In 1931, a sexologist arrived in colonial Shanghai to give a public lecture about homosexuality. In the audience was a medical student. The sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, fell in love with the medical student, Li Shiu Tong. Li became Hirschfeld's assistant on a lecture tour around the world.

Racism and the Making of Gay Rights shows how Hirschfeld laid the groundwork for modern gay rights, and how he did so by borrowing from a disturbing set of racist, imperial, and eugenic ideas.

Following Hirschfeld and Li in their travels through the American, Dutch, and British empires, from Manila to Tel Aviv to having tea with Langston Hughes in New York City, and then into exile in Hitler's Europe, Laurie Marhoefer provides a vivid portrait of queer lives in the 1930s and of the turbulent, often-forgotten first chapter of gay rights.

About the Author
Laurie Marhoefer is the Jon Bridgman Endowed Associate Professor in History at the University of Washington.

Reviews
"Marhoefer's achievement in Racism and the Making of Gay Rights is not just to place Li back into the lecture halls and the steamships of their shared journey, but also to brilliantly reframe Hirschfeld as a man of his era, a man who developed and popularized the concept of 'homosexuality' in a world that was shaped by the fact of empire ... This book should be required reading for anybody with a professional, political, or personal interest in the 'homosexual.'" -- Lauren Stokes, Northwestern University * Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences *


Awards
Short-listed for Glasscock Book Prize Awarded by the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research 2023 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781487523978
Author Laurie Marhoefer
Format Paperback
Page Count 334
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 440g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 19mm