During the early 20th century, licensed physicians in Oregon had little training or exposure to new theories of sexual and gender identity. But they found themselves thrust into a world of sexual diversity by disclosures about their colleagues and by a flood of public sexual controversies.
 
In just two decades doctors in the state confronted public reports or scandals about a homosexual doctor, a lesbian colleague, and a practitioner who performed an early form of gender confirmation surgery for another doctor patient. In the public realm they dealt with moral and political clashes over regulation of venereal disease and prostitution, birth control, mandatory eugenic sterilization, and, most explosively, abortion.
 
I addressed these issues in a lecture sponsored by the History of Medicine Society of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland on November 11, 2016. The talk was coordinated by the OHSU Historical Collections and Archives staff. The lecture with slides, titled “To Engage or Avoid: Matters of Sex for Oregon Physicians, 1900-1925,” is now available for online viewing.

One hundred years ago California was a classic battleground state in the presidential election that pitted incumbent President Woodrow Wilson (D) against Charles Evans Hughes (R). The front page of the New York Times declared, “California was the pivot on which the election of 1916 swung.” The outcome was unknown until late in the evening of November 9. (The election took place on November 7). The Democratic stronghold of San Francisco pushed Wilson toward victory, taking the state by just 4000 votes. The Times credited women and progressives in San Francisco with keeping Wilson in office four more years. 
 
The year 1916 was the second time California women could vote in a national election. (Women in the state won the vote in 1911 and voted in the 1912 contest); The contest posed a conflict for feminists. The Republican candidate, Charles Evans Hughes, tried to distinguish himself from the president by supporting the adoption of the Susan B. Anthony amendment to the U.S. Constitution as soon as possible.  President Wilson, on the other hand, declared his support for suffrage at the right time – soon, but not immediately. He had his mind on the European War underway for two years with a threat to pull the United States into the conflict. Wilson promised to keep the country out of the war. Should women have faith in the President’s promise for “someday soon” and return him to office? Or should they back Hughes to push their voting rights agenda as soon as possible.  
 
Most women to the north, in Oregon, supported Republican Hughes.  But one of them, the lesbian feminist doctor and political radical Marie Equi, backed Wilson “because he promised to keep us out of the war.” She voted for the Peace Candidate over the Suffrage Candidate. Wilson won all of the suffrage states, except Oregon and Illinois.

“Without the city of San Francisco Woodrow Wilson would have had to quit the White House on March 4th next,” according to the Times report. Democrats vowed to resolve the suffrage issue before the 1918 mid-term elections. Five months after the election Wilson led the nation into World War I.  His Department of Justice later charged Equi with sedition after an anti-war talk she gave in Portland, Oregon. She was sentenced to San Quentin prison.  .

Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions" Michael Helquist, Oregon State University Press, 2015  

It’s Sunday evening, November 6th, less than two days before the national election, and anxiety is all about. What to do with this anxiety about the fate that awaits the United States and beyond? 

Fortunately, I must prepare a talk that I will deliver in Portland, Oregon this upcoming Friday, November 11th.  It’s a good distraction from national events. I will present new material, not another author talk about my new biography of Dr. Marie Equi, published in late 2015 by Oregon State University Press. 
 
My new presentation is titled “To Engage or Avoid: Matters of Sex for Oregon Physicians, 1900-1925.” I will look at the different ways doctors understood and dealt with the relatively new science of sexology and how they grappled with too-big-to-avoid controversies over sexual issues.  
 
Sexology, or the science of sexuality, would have an enormous impact in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Often, physicians used their positions of authority to enforce social and sometimes legal rules about sexual and gender authority. Other times doctors tried to look the other way, fearing the impact of taking a stand on controversial matters.
 
Physicians one hundred years ago dealt with a raft of sexual issues. The threat of STDs, the role of quarantine for contagious diseases, birth control, abortion, prostitution, and the popularity of mandatory sterilization. 
 
Who did what and how they managed is the focus of my talk. My early thanks to the sponsor of the event, the History of Medicine Society at the Oregon Health & Science University. Please join us for this free and open-to-the-public talk on Friday, November 11, 12 0 1pm at the OHSU Auditorium. For more info, contact 503-494-5587  or [email protected].
 
“Marie Equi, Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions,” by Michael Helquist, available at bookstores, at Oregon State University Press, and online.