In a message dated 11/6/99 8:40:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, alanandsteve@ writes:REPLY
"....There are more questions than answers that come from this but I am pleased to see this site on the Internet and know that it cannot be anything but uplifting to read.
"Alan & Steve, Together Over 20 Years !!"
Congratulations on 20 years together.
Thank you for your kind, encouraging, and stimulating comments. I appreciate it very much.
As you know, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs wrote about "Uranian" love (in his native German), and his books were often banned and confiscated. He was being silenced. He tried to speak, but his proposal was shelved. When he protested, he was shouted down and asked to speak in Latin. More forced silence. Then he was run out of the country.
Magnus Hirschfeld took up after Ulrichs and had a lot of Ulrichs' writings in his library and archives. Then the Nazi youth went in and burned all the books, pictures, and files. More silence. After the war, Gay people who were rounded up by the Nazis were retained in prison, and civilian Gays could not come out of the closet.
In the 1950's in England and America, homosexuals were persecuted and prosecuted as much as ever, and no scholar at a university would touch Ulrichs' work, for fear of being fired.
After Stonewall in 1969, many of the older German Gay books were recovered. Mike and I decided to translate Ulrichs' hugh book, a lot of work and money. We didn't wait for a publisher, but after 17 years, Prometheus Books came along and said they would publish the English translation of Ulrichs' books. But even among Gays, this kind of book is lowest on the totem pole, buried under all the pulp fiction and slick erotic magazines, or videos (some of which I enjoy, too!).
Because Ulrichs' works are now available in English, and because of the foothold Gays have in society, the so-called hidden story can at last be told, as it were.
In this case, the truth of Ulrichs' life and activism is stranger than fiction. I can't blame you for questioning his existence and the events. The "war on homosexuality" has been very successful (but so has our "war on homophobia").
Those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think.
With best wishes,
Paul (and Mike)
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