The author traces the history of the British Sexological Society, which was established in 1914 and was composed of many influential people including Laurence Housman, brother of A. E. Housman, Havelock Ellis, Bernard Shaw, and Ernest Jones. The purpose of the Society was to promote the scientific understanding of a variety of sexual topics, but the “hidden agenda” was to promote the equality of homosexuals through scientific understanding and legal reforms. It was thus an early force in the movement for sexual emancipation. Weigle uses the archives of the Society as well as private correspondence of its members and supporters to trace several areas of this homosexual rights agenda: homosexuality and psychoanalysis, theories of the etiology of homosexuality, lesbianism, homosexuality