Sexualpsychologie und Volkspsychologie

The Harden trials inspired Hirschfeld to publish a study, Sexualpsychologie und Volkspsychologie (Sexual psychology and national psychology), which analyzed in more detail what we today call homophobia. In it he claimed that his own experiences of attack had prompted him to study how hatred against groups of people is instilled in the wider public. According to the study, anti-homosexual attitudes are generated by “mass suggestion,” or the production and perpetuation of antihomosexuality discourse in the media.98 Sexualpsychologie und Volkspsychologie coincided with sociologists such as Georg Simmel beginning to analyze the psychology of the masses, especially in relation to urban life. Hirschfeld’s book, which cites his defamation by the press as an example of how such negative suggestion is executed, expanded the sociological scholarship to include a critique of antihomosexual attitudes. —Heike Bauer: The Hirschfeld Archives