United States LGBT History for 1935

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

          Oregon
                    Oregon Governor Charles Martin announces that no prisoner convicted of a sex crime will be                     pardoned unless sexually sterilized first. He also asks the state legislature for a broader sterilization
                    law patterned on that of Nazi Germany. In a special session that year, Martin gets a new law that                     requires a list of names of all known “sexual perverts” to be turned over to the state’s Board of                     Eugenics for possible sterilization, whether or not these “perverts” commit a crime.

          Washington D.C.
                    Congress passed a law for the District of Columbia that made it a crime for "any person to invite,                     entice, persuade, or to address for the purpose of inviting, enticing, or persuading any person or                     persons...to accompany, to go with, to follow him or her to his or her residence, or to any other house                     or building, inclosure, or other place, for the purpose of prostitution, or any other immoral or lewd                     purpose." It imposed a fine of up to $100, up to 90 days in jail, and courts were permitted to "impose                     conditions" on anyone convicted under this law, including "medical and mental examination,                     diagnosis and treatment by proper public health and welfare authorities, and such other terms and                     conditions as the court may deem best for the protection of the community and the punishment,                     control, and rehabilitation of the defendant." The law went into effect on August 14, 1935.

          Washington D.C.
                    J. Edgar Hoover, founder of modern police investigation and widely believed to be homosexual, is                     appointed as the FBI’s first director.

          National
                    “Successful” electric shock therapy treatment of homosexuality reported at American Psychological                     Association meeting

          National
                    Francis Lederer start performing in “The Gay Deception”

          Washington D.C.
                    In Special Session a new law requires a list of all known “sexual perverts” to be turned over to the                     Board of Eugenics for possible sterilization, regardless of whether or not a crime has been                     committed.

 State equality and discrimination bills