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Laurie Marhoefer, Jon Bridgman Endowed Associate Professor of History, University of Washington

The Asian Canadian gay activist whose theories on sexuality were decades ahead of their time

Li Shiu Tong, right, was the boyfriend and intellectual heir of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Imagno/Getty Images

Historians are rediscovering one of the most important LGBTQ activists of the early 20th Century – an Asian Canadian named Li Shiu Tong. You probably don’t know the name, but he was at the center of the first wave of gay politics.

Much has been written about Li’s older boyfriend, Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld was a closeted German doctor and sexologist who became famous in the 1930s as a defender of gay people. In books on Hirschfeld, Li is usually just a footnote.

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