18/05/2022
The pagan blog of the Cult of Antinous, a largely gay male religion, marks May 14th as the birthday and also coincidentally the death day of one of the father’s of the early gay and trans liberation movements, Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld. He devoted his professional career to the study of homosexuality and transgenderism and campaigned for the repeal of anti-gay laws in his native Germany. Indeed, the now largely obsolete term “transsexual” was coined by Doctor Hirschfeld. Sadly, he did not live to see full liberation. Despite some liberalisation of attitudes in the Weimar period in Germany, Hirschfeld was forced along with many Jewish and progressive intellectuals to flee to country after the Nazi regime took over and pursued their evil persecution of minorities which would lead Europe to war and mass genocide. Hirschfeld passed on at the age of sixty seven in the French city of Nice, a broken man. But he is now honoured as an important forerunner of the modern LGBTQIA+ movements, a hero and someone whose legacy continues to shape our world.
