Prof. Jonathan Katz featured in the New Yorker

How “The First Homosexuals”Shaped an Identity: A timely exhibition dissects the emergence of modern ideas about genderand sexuality—and the backlash against them.

By Julian Lucas | The New Yorker | July 15, 2025

"Tolerance was over. Drag shows, activist-driven science, the spuriousmultiplication of identities—all of these were to be purged, along with thebackstabbing liberals, likely collaborating with foreigners, who’d emasculated thenation by abetting such depravity. Doctors fled as their research was targeted.Censors and vigilantes destroyed the works of “degenerate” artists. In Hitler’sGermany, the scapegoat was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science, acenter of gay-rights advocacy that also pioneered gender-affi rming surgeries. InTrump’s America, it’s an ever-expanding array of teachers, health-care providers,children’s-book authors, and trans athletes. Both crackdowns followed periods ofunprecedented visibility for groups previously confined to the shadows. But who were these brand-new people that fascists couldn’t bear to look at?"

Click HERE to read the full article.