Winner of Randy Shilts Award

In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts—the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries—exploring and educating themselves and the rest of the world about new ways of understanding the human condition. In this fascinating examination of how the uninhibited urban culture of Berlin helped create our categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, Robert Beachy guides readers through the past events and developments that continue to shape and influence our thinking about sex and gender to this day. Winner of the 2015 Randy Shilts Award

“Excellent and richly documented. . . . Beachy’s work must [be] considered in the larger context of a shift in cultural studies. . . . Fascinating.” —V.R. Berghahn, The New York Times Book Review

“Beachy enlarges our understanding of how the international gay-rights movement eventually prospered, despite the setbacks that it experienced not only in Nazi Germany but also in mid-century America.” —The New Yorker

“A very good, serious, detailed, scholarly work of history by an excellent researcher who has clearly done his homework—and then some.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A superb work of historical reclamation–by far the best account we have of the formative years of homosexual identity and emancipation, it is brilliantly researched and beautifully written.” —Martin Duberman, Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, CUNY