The Persistence of Transnational Organizing: The Case of the Homophile Movement

When, on June 17, 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution endorsing gay rights for the first time, that broadening of the reach of universal human rights achieved a goal set sixty years earlier.1 In 1951, at the first International Congress for Sexual Equality, held in Amsterdam, representatives from Denmark, West Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland sent a telegram to the UN demanding equal rights for homosexual minorities.2 In keeping with “the Principles of the United Nations laid down in the Rights of Man,” the “findings of modern psychological, biological and medical research,” and “mankind's greater awareness of social injustice”—a clear reference to the Nazi Holocaust—they called on the UN to “initiate steps towards granting [the] status of human, social and legal equality to homosexual minorities throughout the world.”3 The congress gave birth to a new organization, the International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE), which linked existing homophile groups across national borders and worked to win basic civil rights in the inhospitable environment of the Cold War 1950s. The transnational homophile movement born of this congress was neither the beginning nor the end of the story of organizing across national borders on the basis of sexual identity. Rather, it occupied a middle position, linking activism around same‐sex sexuality in the World League for Sexual Reform, founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in the interwar years, to the emergence of a contemporary transnational gay and lesbian movement in the 1970s. The organization also connected national homophile groups in the Euroamerican world. For about a decade, the International Committee sponsored congresses and meetings, issued publications, and worked transnationally to change discriminatory laws and attitudes. In linking transnational activism around sexual identity across both time and space, the history of the ICSE provides a new perspective on a story now told in discrete time periods and national chapters. In addition, the case of transnational homophile organizing raises the possibility that other movements mobilized around longstanding grievances and stretching across national borders have a more continuous history than we have previously recognized. Transnational activism has operated historically through two mechanisms: diffusion of movements across borders and international mobilization.4 In the case of the ICSE, both mechanisms came into play. Activism spread from Germany to the Netherlands in the interwar period, and from the Netherlands elsewhere in the postwar years. In addition, activist elites worked to recruit members and mobilize national organizations. The ICSE originated out of the Dutch Cultuur‐ en Ontspannings Centrum (Cultural and Recreational Center, known as the COC) and brought together the homophile organizations of Northern and Western Europe and, a little later, the United States.5 In that way, it bridges national histories, giving organizational form to what Julian Jackson, writing about the French group Arcadie, calls “the West's ‘homophile moment,’” and David Churchill, from the perspective of U.S. organizations and publications, styles a transnational “homophile political culture.”6 The Swiss periodical Der Kreis publicized the telegram sent by the ICSE founding congress to the United Nations demanding rights for homosexual minorities. Courtesy of ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles. In bringing together national homophile organizations to fight for the rights of homosexuals, the ICSE created a transnational network, elaborated a homophile identity that crossed nationality, and fought for the rights of sexual minorities before the emergence of the contemporary global gay and lesbian movement. The assertion that sexual identity was a bond that united individuals across national identities and that activists could make a difference by working transnationally built on and politicized the traditional cosmopolitanism of elite male homosexual culture. The history of the ICSE thus sheds new light on relationships among national homophile groups, undermines the notion of the 1950s as a uniformly dark decade of isolation and repression, and points to the longue durée of activism around sexual identity. The case of the homophile movement has implications for thinking more generally about the persistence of transnational activism. The sweep of transnational movements across time is clear when organizations persist, as is the case with the women's movement, which includes groups such as the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which were founded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and have remained active into the twenty‐first century, alongside their postwar rival, the left‐affiliated Women's International Democratic Federation. The United Nations Decade for Women, proclaimed at the International Women's Year conference in Mexico City in 1975, might seem unconnected to the struggle for women's suffrage early in the century of the of women's transnational activism throughout the interwar and postwar transnational such as the and have in the existing which to on of discrete time periods national of transnational organizations from a social on the movements than the that is more across time and than first the when organizations and to by as is the case with organizing around sexual is a The homophile movement in the 1950s linked what have to discrete periods of activism in a that to the of transnational activism. The history of organizing around sexual identity the of political that transnational activism is the of contemporary of and to other transnational movements have the of The of for the persistence of transnational activism in such The to a transnational organization from the of the Dutch which status as the homosexual organization in the in the The on national borders a to with the traditional of the with their to the of the ICSE it in a is with Dutch to the to of the In 1951, the and of the the of the first International Congress by existing homophile The national homophile organizations that the ICSE and The of the to the homophile movement of the of Human Denmark, and organization, the for Sexual French groups a and, it with the ICSE of the the of a by Julian In the (Cultural and Recreational as the on the The group around Der Kreis the of male homosexual founded in active The ICSE to a of groups in and the also the of to more The in Great with the International Committee to as organization of homosexuals, individuals the The ICSE across the to the United ONE and the to in as the the for and In groups, the International Committee for Sexual Equality remained and on the of a group of members throughout of the ICSE and of the was a and as as a homophile the and the of among the from founded the Dutch and international as in and the of with homophile in a with a male and when first a with ICSE and was political as a same‐sex and the of the Dutch the movement and in founded a homosexual to The Nazi end to that and the and into the to as which and into the and The Dutch in and with of remained the of the ICSE, other individuals in The other at for a of time, was was in a and fought in and was the In the postwar period, in homophile groups and the to in to as of the The Dutch in for in and out of the the that what called the to of Dutch a worked at ICSE was to Der and at the end of a about years as activist for a gay with the on that has with the homophile in as a and a with a than of the in the came from national homophile groups, the ICSE remained male throughout a of both the and the of existing homophile in the of male and of in homophile a on the their national organizations at and to at the congress on the “the the lesbian and in the The first women's group to the ICSE was the for for in founded in a before the U.S. of generally the first lesbian homophile The organization, with about sixty members by by set out in the of with a U.S. lesbian sent the ICSE a in on a through and for to in with that could the organization The ICSE the of in and worked to the existing national women's groups, in and in the of to it for and for throughout the The to in lesbian groups that the and of the ICSE was the of the male of the national homophile organizations than of of in The ICSE at at bringing together the and active members of national homophile in 1951, the Committee of the of the sent to the existing homophile groups in Europe to International conference on the of and in the In addition, in individuals on a a working in and on their to and that was clear is for the international members could from national organization was in and throughout the individuals from Italy, and In to reach a the ICSE also to a the founding was in at with and French and a in other and it in and French to the about the organization from ICSE publications, Der national homophile in the about In the of the national homophile groups that the ICSE a of that was Congress in the in the the for of the global the ICSE Europe of the and the United in from other The congresses to Europe in to The for both the and congresses was that in other that the organization to of the that the of is to the ICSE on existing homophile groups to was little to reach the of the Euroamerican world. 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legal the on Human the homophile movement could rights alongside other groups was in as a have of human rights for for in the human rights could to a in the dark The of the ICSE the held in Courtesy of ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles. 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The ICSE as the middle in a of transnational activism. it was born out of the it to Magnus founded in Dutch of the organization, the in in to a of the that sexual with the of was the of for to the Dutch with to the came to built a and to and The of the Netherlands the end of the at members a new at first called the and the The to international congress in to the Hirschfeld In Hirschfeld founded the World League for Sexual Reform, the International for Sexual on the of Sexual held in in as the first congress of the transnational The new which brought together activists and on birth and the World League for Sexual to the of the International Committee for Sexual Equality, a to the congress in that the the congress which the and to a transnational in this the ICSE from group on the that it in the of and has by in their as we have in the of the International Committee the organization as the of the Committee a form for and and to a new which is in it a Nations a the first to the of years of to form a with a as the new of fought for in a the of the of the Dutch of the to in the that other groups in the history of and for their the ICSE to make a with the gay movement, through the years. organization known as the International World founded in the early 1950s by ICSE members of the homophile organization and the of across the from to Germany in the and a periodical that in International for and In to the as a the ICSE and the the two organizations a and to in for and the ICSE to from the was in to win ICSE for the that in in the international is we to on international basis in the of the homophile that is what In and the held international in and and in the sponsored international that the with other representatives from Germany and from Denmark, the Netherlands, and the to which the ICSE in the into the the both existing homophile and gay groups in Europe were international the organizations by the new groups as and it a to of end of the homophile and beginning of gay as have clear in the case of national homophile a in in of the U.S. a brought to the homophile movement, at what was a and In 1975, the sponsored a conference on and in homosexual movements in the Netherlands, by representatives of the homophile groups in and Great The for Equality which at that conference and which with the ICSE, in that conference in have as International at the time, bringing together from homophile in the the United and was that by representatives from the the and the of the gave birth to the International Gay the International Lesbian and Gay now the International and the contemporary transnational gay the first conference of the new group in the Netherlands the from of political and to gay organizations at [the] global the on the for the of of as a and for status at the a new was in of for the women's movement, to gay rights in the and to and the gay and lesbian movements that throughout Europe and the United in the little in for their homophile the that the groups in time and and with the new Dutch of was a with the we and the the out of the of a identity on sexual identity that and the to across national borders to change laws and from of organizing to the The history of the ICSE as a in the stretching from the World League for Sexual to the International and has implications for other social movements on longstanding a movement as to as to the rights of sexual minorities World War also in the political of the Cold other in form when remained a The case of the International Committee for Sexual Equality of homophile movements in the to across time and and to the of homophile activists as and than the gay the of equality in the the of the ICSE were neither about their nor postwar on homosexual in and organizations and individuals across national homophile worked to laws to the of for same‐sex and to of the of same‐sex and to win civil equality and human rights for homosexual and in isolation in the homophile movements in as the of “the which originated in Germany and was in the Netherlands, and the of as a group in the United across national styles of activism. The of working transnationally was to to the laws and social and to that in the Dutch to the of the activists from the of human rights as by the UN and fought to sexual minorities among the groups of The ICSE, through the of transnational that in the male homosexual and international transnational activism a is a story with implications as The ICSE as what keeping a to organizing for the rights of sexual minorities across national borders in the of the Cold of that when for a that what form movements that in inhospitable environment to and to of through and of activism. of such the of organization to members a time the of members to a of time and to the the to the group of the and the of a that the of The ICSE this The of the group a longstanding to homosexual equality and the organization as the of Magnus to than to recruit new organizations in for is of the homophile activists of the 1950s and remained to the rights of sexual minorities. the organization when the of equality were with the of of the was that the ICSE of in the the form of activism. with members in a in keeping the International Committee and in at the of and members in the a transnational the ICSE across national a identity that alongside than national and and to to The of a to other movements that seem to have and to have out of to women's which as by the for and In the case of the transnational women's movement, organizations throughout in other as with the transnational movement for sexual the of organizational on to members and a that and organization has the to in a and of activism to might seem to and organizations have for of by a and of when the organizations the transnational in the of that national a for identities as the borders of The case of the transnational homophile movement the discrete of national groups and the activism of Germany to contemporary also to new of the history of transnational activism more