Li Shiu Tong


Li Shiu Tong was a Hong Kong medical student and sexologist. Some consider him an early LGBTQ activist. He is known as the companion of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld.

Early life

Li Shiu Tong was born in British Hong Kong as the second son to Li Wing Kwong, a wealthy Chinese local bank owner and landlord. In 1924, he went to St. John's University, Shanghai to study medicine, but dropped out without a degree. In 1931, he left Shanghai in order to pursue studying sexology with Magnus Hirschfeld, who served as his teacher, mentor, and possibly lover.

Early career and world tour

Li met Hirschfeld in Shanghai at a public lecture for Chinese feminists at China United Apartments in 1931. Li recalled that "His lectures about human sexual variation, particularly on homosexuality, a still ignorant and controversial topic." After the lecture, Li approached Hirschfeld, who claimed " offered himself to me, after my first lecture in Shanghai, as a 'companion' and 'protector', to take care of me and help me wherever I might want to travel in China, in particular to stand by my side as a Chinese interpreter." His father approved of Li accompanying Hirschfeld and hoped that his son would become "the Hirschfeld of China". Hirschfeld nicknamed him "Tao Li", a name that he would be known as by others in their circles. Li accompanied Hirschfeld travelling to Beijing and Nanjing, also meeting with the Kuomintang Minister of Health to talk about "prostitution, birth control, and homosexuality". During this time, he also used the alias "Mr. Mann Lee".
Soon after, Li left Shanghai at the age of 24 in order to pursue a career with Hirschfeld, which he hoped would end with him being able to study at a European university. Li never had his political opinions explicitly expressed; however, in Hirschfeld's book about his world tour there were repeated references to the opinions of "Chinese students" on imperialism, which probably was in reference to Li. There were many instances of racism against Li throughout the world tour. For instance, Li wasn't allowed to leave the ship to enter American-occupied Manila until he obtained special clearance because of the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. He and Hirschfeld ended up returning to Europe on 17 March 1932 in Athens. The original plan was to return to Berlin so Li could finish medical school and work at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, but this was derailed by the rising influence of the Nazi Party in Germany. Here they met Hirschfeld's long time partner, Karl Giese. According to Giese, they got along well, and he described Li as "very nice and chummy to me", but an acquaintance of Hirschfeld said "He's living now with both flames. And the best part is, both of them are so jealous about the old geezer. Now if that's not true love?" It remains an open question whether the undoubtedly close relation between Li and Hirschfeld was sexual or romantic.
Li and Hirschfeld spent many years in European exile, with Li acting as Hirschfeld's student, nurse and secretary. From 1932, Li was officially a medical student at the University of Vienna but it remains unclear whether he actually attended classes there. Li later claimed that he met Sigmund Freud there. With the rise of Hitler in Germany, Hirschfeld was hoping to be safe in Switzerland. In 1932, Li submitted a paper with both his and Hirschfeld's name on it to the Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform in Brno, Czechoslovakia. This paper was one of the first to cover intersex people extensively as well as the idea that homosexuality was not a disease, but rather a natural human variation influenced by disposition and environment. In May 1933, after the looting of Hirschfeld's institute in Berlin, Li helped Hirschfeld to escape from Switzerland to France. From 1933 to 1935, Hirschfeld lived, mostly together with Li, in Paris and Nice. They spent the summers 1933 and 1934 in Vichy. From November 1933 to February 1934, Li returned to Hong Kong to attend his father's and brother's funeral who had allegedly died in a car accident.
Shortly before Hirschfeld died in Nice in May 1935, Li started medical studies at the University of Zurich. Robert Hichens would write a novel based on Li Shiu Tong's life in the south of France and Zürich, titled That Which is Hidden, published in 1939.

Life after Hirschfeld

Li and Giese were named the primary heirs in Hirschfeld's will, in which he stipulated that he would give Li an inheritance in order to carry on Hirschfeld's legacy. According to Giese, "Tao is rather panicky... Apart from the personal loss, the responsibilities that Papa has sort of imposed on him are a bit oppressive in light of his youth... It is an inheritance just as honorable as it is obligatory, obligatory to the greatest possible extent, such that Tao does not even know whether he should accept it." He entered a "drifting" period after Hirschfeld's death. With little monetary limitations, he could pursue extensive travels and studies. Frightened by World War II, he tried to leave Switzerland. It was not before 1941 that he obtained a visa for the USA. Crossing the Atlantic from Lisbon to New York in a refugee ship, he started studying at Harvard University. There he studied from 1941 to 1944 without actually completing a degree program. In 1944 he moved to Washington D.C. where he became an employee of the Chinese embassy. Shortly after the end of World War II, he moved back to Zürich in October 1945 where he resumed his medical studies at the university. He moved back to Hong Kong in 1960. In the early 1970s, he settled in Vancouver, Canada for the final phase of his life, surrounded by more and more family members immigrating to Canada. In October 1993, he died in a hospital in Vancouver. Throughout his journeys, he kept Hirschfeld's personal items that he had inherited.

Sexology

Li started his manuscript on a new theory of sexology in the 1980s, which seemed to be only partially finished at 16 pages. It also appears to have parts missing that were not retrieved from the garbage and thus presumably reside in Vancouver's Delta Landfill. The manuscript is said to include Li's first book, "The Institute of S. Science in Berlin/Long introduction/Story the whole book", which seems to be an account of sexological research combined with a psychological thriller about escaping Germany - partially based on Li and Hirschfeld's own escape. The book depicts Li's time evading the German authorities, who were after records of "the sexual behaviors of foreign patients" in order to gain access to blackmail material on foreign officials' sexual behavior. Li interspersed his many post-Hirschfeld adventures with his findings. He mentions nothing of his love affair with Hirschfeld. Li wrote substantially about how he viewed gender not as absolute, but as a continuum, and argued that sexual minorities are natural. However, he broke from common beliefs with his claims that "A homosexual is not born but made" and asserted that homosexuality is nature's defense against overpopulation. He also believed that there were a lot of transgender people, who he claimed were "the most interesting mankind. A complex sexual mankind. Dr. was the best authority on this subject. In fact he discovered it. The behavior of transvertit helped to explain some of that of the homosexual, bisexual, and even heterosexual." He also stated that queerness was a lot more common than people thought, claiming "humans were 40 percent bisexual, 30 percent heterosexual, 20 percent homosexual, and 10 percent other." The key factor distinguishing him from Hirschfeld was that Li did not entirely throw out the idea that queerness in sexuality and gender can be affected by environment - a departure from Hirschfeld's claims that queerness is only due to biology as a natural response to overpopulation.

Death and legacy

Li Shiu Tong died on 5 October 1993 at St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada at the age of 86. Li's youngest brother dealt with his affairs, and many of his manuscripts and belongings ended up in a dumpster near his apartment. A neighbor recovered "an old German passport from the 1930s, black-and-white photographs, papers, a little journal filled with a scrawling hand, a few letters, many copies of a French magazine called, and... Hirschfeld's death mask." Ralf Dose, who wrote Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement, came across a listing for the items eight years later and obtained them along with Li's books from his brother, who claimed he kept the books because Li had risked his life to save them from Nazi Germany. Most of the manuscript probably ended up in the Delta landfill.