1979: Establishment of the Homosexuelle Initiative (HOSI)

Lesbians and gay men began to politically organise in the second half of the 1970s following the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in the 1971  small criminal law reform. Activist Wolfgang Förster announced the founding of a gay association on the television talk show Club 2 on September 25th, 1979. Following the broadcast of the show, the ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) and FPÖ (Freedom Party) made a parliamentary inquiry to Christian Broda (SPÖ, Social Democrat Party): the announced founding of the association constituted the offence laid out in § 221, which prohibited the formation of associations “favouring same-sex fornication”. Broda, however, defended the position that the association was suitable for bringing about a change in public attitude. The founding of the association was therefore not prohibited, and in January 1980, the first general assembly of HOSI took place in Vienna. From 1981, lesbian women were also involved in the association, many more of which were then founded in additional cities. In the following decades, HOSI initiated numerous campaigns against legal discrimination and in favour of societal equality for lesbians and gay men, and also demanded redress for gay victims of National Socialism.

External Resources:

Homosexuelle Initiative (HOSI) Wien | www.hosiwien.at