October 8, 1904 What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?

This address was given by physician and women's rights activist Dr. Anna Rueling at the Prinz Albrecht Hotel in Berlin to the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the organization working for the civil rights of what were then known as “Urnings” (homosexuals as members of a third sex), which had been founded in Berlin by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in 1897. This address is one of the earliest to acknowledge the existence of female homosexuals and to center attention specifically on their condition, foreshadowing the rise of the lesbian feminist movement in the United States some sixty-eight years later. The comment on “penal code paragraphs” refers to Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexual behavior. Paragraph 175 was repealed after World War II. The original German text may be found in volume seven of the Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen for 1905 on pages 131–151. This translation was done by Michael Lombardi-Nash.