, even if it is more artfully composed.
  • seen by many Germans as a positive achievement — A little imprecise, as a "movement" isn't really an "achievement".
• Background
  • Are the claims in the first paragraph cited?
  • It is unclear how much these laws were enforced, although some have argued that enforcement was related to moral panics in which homosexuals could be seen as a scapegoat. — Sentence hedges too much ("some have argued", "could be seen") and it's not clear whether it is talking about moral panics about homosexuality or moral panics about unrelated things for which homosexuals were blamed.
  • The law was difficult to enforce — Is the point you are trying to make that the law was difficult to enforce or that it was narrower than it seemed?
  • When was term homosexual coined?
  • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a lawyer and the most influential early writer — Early writer of what? Would it be appropriate to say "most influential early writer of the first homosexual movement" here?
  • This belief... limited the potential of the first homosexual movement — Not sure this sentence belongs in the "Background" section.
• Magnus Hirschfeld
  • Is it standard to join "German" and "Jewish" with an em dash?
  • I changed "ethnography" to "ethnographies" on the assumption it meant "ethnographic accounts of non-Western cultures"; if instead you meant "the science of ethnography" then the sentence would have to be phrased differently grammatically.
• Political debate
  • he changed his statement — More direct would be he reversed his statement, assuming that's what he actually did.
  • women's activists, even those repulsed by homosexuality, rejected the double standard of Paragraph 175 — I'm confused as to whether these activists opposed the criminalization of female homosexuality, since it would seem that the "rejecting the double standard of Paragraph 175" would mean either outlawing it for both sexes or for neither?
• World War I
  • Although homosexuals were cited by some as among the "November criminals" — Not that important, but this is technically ambiguous between "certain specific individuals among the November criminals were accused of homosexuality" and "unspecified homosexuals were among the November criminals". Also, "some" should be replaced by something more specific; "right-wingers" perhaps?
• Homosexual scenes
  • Although effeminate homosexual men could be found in the clubs, they were derided in the homosexual publications — This sentence feels misplaced.
  • Lesbian subcultures... — This sentence is also kind of tacked-on at the end.
• Censorship
  • Radszuweit's attempt to promote his publications as respectable backfired... — In order to support the claim of "backfiring", I think you should add at the end of the sentence something like "while alienating his readership who sought more frank content".
• Respectability
  • Working-class women... — Unclear to me whether this is referring to working-class lesbians, or working-class women in general.
• Paragraph 175 reform
  • The repeal of Paragraph 175 passed the Reichstag's Criminal Law Committee by 15 to 13 votes... — It's unclear to me whether Paragraph 175 was ever reformed if it only passed the committee without being approved by the wider parliament.
• Legacy
  • In 2011, the Bundestag voted to endow the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation — What does the foundation do?

Rublov (talk) 20:44, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Is the title the right name?

The present title seems to be a descriptive one that differs from many of the phrasings typically seen in English sources, which tend towards "Homosexual Emancipation Movement", often prefixed with "First" or "German" or suffixed with "of Germany". Without the word 'emancipation', the title lacks the sense of struggle conveyed by the term 'emancipation' but not 'movement'. It's notably at odds with Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement. What's the logic behind it? Honest enquiry. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:21, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

The invention of homosexuality

Featured article indeed. The opening sentence, "The first homosexual movement thrived in Germany from the late nineteenth century until 1933", makes little sense without qualification. Either this refers specifically to a modern (19th-century) concept of "homosexuality" as distinct from earlier concepts of same-sex desire and affection, or the claim is ostensibly that no movements of any kind concerned with same-sex desire and affection existed in human history until the late-19th-century Germans came along. The latter notion is preposterous; the former requires clarification at the outset of the article. Ni'jluuseger (talk) 11:12, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ni'jluuseger: See the thread I raised above - it should really have the word "emancipation" in there, and the title could arguably also be fully capitalized. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Iskandar, how about renaming the article "Homosexual emancipation in Germany" and adjusting the opening sentence accordingly? Until someone specifies that by homosexuality they mean a specific concept developed in modern Europe, the claim of "first" movement is untenably vague. The whole article is about Germany, hence "in Germany". I agree re emancipation. And with "emancipation" in, it's obvious that there must have been some kind of movement or other, so "movement" in the title is redundant. Ni'jluuseger (talk) 13:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't mind dropping the "first" and making the title descriptively specific to Germany, but it should probably still be "Homosexual emancipation movement in Germany", because the article does appear to all intents and purposes to be about a specific "movement". Just "emancipation", on its own, could be miscontrued as a past-through-present topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I see that. I've also reconsidered "first" and think it's acceptable in a specifically German context, especially when considering that the unitary German state didn't come about until 1871. The article is about emancipation up to 1933, not about subsequent post-war emancipation movements. I do think the title "First homosexual emancipation movement in Germany" is frightfully long, but perhaps that's a price that needs to be paid, and it might prompt someone to come up with a more concise alternative. I personally don't favour the anachronistic application of terms like "gay" or "LGBT". Ni'jluuseger (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I see why "first movement" sounds odd in a longer view of history, but perhaps the point is that it's the first movement -- a movement in the sense of a coherent reaction by a part of society against constraints on homosexual behaviour. Is there an earlier case in which such a reaction occurred? I can see it would be hard to make this distinction clear in the article title, if we agree that distinction is valid. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:01, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @Buidhe, the page creator and primary contributor for insight into the current title, use of 'first' and exclusion of 'emancipation'. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know, you could call the Sacred Band of Thebes a movement of people organised on the basis of same-sex attraction. Not an emancipation movement of course, and predating the modern homosexual identity, but that's exactly the point: the article title and opening should be more specific. Ni'jluuseger (talk) 15:36, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

As for "first homosexual movement" it's simply what the topic is most commonly called in reliable sources, and that phrase usually refers to this article subject, because it was, well, the first one anywhere in the world. (t · c) buidhe 18:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

First off, my apologies for the arrogant tone on which I started this thread. Second. I think my initial bemusement stemmed from my broad interpretation of "movement", as though there were no earlier organised expression of homosexuality in human history. I think a lot would fall into place if the first sentence specified that the article is about the "first homosexual emancipation movement". After all, the caption under the picture also says "Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Berlin-Moabit, unveiled in 2017". Regards. Ni'jluuseger (talk) 10:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The real question is whether it should be treated as a capitalized proper name, i.e.: " First Homosexual Emancipation Movement", or a descriptive title - if it's just being treated as a descriptive title (without caps), I think we need to add "in Germany", per the "X by country" format. I'm good with either. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:15, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful not to call it something that the reliable sources don't call it: the title should reflect the sources. The article already says "in Germany" in the first few words, so I don't think the reader is being misled there. Since this is the first such movement anywhere, not just in Germany, I think it would be hard to add "in Germany" to the title in a way that wouldn't mislead the reader. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:24, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I've adapted the first sentence to make it explicit that the term refers to the first emancipation movement, not just any form of organised expression of homosexuality in human history. This preserves the article's name and its first boldface mention as is, thus respecting the sources and what has so far been discussed here. Hope this doesn't go against etiquette. Feel free to adapt as needed or revert if necessary. Ni'jluuseger (talk) 16:02, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Although some RS do use the word "emancipation", personally I'm not sure how helpful this word is to enable readers to understand the topic, and it can come off sounding biased. (t · c) buidhe 18:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@Buidhe: I'm confused about how 'emancipation' can across as biased - seems perfectly plain/straightforward. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:16, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not consistently capitalized in reliable sources, so should not be capitalized on Wikipedia either, per capitalization rules. (t · c) buidhe 18:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Emancipation I think including this in the Lead was a improvement, since it means "the fact or process of being set free from legal, social, or political restrictions; liberation." Graham Beards (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. The subject is more coherent when it is understood that it is specifically about social and legal 'emancipiation'. The Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement is testament to the emphasis on the movement as one specifically about "emancipation", or as an Emanzipationsbewegung in German, i.e.: a struggle for basic rights and social freedoms. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)