Quoting now from the aforementioned States of Liberation,
As gears ground within the Stasi, Sillge and her comrades continued to pressure the regime. In her book, she recalls that a group of "despairing lesbians" wrote to the Ministery of the Interior in 1984 demanding "expert rationales for [government] decisions to decline" homosexual petitions. Soon thereafter the women were granted an audience with officials at the Berlin Magistrate, who told them that the matter first had to be "scientifically researched." As a consequence of that discussion, the prorector for social sciences at Berlin's Humboldt University convened a research group on homosexuality, which began meeting in the autumn of 1984.
The committe worked for the next several months and on 25 January 1985 produced a remarkable report titled "On the Situation of Homophile Citizens of the GDR." It argued that gay people in East Germany had a right to feel at home in socialist society and that the East German constitution forbade "discrimination against homophile citizens." It acknowledged both the Nazi persecution of homosexuals and prejucides that festered in East German society. The paper discussed the extraordinary suicide rate among gay people, remarking that it was four to five times higher than the rest of the population. Adopting activists' language, the academics wrote that the state's "disregard for the personal and sometimes grave social problems of homophiles" had led to "purposefully negative political reactions." [...] In short, East German anti-gay animus came with consequences for gay people and the state alike.
The report made ten suggestions about how to address those problems. It recommended:
- that there be more publishing on the topic of homosexuality;
- that Humboldt University host a permanent homosexuality research group;
- that the government create "consulation centres at the communal level," which would help homosexuals with questions of "way of life," "counselling for family members" of homosexuals, "sexual counselling," suicide counselling, and counselling related to coming out;
- that the government change the make-up of existing marriage and sex counselling centres;
- that the government review §151, which set a higher age of consent for gay men and lesbians;
- that workplace discimination against gay people be examined;
- that the government allow coupled lesbians and gay men to live together;
- that the government revisit regulations governing the publication of personal advertisements and approval of public events;
- that there be research on the situation of older homosexuals;
- and that it be examined how living conditions for gay people differ between "metropolis, medium city, town and villages" in the GDR.