{"id":303,"date":"2021-02-06T08:35:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T08:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/?p=303"},"modified":"2021-02-14T15:33:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T15:33:03","slug":"303","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/kaleidoscope\/2021\/02\/06\/303\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBT+ History Month 06\/28: Michael Schofield"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Saturday the 06th February and the first weekend of LGBT+ History month.\u00a0 As part of our Queeroes series, we begin our day with another LGBT+ icon who helped pave the way forward for equality and inclusivity for LGBT+ people.\u00a0 War hero turned researcher turned law and social reformer, today we are delving into the life and legacy of Michael Schofield.<\/p>\n

Michael George Schofield, born on the 24th June 1919, was the son of Leeds largest department store owner Snowden Schofield.\u00a0 As a child he was educated in North Yorkshire before studying psychology at Cambridge University, where he would also play saxophone with the Footlights band.<\/p>\n

Following university, Schofield would enter the war effort between 1940 \u2013 1946 as a fighter pilot in the RAF, a time he considered \u201cas five wasted years\u201d.\u00a0 It was during this time that he was in a very public relationship with another officer who would later be killed in action.<\/p>\n

Upon leaving the RAF, Schofield would move to the to study at Harvard Business School, obtaining his Masters.\u00a0 It was then that he first began his research into the aspects of homosexuals and society in a study that was the first of its kind.\u00a0 It puzzled him that people would think negatively towards gay men and wanted to make sense of it all.\u00a0 What were their aversions and why were they so aggressive with them?\u00a0 Was there something they were perceiving that just wasn\u2019t true?<\/p>\n

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In 1948, however, Schofield returned to the UK and would go to work in the family business alongside his brothers.\u00a0 After two years and realising that he didn\u2019t quite \u2018fit\u2019 in the business, Schofield would leave to resume his research into homosexuality in society.<\/p>\n

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As we\u2019ve come to understand by now, at the time, homosexuality, and LGBT+ people in general, would be considered inhuman and immoral.\u00a0 Schofield on the other hand believed that it was what it was and that no harm came from it. \u00a0He published his first book, Society and the Homosexual<\/em>, in 1952 under the pseudonym Gordon Westwood.\u00a0 This was the first non-medical based book on homosexuality.<\/p>\n

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Schofield would go on to publish another book, again under the guise of Gordon Westwood, titled A Minority<\/em> and would provide the first research about detailed lives of homosexuals who had neither sought treatment for their \u2018condition\u2019 nor got into trouble with the law.\u00a0 This was ground-breaking and somewhat revolutionary at the time and the impact had a lasting legacy on psychological and societal research from there on.<\/p>\n

Five years later, and under his real name, Schofield published a third book, Sociological Aspects of Homosexuality: A Comparative Study of Three Types of Homosexuals<\/em>.\u00a0 Unlike other studies which were based on clinical and criminal reports, Schofield\u2019s research examined homosexuals who were in prison, homosexuals in clinics, and homosexuals who had never been under medical treatment or arrest.\u00a0 The study itself would look at factors such as homelife, childhood upbringing, parental relationships, sexual activity, education, work, etc.\u00a0 It would look at the person and their whole life and not simply the sexual promiscuity and taboo of it all.<\/p>\n

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This research would be one of the first to change societal views on homosexuality.\u00a0 It explained that it was not an illness, a disease, a condition.\u00a0 It could not be caught and passed on.\u00a0 Homosexuality was not a poorly learned behaviour or misdemeanour.\u00a0 It was not an unclean and unhealthy habit or lifestyle choice.\u00a0 Homosexual activity would have no impact on the lives of others whatsoever.\u00a0 It was really no different from a heterosexual lifestyle.<\/p>\n

For years to come, Schofield\u2019s research would often be used in the debate around homosexual law reform, something he became particularly passionate about with the Homosexual Law Reform Society, a committee dedicated to changing laws around the criminalisation of homosexuals and their relationships with other men.<\/p>\n

But Schofield\u2019s work did not stop there, and he would become involved with wider social issues.\u00a0 For many years, Schofield would work as an active campaigner in other areas including contraception, single parent families, abortion, drugs, prison reform and even premarital teenage sex, and in 1965 would publish The Sexual Behaviour of Young People<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Schofield was becoming a king of campaigns and would regularly confront and oppose anyone who would fight against the underdog.\u00a0 On many occasions he would be found fighting Mary Whitehouse and her lobbyists as they fought back against feminists, children\u2019s rights campaigners and, of course, the LGBT+ community and their activists.<\/p>\n

Though he retired from the public eye in 1985, his charity, the Lyndhurst Settlement, would go on to donate more than \u00a33million over a 35-year period.\u00a0 Schofield would continue working behind the scenes on social reform.\u00a0 His legacy was to make a better world for everyone, LGBT+ or otherwise.\u00a0 Schofield died in 2014 and was survived by his long-time partner of 61 years, Anthony Skyrme.<\/p>\n

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Sadly there is not much information around Michael Schofield and his life.\u00a0 A reletively private man, the impact and legacy of his work is all that remains to this day.\u00a0 However, academic Professor Kenneth Plummer has created a Timeline for Michael Schofield<\/a><\/u><\/strong>, listing key events during his life and career, the Guardian published a heartfelt obituary in his honour<\/a><\/u><\/strong> upon his death and you can also discover many of his publications online.\u00a0 The list includes:<\/p>\n