Germany’s Long History of Homophobia: Paragraph 175

6 Jan 2026 | Section 175 was a German criminal statute introduced in 1871 that prohibited sexual relations between men. It remained in force for more than a century, surviving monarchy, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the post-war division of Germany and even reunification before its final abolition in 1994. The law was radically expanded by the Nazis in 1935, leading to tens of thousands of investigations and the deportation of many men to concentration camps under the pink triangle. After 1945, prosecutions continued in both East and West Germany, and men were still being convicted under Section 175 into the early 1990s. Because the law persisted across these political systems, institutionalised homophobia became a structural feature of modern German history.

Following its repeal, the federal government issued a formal apology for the decades of persecution, and in 2008 a national memorial designed by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset was inaugurated at the eastern edge of the Tiergarten to commemorate homosexual victims of National Socialism. Its meaning has since broadened to include lesbian and trans victims, acknowledging the wider spectrum of people targeted and marginalised under the Nazi regime and in the decades that followed.

This video outlines key moments in the long history of institutionalised homophobia in Germany.


Whitlam’s Berlin Tours can be supported on Patreon here.

Mike Johnson's Unhinged Obsession with Homosexuality Is... Suspicious

Dec 27, 2023 | Speaker Mike Johnson really hates gay people. In fact, he hates gay people a little too much… to the point where he’s a bit suss. Is he the next Republican closet case to be involved in a gay sex scandal? We’ll discuss that in this video.

1977 NEWS SPECIAL: Parents Of Gays | First Homophobia Network Broadcast

Jul 19, 2025 | CBS" PARENTS OF GAYS "in 1977. Produced four years after homosexuality was declassified as an anxiety disorder and eight years after the Stonewall Riots, PARENTS OF GAYS was the first presentation on network television where homosexuality was presented as within the normal range of behavior. The special explored the emotional journeys of parents coming to terms with their child’s sexual orientation during a time when homosexuality was still widely stigmatized.

As the Welsh of yesteryear often used to say… Poor dabs! These people got their knickers in a twist over nothing. — © Mark Alexander

Do You Hate LGBT? 100 Russians

May 23, 2022

'Sad Reality': Football Star Josh Cavallo Says He Gets Daily Death Threats for Being Gay | ABC NEWS

Mar 18, 2025 | Adelaide United midfielder Josh Cavallo, who came out as gay in 2021, tells News Breakfast he still receives "multiple" death threats every day.

Homophobia in Africa: American Influence? | ARTE.tv Documentary

Feb 15, 2025 | Since Uganda passed extremely severe laws persecuting gay people, attacks on the LGBT+ community have skyrocketed. But could these new laws be added and abetted by an ultra-conservative American NGO?

Homophobia in Africa: American Influence? | ARTE.tv Documentary
Available until 03/09/2028

President Milei's Homophobic Davos Speech Sparks Protests across Argentina

Feb 2, 2025 | Thousands of Argentinians protested after Milei compared homosexuality to paedophilia and announced that feminicide would be removed from the penal code.

Related video here.

The world political stage is peopled by clowns and ignoramuses. The world is going mad. – © Mark Alexander

The History of Christianity and Homophobia | Sir Noel Malcolm: The History of Homosexuality (2/4)

Jan 16, 2025 | How has Judaism and Christianity understood and treated homosexuality throughout history? Throughout this fascinating lecture, learn how the answer is that it was radically different and varied across time and place. Discover the influence theology has had in the development of how various romantic acts were legally categorised.

Sir Noel Malcolm is a British historian and author, known for his work in early modern history and the relationship between Europe and the Islamic world. He's a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and has written extensively on Thomas Hobbes, among other subjects. Knighted in 2014, he's also a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature


Part 1 of this lecture is to be found here.

Gay Shame: The Rise of Gender Ideology and the New Homophobia - Gareth Roberts

Premiered Jun 2, 2024

Is Apostate Aladdin Gay? EXPOSED

Premiered Sep 30, 2021 | Asking the tough questions. I wonder what he'll say.

When I worked in Saudi Arabia many years ago, I found Saudis to be very friendly, very hospitable, very nice, but often also very prurient. – © Mark Alexander

Week 5: Farage Is Not a Joke - Racism and the Reform Party

Jun 29, 2024 | Byline Times editor Hardeep Matharu talks with Executive Editor Peter Jukes and Chief Reporter Josiah Mortimer about the week's development as the 2024. General Election reaches its climax.

Jewish Students Condemn Antisemitic Tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

THE GUARDIAN: Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

Attal (centre) is France’s youngest prime minister and the first out gay politician in the role.Photograph: Eric Tschaen/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock
The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

His father, a lawyer and film producer who died in 2015, was Jewish and his mother is Orthodox Christian. He was baptised as Christian but Attal has said his father told him he would feel Jewish all his life and would always face antisemitism because he had a Jewish name. » | Angelique Chrisafis in Paris | Friday, January 12, 2024

Who is Gabriel Attal, the French PM who climbed the ranks in record time?: France’s youngest prime minister, son of privilege, is known for his ability to think on his feet »

The Struggle of Being Gay in Albania | 2015

Dec 8, 2015 | Up until the mid-90s if you were openly gay in Albania, you would be sent to prison. Many homosexuals stil face bigotry and violence, even in their own homes. …

There is so much anger in this world. It is so sad. Tragic, in fact. The world is full of people who think, believe – nay! are convinced – that they know exactly how people should be and live. In fact, so arrogant are they that they behave as though they had a hotline to the ‘Papa in the Sky’, the Creator, the Power behind all things. The Power that is said to be omnipotent yet appears more and more impotent with each passing day, as so many natural catastrophes this year attest to.

Naturally, the answer to this is clear and simple: Live and let live! As long as people don’t trouble you, refrain from troubling them! Let them seek their pleasures in a way that suits them. Therefore, let them live in a way that suits them. Let them seek their own happiness; and then you seek yours. Life is far, far too short for all this hatred and strife.

Death comes to us all. Often far more quickly than one could ever imagine. One minute you are here; the next, you are not. I have personally witnessed someone dying right in front of me. Believe you me, a person’s last breath is drawn in the twinkling of an eye. That could be yours or mine. Then, to state the obvious, it's over.

It therefore behoves us all to be as tolerant as we can be. And if someone behaves in a way that displeases you, look the other way! If you happen to be a religious person and believe that the person in question is behaving in a way that is displeasing to your God, then God will have a way of dealing with that person in the next life. That is what the Day of Judgement is all about.

So, cultivate tolerance for the sake of social harmony. For as Jesus told us: He who is without sin, cast the first stone!

Homophobia is a sickness. – © Mark Alexander

How Life Is Changing for Italy's Gay Families – BBC News

Sep 23, 2023 | Italy’s government is planning to criminalise people who travel abroad to have children via surrogacy, which is already banned in the country.

While the majority of Italians who seek surrogacy abroad are believed to be heterosexual, many same-sex parents fear the new law is targeting LGBT families by making it harder for them to have children.

A recent Ipsos poll shows that 45% of Italians oppose the idea of surrogacy, but 45% were also in favour of granting legal recognition for children born via surrogacy.

Gates of Hell - Homophobia in Russia | Documentary

Jun 7, 2022 | After years of slow but steady progress, the rights of homosexuals in Russia took a giant step backwards with the passing of the Anti-Propaganda law – effectively forcing the gay population of Russia to live in the shadows and in shame. Lacking the basic right of living openly, as well as facing legal discrimination in work and study, Russia’s LGBT are also now facing a growing wave of violence.

When will people come to understand that if you believe in God, then we all are God’s children. Our natures, in that case, are as God intended them to be. For a believer, God is the inerrant Creator; so how can these homophobes profess Christianity and at the same time criticise gays for being the way that God intended them to be?

These eminent academics in the USA who have specialised in theology over very many years state clearly that the Bible DOES NOT condemn homosexuality. Period.

Furthermore, Jesus preached love, not division and hatred. All of God’s children should therefore be given the chance to live in peace, harmony, dignity, and safety. Gays in Russia should be able to live free from fear. More enlightened attitudes need to overcome the prevailing benightedness in the country. For Heaven’s sake, give gays a chance! – © Mark Alexander

The Stomach-churning Things Nazis Did to Gay Men

Feb 28, 2023 | Nazi Terror, Gay Men In Nazi Germany …

UK Government Told to Give LGBTQ+ Ugandans Safe Asylum Route as Anti-Homosexuality Bill Looms

PINK NEWS: Politicians and charities are calling on the UK government to create a safe and legal route for LGBTQ+ people fleeing Uganda over the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. (Getty)
Uganda’s parliament passed the anti-LGBTQ+ bill for a second time on Tuesday (2 May), removing a provision that would have made it illegal to simply identify as LGBTQ+.

It remains a deeply troubling piece of legislation designed to persecute the community. Within its clauses is the introduction of the death penalty for the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” – ostensibly said to mean having sex with a minor, having sex while HIV positive or engaging in incest.

With the bill now awaiting president Yoweri Museveni’s signature, the lack of safe asylum routes for LGBTQ+ Ugandans is an urgent issue.

“The Anti-Homosexuality Bill will mean that Uganda has among the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world, and violent attacks on LGBTQ+ Ugandans are likely to increase in its wake,” Labour MP Nadia Whittome told PinkNews.

“The UK government must urge Uganda’s president to veto the bill and create safe routes for LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing persecution to rebuild their lives in the UK.” » | Patrick Kelleher | Friday, May 5, 2023

Beyond the Wall: Part 1 - The Rise of Germany's Far Right; Part 2: From Germany to Bulgaria, What Happened to Hope? | People & Power

Confronting Homophobia | Stephen Fry - Out There | LGBTQIA+ | Pride Central | Reupload

Dec 3, 2022 | Episode 1 sees Stephen reflecting back on how much has improved for gay people in his lifetime and he meets Elton John and David Furnish who’ve inspired many, including Stephen, to be open about their sexuality. He also travels to Uganda where the government is proposing a new law that would put gay people to death and sees up close the impact this is having on the lives of gay men and women there. Stephen also travels to the USA to explore the workings of Reparative Therapy, a therapy that claims to cure people of a gay sexuality. And he also has time to see how Hollywood deals with the gay issue these days by meeting Neil Patrick Harris who continues to land leading man roles even though he’s openly gay.

Response to the Jehovah's Witness Anti-gay Indoctrination Video | Lesson 22: One Man, One Woman

The language used in this video is rather raw at times; however, the video is rather funny. But because of the language used, it is not suitable for children. – Mark