When Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns was published in 1941, sexology was hardly a new field. In 1886, German researcher Richard von Krafft-Ebing published his ground-breaking study, Psychopathia Sexualis, one of the first books about sexual pathology. In it, Kraff-Ebing coined the terms “sadism” and “masochism”, borrowed the word “bisexuality” from botany and focused on male homosexuality, which he diagnosed as the “antipathetic sexual instinct”. English physician Havelock Ellis lifted homosexuality out of the context of illness and criminality in his more objective 1897 book Sexual Inversion. He, along with German physician, Magnus Hirshfield, pioneered transgender studies as separate and apart from homosexuality.
Though progressive in his attitudes toward queerness, Ellis was also an adherent to the pseudo-science of eugenics. Distorting the research of Charles Darwin and scientist Gregory Mendel, eugenicists posited that inherited genetics determined qualities such as intelligence and certain social behaviors, and that human beings could be “perfected” through better genes. Originating in the late 18th century, eugenics gained traction through the early 20th century as a plausible theory of human evolution but was also used as a “scientific” basis to justify racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and ableist attitudes and practices. Nazi Germany stands as one of the most infamous and extreme applications of eugenics.
Before its decimation by the Nazis, Magnus Hirshfield’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin housed a library with over 20,000 books and 35,000 photos and art works documenting a wide variety of sexual experiences. Hirshfield’s chronicle of queer life and advocacy to decriminalize homosexuality made him the target of far-right political forces but also attracted people from across Europe and beyond endeavoring to understand the range of human sexuality.
One such seeker was American journalist, activist, and lesbian Jan Gay, who met with Hirshfield to understand his approach and techniques. Gay adapted and applied Hirshfield’s detailed questionnaire in her interviews with 300 lesbians, collecting information about their backgrounds, sexual histories and attitudes toward their own sexuality. Lack of scientific credentials limited Gay’s publishing opportunities until she connected with the medical community, and The Committee to Study Sexual Variants was formed to fund and organize further research. Headed by Dr. George Henry, the committee consisted of nineteen members and expanded upon Gay’s research to include homosexual men, as well.
Gay often found her ambitions for the work at odds with those of the scientists on the committee, some of whom, like Dr. Robert Dickenson, embraced theories of eugenics and its political implications, which they applied to their studies of homosexuality. But Gay’s endeavor isn’t just a medical document, her work was radical and nuanced. It survives as a portrait of the 1930s New York city queer community – a rich, vibrant community, expansive and complex. The study’s eighty subjects offer a social critique of their time, a critique that resonates today.
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