Career
After leaving parliament, Huijsen worked as a school teacher and director He then pursued a career as a historian, publishing several books on the Dutch monarchy, including:
De oranjemythe, een postmodern phenomeen ("The Orange Myth, a postmodern phenomenon"),
Beatrix: De kroon op de republiek ("Beatrix, crown on the republic". 2005) and
Nederland en het verhaal van Oranje ("The Netherlands and the story of Orange".
Originally a Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2012).
Membership
In his first term in office, he was a member of the Christian Historical Union, which he left because the party would not support the left-leaning Den Uyl cabinet. In his second term, he sat as an independent member under his own banner of Groep-Huijsen. Shortly before leaving the House of Representatives in 1977, Huijsen came out as gay, making him the country"s first openly LGBT politician and the first known openly gay member of a national legislature in the world.
He also switched parties again, becoming a member of the Dutch Labour Party in which he was active until 2000.
He left that party because he found the party put too little work into education and gay emancipation.
