Merry Christmas December, 1924 in Chicago when the State of Illinois issued a charter to a new organization called Society for Human Rights inspired by and named after a movement in Germany. SHR was the first official publicly recognized organization in the U.S.A. dedicated to achieving rights for people who have homosexual orientations. The new organization was founded by Henry Gerber after his encounters with the homosexual movement while stationed in Germany as a soldier serving in the occupation forces.

 

Numerous obstacles beset the new attempt to start a movement. The short lived project created a newsletter called Friendship and Freedom which only saw two issues reach publication. An early challenge was actually from people who had homosexual orientations and who had always lived in an air of secrecy, some of which responded that they liked the secrecy to which they were accustomed. Inevitable challenges to finances would also strike quickly.

 

The organization decided to embrace a purely homophile identity and excluded others from their efforts, even though they would eventually find out that their vice president was bi and had a wife and two children. A quote from a 1962 letter published by Gerber:

 

 We had agreed to make our organization a purely homophile Society, and we had argued and decided to exclude the much larger circle of bisexuals for the time being. Neither I nor John, our elected president, had been conscious of the fact that our vice-president, Al, was that type.

 

In 1925 the three leaders were arrested, one found with another man. Gerber was taken into custody by a policeman who was accompanied by a reporter. There was a sensational news paper attack upon the men and the organization. In the subsequent trial the judge admonished the prosecution because the men had been arrested without a warrant. One man had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Gerber was released and his confiscated property returned with the exception of his diaries which were turned over to the postal service. Postal investigators threatened to charge the men for misusing the postal system and Gerber was dismissed from his job at the Post Office for conduct unbecoming a postal employee.

 

And so, the first official “homophile” rights organization in the U.S.A. ceased to exist.

 

Authors’ note: I did not use the term ‘gay’ here because the term was not yet being commonly used and so I use the terms used by the people at the time and who were involved.