Anonymous: Letter from Boston, 1907
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by Jonathan Ned Katz. Copyright (c) by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights reserved. Reedited by Katz from Gay American History (1976).
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In 1907, the German Monthly Reports of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee prints a letter from Boston, Massachusetts, supporting the committee's efforts to combat bigotry against homosexuals and discussing the situation in the United States. The American correspondent writer:
- I'm always delighted to bear about even the smallest success you have in vanquishing deep-rooted prejudices. And here in the United States we really need –this kind of activity. In the face of Anglo-American hypocrisy, however, there is at present no chance that any man of science would have enough wisdom and courage to remove the veil which covers homosexuality in this country. And how many homosexuals I've come to know! Boston, this good old Puritan city, has them by the hundreds. The largest percentage, in my experience, comes from the Yankees of Massachusetts and Maine, or from New Hampshire. French Canadians are also well represented.
- Here, as in Germany, homosexuality extends throughout all classes, from the slums of the North End to the highly fashionable Back Bay. Reliable homosexuals have told me names that reach into the highest circles of Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., names which have left me speechless with astonishment. I have also noticed 'that bisexuality must be rather widespread. But I'll admit that I'm rather skeptical when homosexua1 friends say that they're far more attracted by the female sex. I'm often amused by someone assuring me of his bisexuality and later meeting him where there are no women.
- There is astonishing ignorance among the Uranians I've become to know about their own true nature. This is probably a result of absolute silence and intolerance, which have never advanced real morality at any time or place. But with the growth of the population and increase of intellectuals, the time is coming when America will finally be forced to confront the riddle of homosexuality.[1]
References
- ↑ [Anonymous, Letter from Boston,] Monatsben'chte &s Wissenschaftlichhumanitiiren Komitees, vol. 6 (1907) p 98-99. Paragraphing was added and the order of the last two paragraphs is reversed for the sake of clarity. This letter was reprinted by Magnus Hirschfeld in his Die Homosexualitat des Mannes und des Weibes (Berlin: Louis Marcus, 1914), p. 553. In 1908, Edward I. Prime Stevenson, the American who wrote in defense of homosexuality under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne, published his major work The Intersexes: A History of Similisexuulism As A Problem In Social Life ([Naples?], privately printed [by R Rispoli, 1908?]; photo reprint, N.Y.: Arno, 1975). In 1906, Stevenson had published (under the alleged editorship of Mayne) his novelistic homosexual defense, the fascinating Imre: A Memorandum (Naples: English Book-Press: R. Rispoli. 1906; photo reprint, N.Y.: Amo, 1975). Stevenson's boys' book, Left to Themselves, Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald (N.Y.: Hunt and Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston and Stowe, 1891) is an early homosexual 'juvenile" (see Part VI, note 160). In Left to Themselves Stevenson writes: 'To H. Harkness Flagler, This Vignette of the Beginning of an Early Lasting Friendship is Inscribed." Flagler was a financial backer of the Symphony Society of N.Y., later of the N.Y. Philharmonic. Numbers of Stevenson's other works have homosexually relevant content, and this American homosexual emancipation pioneer deserves a full and carefully researched biography. Stevenson's obituary is in the New York Times, Aug. I, 1942, p. 11, col. 4. Two valuable pioneering articles on Stevenson are by Noel I. Garde [pseud.] They are "The Mysterious Father of American Homophile Literature; A Historical Study," ONE 'institute Quarterly of Homophile Studies, vol. r, no. 3 (Fall 19581, p. 94-98; and "The First American 'Gay' Novel," same, vol. 3, no. 2 (Spring 1960), p. 185-90.
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