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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 31 March 2022 [1].

First homosexual movement

[edit]
Nominator(s): (t · c) buidhe 21:37, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article is marginally less depressing than the stuff that you guys usually get from me. Nobody bit at GAN so I'm sending it straight to you! (t · c) buidhe 21:37, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Kavyansh

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Placeholder! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 10:15, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Minor formatting issues for now:
    • Ref#30: Beachy 2010, p. 804–805. — p/pp error
    • Ref#61: Dickinson 2014, p. 168–169 — p/pp error
    • Ref#76: Whisnant 2016, p. 68–69 — p/pp error
    • Ref#77: Whisnant 2016, p. 69–70 — p/pp error
    • Ref#210: Whisnant 2016, p. 194–195 — p/pp error
    • Ref#233: Marhoefer 2015, p. 120–121 — p/pp error
– Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 10:31, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
oops, they should all be fixed now. (t · c) buidhe 10:51, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the German revolution." — 'R' should be capital in 'revolution'
  • both the German Friendship Society and the League for Human Rights links redirect to the same page
  • "in the aftermath of the war." — WW1?
    • That's the only war mentioned in the lead so I don't think it's excessively confusing.
  • "throughout German history" — is there a reason why this is linked to 'German history', which redirects to History of Germany?
    • I've piped it if you think that's better
  • "The Christian church" — Our article on Christian Church capitalizes 'C' in 'Church'
    • Unlike the Christian Church article, this does not refer "to what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus"
  • "of the Napoleonic wars" — Our article on Napoleonic Wars capitalizes 'W' in 'Wars'
  • "The German-language writer Karl Maria Kertbeny coined" — Our article hyphenates Karl-Maria Kertbeny
  • "The growing prestige of medicine meant that Germans began to consult doctors on matters of sexuality instead of clerics" — How about "The growing prestige of medicine made Germans began to consult doctors on matters of sexuality instead of clerics"
    • I don't think that is grammatically correct. I also disagree with "made Germans begin" because they had the option of consulting either doctors or clergy and weren't forced to rely on one or the other.
      • To me, the initial statement is WP:OR; we shouldn't be saying something in the exact same way a historian would write. And even the initial statement reads like they started to consult doctors instead of the clergymen. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • According to WP:OR, "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." In this case, a published RS exists making this exact claim so I disagree that it is WP:OR. (t · c) buidhe 23:58, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • Source: "Just as important for doctors, though, was the growing prestige that the field of medicine commanded socially. "More and more," notes the historian Harry Oosterhuis, "physicians, acting as mediators between science and the vexing problems of everyday life, succeeded in convincing the public of the indispensability of their expertise, and gradually they began to replace the clergy as authoritative personal consultants in the realm of sexuality.""
          • Text: "The growing prestige of medicine meant that Germans began to consult doctors on matters of sexuality instead of clerics."
            • Isn't there a slight change of meaning in the text? We say that "Germans began to consult", the source says that "More and more" Germans began to consult. The source wants implies that rise of research in medicine brought a gradual change in majority of German population's lifestyle; our text implies that they simply started replacing clerics with doctors. I did not realized this until I compared it with the source. All I disagree here is the phrase "meant that", which I feel should not be present and should be rephrased. I am open to reconsider, though. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 05:05, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            OK, I've gone ahead and removed the sentence as insufficiently relevant. (t · c) buidhe 05:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Although Krafft-Ebing has often been regarded as "the chief contributor to the scientific pathologization of homosexuality in the nineteenth century"[18]" — but we only cite one author
    • That's not Whisnant's opinion, he notes that "Krafft-Ebing has been demonized over the years as the chief contributor to the scientific pathologization of homosexuality in the nineteenth century."
  • "the subject of "unusually broad debate" involving" — the prose does not makes clear where this quote comes from
    • Rephrased
  • "after the death of one of his patients by suicide." — was the patient homosexual?
    • Rephrased
  • "which had 50,000 copies printed by 1911" — exact or approximate?
    • Rephrased
  • should we link ethnographer?
  • "Ferdinand Karsch-Haack" — Is this his common name? Because our article calls him just Ferdinand Karsch
    • Not sure which is more common, so I went with the one used in the cited source
  • "although its main focus continued to be Paragraph 175" — Should be "although its main focus continued to be abolishing Paragraph 175"
    • Done
  • "with modern ideas of Nietzscheanism, antimodernism, misogyny, illiberalism," — without clinking on the links, I would hardy understand any of these terms.
  • "organization Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (GdE)" — shouldn't Gemeinschaft der Eigenen be in italics?
    • I think that would be confusing as publications are italicized but organizations are not.
  • "Brand joined the WhK because he shared its goal of decriminalizing homosexuality" — Was this a statement of Adolf Brand, or merely a speculation by a historian
    • I just report what the RS says, I do not know exactly how it got this information.
      • I agree, but we, in Wikipedia's voice, cannot speculate the reason for someone doing something without they themselves telling it. Best we can do is inline attribute it to Whisnant. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "for more than two years" — how about "for over two years"
    • I don't think that reads better.
  • "The affair was a disaster for the homosexual movement." — According to whom? Is this a widely considered opinion?
  • "the WhK reported that more than half its membership was" — shouldn't it be 'were'?
    • It's correct because membership is singular, compare "half the auditorium was empty" (not "were")
  • ""The hour of liberation is now or never, for us … We," — Add {{nbsp}} before the ellipsis
    • Done
  • More to come (from sub-heading "Associations")

– Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 12:40, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing:

  • "membership had ballooned from 2,000 in 1922 to an estimated 48,000" — 'ballooned'? how about 'significantly increased'
    • Done
  • "and when this venture failed put Lotte Hahm in charge — something seems missing here
    • Comma added
  • "but this could cause friction especially in the case of male-to-female transvestites" — is it merely a speculation or anything like that happened?
    • Rephrased
  • "and could lead to arrest" — shouldn't we be using the past tense?
    • It is; present tense would be "can lead to arrest"
  • "with an initial print run of 20,000 copies" — exact or approximate?
    • Source doesn't specify
  • "far right" can be linked for non experts
    • Done
  • "In editorials in his publications" — something seems wrong here
    • Rephrased
  • "Partly in response to the film, film censorship" — any way to avoid the repetition of 'film'?
    • Rephrased
  • "were 1 percent" — Per MOS:SPELL09, '1' should normally be spelled
    • done
  • "even President Paul Hindenburg" — now here, the common name is clearly Paul von Hindenburg
    • Ok
  • Optional: "by 15 to 13 votes" — "by a vote of 15 to 13"

That is it! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 20:06, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another read:

  • "Unlike the nonprofit organizations that preceded him, Radszuweit ran his publishing house like a business, seeing the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of homosexual rights to be compatible" — Do we need the first part 'Unlike the nonprofit organizations that preceded him'?
  • "with 30 novels available to German-speaking readers" v. "Hirschfeld resigned from the WhK leadership after more than thirty years after losing the support" — 30 v. thirty. Per MOS:SPELL09, '30' should normally be written in numerals.
  • In the image captions, we have both {{circa}} as well as plain 'c.'. Suggesting to be consistent.

Apart these minor quibbles, I support the article! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 09:40, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment from SnowFire

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Interesting article. Not a full review, but two nitpicks...

  • I see that "Christian church" is used in the source, but I agree with Kavyansh.Singh anyway. A lowercase-c church implies one specific church; this is referring to the Church-as-an-institution, which is normally capitalized.
  • I think the intro has some issues. First off, Whisant is a little bit out of their lane here talking about classical history, but the article implies that persecution of homosexuals in Germany came about due to Rome & the Church. But... Whisant notes that German pagans are reported as killing "sodomites" as well (by Tacitus, who is a deeply biased & unreliable source to the point of uselessness, but also just about the only one we have), and doesn't say that it was actually subject to harsh punishment in Roman Germany, merely that proclamations against male-male love were made by the Church and some very late Roman Empire legal codes might have included provisions against it, depending on how they were interpreted. My understanding is that evidence of actual prosecutions for such is practically nonexistent, and that's over the entire Roman Empire; our knowledge of Roman Germania is even weaker. Whisant also cites "recent historians" who doubt how stringent the early Church's alleged stance against homosexuality was. However, the article says "It is unclear how much medieval laws against homosexuality were enforced," which seems over-qualified: it's implying that we know for sure the Roman era persecuted homosexuals, but it's uncertain later. But if anything, it's even more uncertain in the Roman era, just because the surviving primary sources from there are so thin, and it's not even clear the Roman laws were applied in Germany or covered homosexuality that often. I would suggest rewriting this to imply a lot more uncertainty about What Really Happened - there are some early Christian condemnations of homosexuality, so cultural attitudes were presumably not positive, and it's unclear how much the late Roman laws or the medieval laws were enforced. (At least if Whisant is relied upon - maybe another source more dedicated to this could add some more detail.)
  • At the very end of the article, the last parts of the second paragraph of the Legacy section on how German homosexuals of the era shared the prejudices and politics of society feels weird. I get that Marhoefer (whom a lot of this is cited too) might consider this stuff surprising, but it reads as a bit naive: was the expectation that queer people in the 1920s would share 2020s opinions on everything rather than 1920s opinions? The 1920s was pretty much the height of the respectability of eugenics across the political spectrum, and Germany was still a deeply sexist and class-deferential society. Of course many people would share such views, gay and straight. (Gertrude Stein famously though Marshall Petain was a cool guy because he was restoring family values or something, despite being a lesbian.) I could see maybe room for a single sentence on this confirming that members of the movement cut across all aspects of the social spectrum from Nazi to communist, but withhold the "judgment" from that statement as "complicating their image." I also think that the Mosse quote about "wanting only to bend the bars of their cage" comes across as petty and possibly wrong: is there evidence that, in the alternative universe where the WhK / DFV / etc. were successful at achieving decriminalization, that they'd have stopped there? It's a very common tactic to ask for one thing, than another thing, and so on. If the implication here is that the first movement wasn't sufficiently radical for Mosse's standards, then the fact that they weren't able to achieve their initial goal seems like the obvious culprit, not the movement itself. (If we take the analogy more literally than we should, if the bars were successfully bent, then the next step obviously seems for the prisoner to escape, myself.) Alternatively, maybe I'm misreading something here? If so, the substance of Mosse's criticism should be set up more clearly. SnowFire (talk) 00:28, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think this is more a point about the kind of activism that they are using. Embracing reform and respectability politics is one approach, but there have also been radical LGBT movements (eg. Stonewall riots or gay liberation). I've trimmed down this aspect in the legacy section since the approaches used—although this is a focus in the sources—is also covered earlier in the article. Thanks so much for your feedback! (t · c) buidhe 01:02, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Works for me! Changes look good. (As a side comment, I agree with the removal done by the other user of the Tacitus bit. If you're bored, there's a good series of blog posts that discuss why Tacitus is such a problematic source here and elsewhere in the series - short version is that Tacitus didn't speak any Germanic language, never visited Germania, and it seems entirely possible Tacitus was really critiquing Roman "decadence" of his era by building up his image of what a pure, unsullied by effeminizing civilization would be like on top of the Germans.) SnowFire (talk) 03:55, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • "Nationalhof at Bülowstraße 37, Berlin-Schöneberg, which was a meeting place for gay and lesbian associations" - source?
    • It's cited in the image description.
  • Suggest adding alt text
  • File:Petition_gegen_175.jpg needs a US tag and author date of death, if it is believed to be original enough to warrant copyright protection
    • I think PD-text applies, so I swapped the license
  • File:Schwule_Scheinhochzeit.jpg: if the author is unknown, how do we know they died over 70 years ago? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • Was the word Kertbeny coined "homosexuell"? If so I would put that in a footnote; as it stands it reads as though he coined an English word.
  • "Greater scientific research into homosexuality also occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century": suggest "The second half of the nineteenth century saw an increase in scientific research into homosexuality" -- I think "occur" isn't the most natural verb to use for a trend in research.
    • Done
  • "ultimately catalyzed the first homosexual movement": I understand that historians may vary in their definitions, but for the purposes of this article I think we need to be clear about the dates of "the first homosexual movement". In the lead we say it starts in the late nineteenth century, but in Beachy's view it postdates 1900. Can we avoid the apparent contradiction, perhaps by making this "and in Beachy's view the first homosexual movement did not begin until..." or something like that?
    • Clarified the timing a bit.
  • "Its arguments were supported by comparison with countries (such as France) where homosexuality was not illegal, scholarly works on homosexuality in ancient Greece, and ethnographies of non-Western cultures." This is in Wikipedia's voice; I think it would be better to rephrase to say "the WhK supported its arguments by..." or something similar.
    • Rephrased
  • "the fallout of the Eulenberg affair": I think a few parenthetical words explaining what the Eulenberg affair was would be helpful, even though it is covered in the next subsection.
    • Avoided mentioning the affair in this section to avoid duplication.
  • "Following the affair, Germany was debating a new penal code": this makes it sounds like the entire country was debating it.
    • Changed to "the German government"
  • "Although the SPD voted down the proposal": at this point in the paragraph I'm not clear what "the proposal" refers to.
    • Removed this clause

That takes me down to the "World War I" section; more tonight or tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:02, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing:

  • "Many homosexuals believed that they too would be able to enjoy greater freedom as a result of the war and the revolution, made bolder claims to public space": looks like a missing word? Either "who believed" or "and made"?
    • Done
  • In the second paragraph of the Associations section, we have "However... Despite... However..."; can we eliminate at least one of these? They make the paragraph feel very conditional.
    • Done
  • "Mass media aimed at a homosexual audience was impossible in Imperial Germany because of censorship": suggest "had been" since we're in the section on Weimar.
    • Done
  • "ended up on the lists of restricted publications at one point": should this be "at some point"? Or do you mean all at one given time?
    • Correct, not necessarily all at the same time. Reworded
  • "In the context of political organizing, neither Hirschfeld's model of homosexuality nor that of the masculinists were satisfactory, because both effeminacy and pederasty were socially reviled." "Neither" usually takes a singular verb, but I don't understand this sentence. Hirschfeld's model is the third sex, and the masculinists disliked effeminacy; why does the social attitude to effeminacy and pederasty specifically make these two views unsatisfactory for political organizing -- that is, more so than other homosexual segments of opinion or explanatory theories?
    • Clarify what the third sex theory means, change to "was"
  • "The homosexual movement waned after 1929. Despite its initial optimism in the aftermath of the German revolution, the main goal of the movement—decriminalization—was not achieved, and the failure fueled infighting in the homosexual movement." We have "The homosexual movement...the movement...the homosexual movement", which is not very euphonious. How about "The homosexual movement's initial optimism in the aftermath of the German revolution waned after 1929, and the failure to achieve decriminalization—the movement's main goal—fueled infighting"? Reversing the content of the parenthetical dashes puts the word "movement" near the end of the sentence, which I think means we don't need to say who is experiencing the infighting. There are other ways to solve this, I'm sure.
    • Reworded

More later; just the last two sections to complete. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Last item:

  • "The institute's library of more than 12,000 books was publicly burned on 10 May in Opernplatz." According to the comments on the photo in that section, not all the books were burned; some were sold and some were even bought back by Hirschfeld. I don't know if we want to go into that much detail, but at least we shouldn't say they were all burned.

That's all I have. A fine article, and very readable to boot. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • There's no source for the claim in the image description, but I've rephrased to avoid the implication that all books were burned. Thanks again for your review! (t · c) buidhe 05:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support. An outstanding article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Graham Beards

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I have a few suggestions regarding the prose:

  • Here "Following the affair, the German government was debating a new penal code", doesn't sound idiomatic. Why have you used the past progressive tense?
    • According to Dickinson, the timing was coincidental ("It was particularly unfortunate that this crisis came just as the government and parliament were beginning deliberations on a reform of the Criminal Code.") I was trying to convey this with the verb tense, but now rephrased to be clearer.
  • There is a fused participle here "with the police estimating in 1914 that 2,000 men were regularly working as prostitutes". See WP:PLUSING. I find these "with" expressions unprofessional.
    • Reworded
  • There is a little redundancy in uses of "in order to", where just "to" would suffice:
In order to recruit the reluctant
His publications used plain language and salacious images of naked young men in order to attract readers.
Radszuweit implemented self-censorship in order to get his publications off of the restricted list
Radszuweit promoted respectability politics, but his respectable image was undercut by eroticized images of youths that he printed in order to increase sales.
Removed all
  • ad revenue is a little too colloquial for an encyclopaedia.
    • Changed to "advertising revenue".
  • Here "They could keep selling to subscribers, but ad revenue would dry up; start publishing under a different name; or wait out the ban." How about "They could keep selling to subscribers – but ad revenue would dry up – start publishing under a different name, or wait out the ban". Just to avoid having two semi-colons in a sentence.
    • Reworded
  • This sentence sounds a little pompous, "Historian Javier Samper Vendrell states of Radszuweit's embrace of respectability politics," How about "Of Radszuweit's embrace of respectability politics, Historian Javier Samper Vendrell said" (no deal breaker)
    • Reworded
  • Lastly, and I can't see an easy fix, can we avoid using "homosexual" as a noun? This archaic – and somewhat pejorative usage – is rather dated. You got it right here, "The Weimar Republic has held enduring interest for many LGBT people as a brief interlude in which gay men..."
    • I realize it's dated for 21st century gay people, but most of the cited sources use it, most likely because it's a direct translation of the German noun Homosexuelle(r) that was used by most of the activists at the time. I think LGBT or gay can be anachronistic when referring to the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Thank you for a fascinating read and beautifully structured article. Graham Beards (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Graham Beards (talk) 17:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Small comment from Urve

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I agree that the use of the word "homosexual" is appropriate. I only come here to say two things about the claim "in 1914, the police estimated that 2,000 men were regularly working as prostitutes". Whisnant, the reference used here, is an interesting and good one—I'm glad it's used heavily in the article.

I didn't question the propriety of the word, I questioned its use as a noun and I was satisfied with the nominator's answer. Graham Beards (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2022 (UTC) [reply]
Yep, I'm just agreeing with the answer. Hope I wasn't misunderstood :) I just intended to give some support in case there's a dispute about the nouns homosexual or transvestite in the future. Urve (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC) [reply]
  1. Whisnant does not make the distinction between regular work and irregular work, and just says plainly that there were "as many as" 2,000 male prostitutes. It's never outright said, but I would not be surprised if there were many irregular prostitutes; Whisnant talks about soldiers looking for "a little extra income" through prostitution.
  2. Abraham Flexner's 1914 Prostitution in Europe agrees with this upper figure of 2,000, and says there are 1,000 to 2,000 male prostitutes. The figure that Whisnant provides is cited to James Steakley's The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany (1993, p. 27), which is on the internet archive. Steakley gives the estimate of 1,000 to 2,000. Saying plainly "2,000 men were regularly working as prostitutes" is a bit different than what Whisnant or the source material claim. But indeed, this is a police estimate according to Steakley, so that much of the sentence is okay (and useful to our readers).

Thanks, Urve (talk) 06:15, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. Reworded accordingly. (t · c) buidhe 14:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Urve (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Berlin in particular became known among homosexual writers for its opportunities, while in conservative circles it was decried as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah" - I'm not sure after reading the cited section of Whisnant. (Maybe the sources throughout the paragraph are meant to support this; I didn't check them.)
  • The only example of a writer is Christopher Isherwood, but I don't think Whisnant states something more general.
And W. H. Auden. Graham Beards (talk) 09:39, 23 March 2022 (UTC) [reply]
Auden is outside of the cited page range and arrived "specifically to explore its sexual underworld", not necessarily for writing opportunities. But if opportunities means something wider than just writing opportunities (as I understood it), then that makes sense, and the citation should include page 92. Urve (talk) 10:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sure, the criticism was one of modernity, but is that the same as a conservative view? And I wonder: is it fair to say that there were any conservative "circles" making that criticism - after all, they were written "with an eye for sensation", not (necessarily!) political advocacy?
  • The Sodom and Gomorrah reference seems to be Whisnant's perspective, and it's not clear if that was something actually said about Berlin.
Otherwise, I had a lot of fun reading the article: well-written, well-researched, important. Urve (talk) 09:09, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. (t · c) buidhe 17:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Hog Farm Talk 18:00, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm and Ian Rose: Ah. I was just about to write "Not until it has a source review pass". Gog the Mild (talk) 19:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review/pass

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The references are beautifully formatted. (Except for 276. Why oh why!) All the usual sources—university presses and peer-reviewed hournals—are A1. I can't see anything in MOS:SENTENCECAPS, MOS:TMCAPS or MOS:TMLOWER indicating that transcript Verlag warrants being treated as anything other than sentence case, as, although eBay is a thing, we specifiy that the unusual formating be reflected in third-party RS. While eBay garners sufficient discussion in sources for that coverage to be apparent, I'm not seeing the same coverage for this small, academic publisher (perhaps unsurprisingly). Pinging Nikkimaria and @FAC coordinators: for further input, but it's certainly not a failable issue, so passing anyway. SN54129 16:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On Google Scholar German-language sources that mention the verlag lowercase "transcript". Same with this english language book but it's not independent, being published by the verlag. (t · c) buidhe 17:19, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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