News Release

Researcher Examines History Of The Gay Rights Movement

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Ohio University

ATHENS, Ohio -- When headlines of New York's Stonewall riots circled the world in 1969, the gay liberation movement became a powerful protest force for the first time along with women's and civil rights crusades.

But what few people know is that more than 100 years earlier, a German man became the forefather of the gay liberation movement when he offered the notion that sexual orientation is a biological condition, according to an Ohio University researcher.

"I don't think most people know about the early history of the gay movement, which was between the 1860s and the 1930s," says Ronald Hunt, associate professor of political science and author of the "Historical Dictionary of the Gay Liberation Movement" published in February by Scarecrow Press.

"A lot of people think the movement traces back about 30 years to the Stonewall riots in North America, but that's not where it originated," he says.

Certainly, the Stonewall riots were the start of the modern gay liberation movement, Hunt says, and prompted the movement's spread into more oppressive areas of the world, such as Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. The riots began after Stonewall, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village, was raided in June 1969 by police. At the time, gay sexual relations, cross-dressing and same-sex dancing were illegal in New York City.

"It was a defining moment for the movement," Hunt says, "much like Rosa Parks was to the civil rights movement."

The gay rights movement first began with the writings of lawyer, author and political activist Karl Ulrichs of Hanover, Germany. Beginning in 1864, Ulrichs wrote 12 books on same-sex love, forwarding the idea that sexual orientation is biological in nature.

Ulrichs also protested the inhumane treatment of homosexuals and opposed prohibitions against homosexuality, such as sodomy laws.

"It's not that gay people didn't exist before this, but a political movement didn't exist before Ulrichs and his work," Hunt says.

Hunt's research focuses on the liberation movement of the gay man, including the movement's leaders and groups, the status of gay rights in various countries, laws throughout history that have attempted to thwart homosexuals and victorious court cases that have granted homosexuals rights. He researched the history through biographies and manuscripts of movement leaders, medical literature about homosexuality, personal interviews and through the Internet.

Hunt hopes his work serves as an important measure of the progress of the gay rights movement.

"I think it's especially important for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to understand the origin and history of the movement," he says. "It gives us an idea of what has been accomplished and what remains to be done."

Hunt, who has taught gay and lesbian politics at Ohio University since 1984, holds a position in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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