J. Edgar Bauer

GENDER AND THE NEMESIS OF NATURE:
 On Magnus Hirschfeld's Deconstruction of the Sexual Binary
and the Concept of «Sexual Human Rights»

Published here by permission of the editors.
- Revised version -
Originally published in: Hodzic, A. and J. Postic  (Eds.):  Two Is Not Enough for Gender (E)quality.
Zagreb:  CESI & Ženska soba, 2006, pp. 153-171.

«[O]n the basis of what I have myself experienced, I am able to give a more detailed explanation of some Christian dogmas and how such things can come about through divine miracles. Something like the conception of Jesus Christ by an Immaculate Virgin – i.e. one who never had intercourse with a man – happened in my own body. Twice at different times […] I had a female genital organ, although a poorly developed one, and in my body felt quickening like the first signs of life of a human embryo: by a divine miracle God's nerves corresponding to male seed had been thrown into my body; in other words fertilization had occurred.»

Daniel Paul Schreber[1]

              

1.)        When the 19th century theorist of homosexuality Karl Heinrich Ulrichs defined the so-called ‘third sex’ as anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa[2], he unknowingly initiated a lasting trend to locate in the ‘soul’ potentials liable of disrupting the binary system of the body's sexuality. Downplaying from early on the theoretical import of anatomical or physiological anomalies for a principled elucidation of sexual difference, sexually-emancipatory discourses took mostly for granted the putative bodily rootage of binary sexuality; assuming that its pervasiveness could only be adequately questioned by recurring to non-corporeal levels of sexual description as the actual source of sexual anormativity. In its basic tendency, the very distinction between sex and gender was designed to support the analytical concentration on the psyche and its social interventions as sites of diversion from the imperturbable regime of the body's dual sexual system. On these assumptions, gender disruptions sought to contest the factuality of binomial sexuality with the aid of instrumentalities ranging from performative inversions to plastic surgery. Although the genetic constitution of the individual has set, for the time being, a crucial limit to the scope of current medical technologies, their availability entails consequences way beyond the range of merely anatomical or prosthetic correctives. For, regardless of histrionics and surgical changes, gender transgressiveness will necessitate a serious re-thinking of the corporeal foundations of sexual difference if and when the transgender option of ‘male femininity’ could include the possibility that a man becomes a mother. 

 2.)        In his book The I[n] V[itro] F[ertilisation] Revolution, the renowned gynecologist Robert Winston considers male pregnancy to be a realistic possibility in the foreseeable future, and outlines the technical means needed to bring about such a pregnancy. While pointing out that «effectively, our man could suffer all the risks of an advanced and most dangerous form of ectopic pregnancy»[3], Winston unequivocally asserts: «There is no doubt that men could get pregnant»[4]. If the expression ‘male pregnancy’ loses its current oxymoronic character, the femininity of males will be instrumental not just in dismantling social or ideological conventions of gender role and assignation, but in debunking the alleged naturalness of binary sexuality by the force of fact, and in opening up an uncharted dimension of sexual variability emerging from the depths of the body itself. By revealing – with the aid of medical science and technology – potentialities of nature that challenge the putative sexual divide, future male pregnancy calls for a re-conceptualization of sexual difference deeper than the mere re-structuring of gender options and their possible transgression[5].          

 3.)        From early on, the emerging sexual minority rights movements sensed the need to rethink the principles and criteria of sexual distribution. Reflecting this need, the prevalent emancipatory discourses on the ‘third sex’ and its late-20^th century equivalents aimed at complementing and completing the binary divide of the sexed body through constructions of third sexual alternatives configured at the level of the ‘psyche’ or ‘spirit’[6]. In this understanding, the ‘third sex’ fulfilled a suppletive function with regard to the binomial regime of sexual distribution, i.e. it supplemented the sexual binary of man and woman through a sexual mode that closes the possibilities of what is representable as ‘sexuality’. Opposing such categorial completions, Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)[7] conceptualized the ‘third sex’ in a quintessentially de-totalizing manner. Having contended that sexual difference should be re-framed within the ever-diversifying continuum of nature, he concluded that the categories of man and woman, as well as the third-sex excision, are actually only ‘fictions’. On these assumptions, Hirschfeld attributed to the ‘third sex’ the function of a makeshift design to dissolve the sexual binary and introduce a potentially infinite series of sexualities coterminous with the actual number of sexed individuals. In Hirschfeld's serial understanding, the ‘third sex’ does not entail the finitization of sexual alternatives but, on the contrary, reflects the idea that, on principle, there is no final completion of the series of possible sexualities. Although both the suppletive and the serial conceptualizations of the third sex call to question the cogency of binomial sexuality from the liminal perspective of the excluded, they envisage very different emancipatory aims. While the tripartition model adds a third alternative without necessarily transforming the binomial self-understanding of the alleged majority, the open-ended model challenges from the outset the very possibility that such a majority be constituted by questioning the theoretical validity of its cohesion. 

     4.)        Magnus Hirschfeld's ‘doctrine of sexual intermediaries’ (sexuelle Zwischenstufenlehre)[8] constitutes the systematic site in which he grounds and explicates his serial understanding of the third sex. Since this doctrine purports the inexhaustible variability of sexual constitutions, Hirschfeld insisted that it should be thoroughly distinguished from present or future sexual  ‘theories’ aiming at the explanation of the phenomena depicted by the doctrine. As a meta-theoretical discourse intended to set the foundations for a conceptualization of sexual difference that supersedes closed systems of sexual distribution, Hirschfeld's doctrine asserts that all individuals artificially assigned to distinct sexual groups are actually transitions within the pervasive continuity of nature. As such, the idea of sexual gradation allows for limitless sexual constitutions depending on the way the poles of the masculine and the feminine combine at each of the different layers of sexual description. In Hirschfeld's times, such layers were assumed to range from the sexual organs and the secondary sexual characteristics, to the sexual drive and the way psychological traits attain their socio-cultural articulation[9].  Given that, in Hirschfeld's scheme, sexual difference is not determined in relation to one single excluded alternative (male or female), but in relation to an open ended system of as yet only partially realized combinations of the masculine and the feminine at the different descriptive layers, the sexuality of each and every individual is characterized by a unique complexity[10]. 

 5.)        Hirschfelds life motto per scientiam ad justitiam offers a hermeneutical key to his encompassing sexological program that moves from lucid acknowledgment of the biological facts of human sexuality, to visions of a libertarian culture capable of coping with endless sexual diversity. Although this is clearly the ultimate emancipatory aim ensuing from Hirschfeld's re-conceptualization of sexual difference, the most visible level of discursivity in his work focuses on the urgent task of liberating the sexual minorities of his time from the oppression they endured. Thus, understandably, the issues related to allegedly non-normative sexual constitutions are dominant in his writings, while his ideas regarding the potentially infinite diversity of sexualities are sketched on several occasions, but never developed in a systematic and comprehensive manner. By and large, Hirschfeld's sexology and activism concentrated on those oppressed by the fictional framework of binary sexuality, while relegating the emancipation of the oppressors themselves who (misapprehending their own sexuality according to the dimorphic paradigm) felt free to deprive the so-called third sex of life options of which they also deprive themselves. Since Hirschfeld's emancipatory tactics were intended to win sympathy and understanding for sexual minorities from those who considered themselves perfectly ‘normal’ according to the binomial scheme, it would have been counterproductive to insist on the fact that the basic assumption of this ostensible majority regarding their own ‘normality’ was groundless.      

 6.)        Hirschfeld does not conceptualize sexuality from the standpoint of a godly Creator contriving binomial sex to conform to the patterns of a sanctioned gender combinatory, but from the perspective of self-diffusive Nature inciting polymorphous sex to liberate its potentialities by giving rise to unlimited forms of gender. On this account, ascertainable sexual differences are the ever-provisional result of a multi-leveled differentiation process whose evolving complexity contravenes the postulation of closed sexual identities and the fictitious sexual groups they eventually form. Attentive to the unique marks of sexual individuality, Hirschfeld sought to overcome the hypostatization of sexual categories practiced within taxonomic and medical discourses, while acknowledging the legitimacy of categorial reductions for the sake of research and therapy. Hence, Hirschfeld's doctrine implies that the sexological grasp of the individual constitutes an asymptotic task determined by the ultimate ineffability of his sexual complexity.  Given Hirschfeld's critical limitation of the sexological ambit, the hiatus between ‘science’ and ‘justice’ is bridged by the non-subsumable individual, whose liberation begins with the dismantlement of all constraints imposed by the prevalent regime of gender on the natural diversification of sex.                           

 7.)        Hirschfeld's doctrine of sexual intermediaries does not merely entail the substitution of one conceptualization of sex by another. Rather, the dissolution of the sexual binary it brings about exposes the traditional view of the man / woman divide as an ideological construction of gender pretending to be a description of the naturally given sex. Arguing against the fictional character of such a construction, Hirschfeld's doctrine focuses on the variability of all descriptive levels of sexuality as the source of differences that make the sexed individual impervious to subsumptive procedures. Since, on these assumptions, individualized sexualities occupy a unique site within a system of natural continuity, Hirschfeld envisages an emancipatory program that, ultimately, is not hinged on the mere tolerance granted by the sexual majority, or on the proud self-assertion of sexual minorities fighting for their rights. Rather, such a program implies disrupting the self-perception of the putative majority as an ideological fiction that leads to the very real alienation of the minorities it calls into being. In its consequence, Hirschfeld's sexual libertarianism purports the recurrence to Nature as a dissolving principle of closed distributional schemes that reckon their fictional sets of gender to be real compartmentations of sex.

 8.)        Well aware of the immediate needs of the sexually oppressed, Hirschfeld distinguishes the provisory tactics deemed necessary for attaining their liberation from the overall emancipatory strategy that ensues from the essentialism of radical sexual diversity, and seeks to liberate both the oppressors and the oppressed. In its consequence, this essentialism debunks not only the fiction of a male / female divide, but also the resulting combinatories of man and woman according to the homo- / heterosexual scheme. In consideration of the epochal consequences of this deconstruction, it is significant that it was Hirschfeld who, in 1933, publicized for the first time the concept of «sexual human rights» (sexuelle Menschenrechte)[11] that had been coined by the jurist and scholar Rudolf Goldscheid at a conference of the World League for Sexual Reform held in 1930[12]. Given the politically turbulent times before Hirschfeld's unexpected passing, it is hardly surprising that he was not able to elaborate extensively on the scope and relevancy of the new concept.  It is however beyond doubt that, in his understanding, «sexual human rights» could only be realized upon acknowledging the unique intersexed configuration of every individual. The new sexual ethics and politics Hirschfeld announces is the practical response to the self-limitation of sexology vis-à-vis unclassifiable humanity.    

 9.)        The reception of Hirschfeld's doctrine of sexual intermediaries has been curtailed first and foremost by the distorting treatment of his work in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical corpus.Since Hirschfeld's radical deconstruction of binomial sexuality might have proven to be a menace to the psychoanalytical sanction of Oedipal heterosexuality, Freud flagrantly ignored Hirschfeld's serial understanding of the third sex, and, instead, imputed to Hirschfeld the suppletive theory of the third sex, which had been propounded decades before by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs[13]. Consistent with this blunt misrepresentation, Freud conveniently avoids mentioning Hirschfeld in a passage at the beginning of Drei Abhandlugen zur Sexualtheorie when he underscores:

 «Even though separations might be justified, one cannot ignore that all intermediary degrees can be found in abundance, so that the formation of series suggests itself as it were automatically»[14].

By referring to sexual intermediaries as a matter of course, Freud pre-empts the possible objection that he would overlook their existence, and, at the same time, avoids the intricacies of dealing explicitly with Hirschfeld's actual contentions regarding the universal scope of sexual intermediariness and the socio-cultural consequences it entails.  Doubtless, Freud had good reasons for considering Hirschfeld's work and activism a serious threat to his Oedipal theories, since, as an advocate of homosexual emancipation, Hirschfeld pleaded for the liberation of those drives, which Freud was trying to render subservient to the ends of Oedipal-based and thus phallic-centered culture. Embodying an emancipatory alternative to Freudian libidinal sublimation, Hirschfeld became the reminder of an achievable sexual freedom, and, therewith, the guilty conscience of Freud's cultural project.

 10.)      Since from the perspective of Freudian phallicism the destabilization of the binary scheme through the hypostatization of a third sex constituted a plausible and bad-enough scenario to provoke its rejection by psychoanalysis, Freud, on the one hand, falsely assigned such an hypostasis to Hirschfeld, and, on the other, undermined the need of positing such a hypostasis by transforming individualized homosexuality into a general component of the human psyche[15]. Once the alleged third sex has been denied existence in the real world by internalizing it, homosexuality can be restricted to an inadequate or ‘wrong’ combinatory of the two normative sexes. On these assumptions, the difference of the alleged third-sex people from heterosexuals becomes an acceptable deviation from the normative range, for, in the last resort, it corroborates the universality of the Oedipus complex and of the binary it is designed to sanction. Despite their inherent deficiency, the two possible same-sex combinatories (i.e., male-male, and female-female) have at least the advantage – from Freud's point of view – of not questioning the paradigm of sexual difference indispensable for maintaining the concept of normalcy. Against this backdrop, Freud's misrepresentation of Hirschfeld's actual premises evinces itself as a reaction against the dangers emanating from Hirschfeld's serial understanding of the third sex, for, being proto-typically anti-Oedipal, it cancels the sexual binary and leads toward what, following Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, might be termed «n-sexes»[16]. Envisaging a diversification of sexualities without end and of the combinatories of sexed individuals that result thereof, Hirschfeld's doctrine effectuates an anti-Oedipal decomposition of the mythical Phallus into the ascertainable sexual instantiations deployed within the penis / clitoris continuum.

 11.)      In view of the radical consequences that Hirschfeld's Zwischenstufenlehre entails, it is not surprising that post-World War II German scholarship found it easier to accept Freud's biased and thoughtless dismissal of Hirschfeld, than to take a precise account of his texts and deal with the deeper aspects of his sexological thought. The sexology and historiography of sexuality prevalent in Germany to this day has systematically decried Hirschfeld's actual contentions as ‘naturalism’ or ‘biologism’,[17] and thereby contributed to the ongoing misunderstanding and underestimating of his work as a whole[18]. Not by chance is Hirschfeld almost totally absent from all substantial debates in GLBTQ studies, although he not only anticipated many fundamental issues prevalent in the current discussions on sex, gender and sexuality, but also foreshadowed the post-modern contestation of closed schemes of sexual subsumption.  Actually, most scholars working in sex-related areas of research are barely aware that Hirschfeld's Geschlechtskunde auf Grund dreißigjähriger Forschung und Erfahrung bearbeitet[19], the five-volume compendium of the sexologist's life work, includes perhaps the most radical refutal of the ideology of the sexual binarism pervading culture since prehistoric man articulated sexuality with the aid of the lingam / yoni alternance.   

 12.)      In contrast with the overwhelming majority of Hirschfeld's critics in Germany, the French philosopher and writer Guy Hocquenghem (1946-1988) evinced a perspicuous understanding of the issues at stake in the sexologist's doctrine of sexual intermediaries.  In Race d'Ep. Un siècle d'images de l'homosexualité (1979) Hocquenghem presents a scene where old Hélène, Hirschfeld's former secretary, evokes her experiences at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft destroyed by the Nazis in 1933. Existing «only in the imagination of the author»[20], Hélène is actually Hocquenghem's alter ego reflecting his views on Hirschfeld's teachings when she recalls: «[…] the doctor thought that we ALL are, in one way or another, intermediary degrees between man and woman, and he set out to prove it. ‘In confidence, Hélène’, he often said to me, ‘which are the true differences? I have a more developed and perforate clitoris, you have a larger pelvis, that's all, a matter of nuances, basically’»[21]. Despite the absence of conceptual technicalities, the passage conveys the kernel of Hirschfeld's doctrine by highlighting that the sexologist did not assume a dividing gap between two mutually exclusive sexes, but, instead, conceptualized sexual difference as a matter of nuances. On this assumption, the penis can be considered as a more developed, perforate clitoris, and, by implication, the clitoris itself as a less developed, non-perforate penis. The idea that sexual difference is not a matter of disjunctive qualities, but of degrees, is corroborated by the second example chosen to illustrate the general principle:  the difference between the male and the female pelvis is a mere matter of size. In Hocquenghem's presentation it becomes apparent that, since no human being escapes the condition of sexual intermediariness, the sexual middle stages in the natural continuum – oftentimes considered as monstrosities[22] –  constitute as a matter of fact no exceptions, but just conspicuous instantiations of nature's principled deployment.

 13.)      Hirschfeld's deconstruction of the sexual binary seems to have had a considerable incidence on one of the most eloquent advocates of gay liberation, the Italian author and activist Mario Mieli (1952-1983). Although he never discussed the content and import of Hirschfeld's doctrine explicitly, his basic contentions concerning sexual difference can be regarded as explicatory variations on the insights Hirschfeld began to formulate as early as 1896. In his main work Elementi di critica omosessuale (1977), Mieli refers to Hirschfeld's emancipatory activism[23], and mentions two of his most important treatises[24], but circumvents Hirschfeld's theses regarding the universal scope of sexual intermediariness and the socio-cultural critique it implies. This notwithstanding, Mieli's key concept of a «‘universal’ transsexual (or polymorphous and hermaphrodite) human disposition»[25] seems to be heavily indebted to Hirschfeld's fundamental premises. When Mieli asserts, for instance, that «every human being, embryologically bisexual, retains in himself all his life, from a biological and psychological point of view, the presence of the other sex»[26], he seems to recapitulate passages in Hirschfeld's first sexological treatise titled Sappho und Sokrates, which includes the young author's earliest articulations of what he later designated as «sexuelle Zwischenstufenlehre»[27]. Furthermore, once Mieli defines «transsexuality» as «the telos of the struggle for the liberation of Eros»[28], he recurs to argumentative strategies designed to overcome the sexual binary that are very similar to those utilized by Hirschfeld. Thus, his understanding of «homoeroticism» as an indispensable provisory to attain the liberation of polymorphous Eros is reminiscent of the Hirschfeldian recourse to the ‘makeshift’ of the third sex to overcome the simplistic sexual distribution into man and woman and introduce the idea of potentially inexhaustible sexualities[29]. Finally, Mieli seems to follow Hirschfeld's call for a radical deconstruction of sexual ‘fictions’ – including the fictional (i.e. suppletive) third sex – when he proceeds to disrupt the very idea of a gay identity in the name of his own «anti-identificatory transsexuality»[30].              

 14.)      Differing from Hocquenghem and Mieli, the lesbian writer and theorist Monique Wittig (1935-2003) never quoted or mentioned Hirschfeld in her published work. However, her challenge of binomial sexual difference for the sake of inexhaustible sexual diversity constitutes a decisive deepening of the insights expressed by the sexologist[31]. Wittig's primary emancipatory concern is «the destruction of heterosexuality as a social system which is based on the oppression of women by men and which produces the doctrine of the difference between the sexes to justify this oppression»[32]. Far from disregarding or denying the import of sexual diversity as such, her criticism targets the obstruction of diversification ensuing from the naturalizing ideology, which sustains the binary scheme of sexual distribution. Thus, in the self-interpretive introduction to her parable Les Tchiches et les Tchouches, Wittig maintains that there is no «anatomical difference»[33] that would justify the construction of two mutually exclusive groups which, in fact, correlate with ‘women’ and ‘men’. Even though «the physical appearance»[34] of Tchiches and Tchouches is indeed divergent, this ascertainable fact in itself does not contradict Wittig’s fundamental contention that «one has to do with the same race»[35]. In reverting the parable to its sexual literalness, it becomes apparent that Wittig aims at depicting a commonality of the human liable of encompassing the undeniable diversities of the sexual, while at the same time suggesting that the traits of these diversities do not warrant the formation of two asymmetrical groups connected through the bond of male supremacy.

 15.)      Given that heterosexuality, according to Wittig, attempts to justify its system of female subordination and homosexual phobias by referring to an allegedly «'already there' of the sexes»[36], the lesbian in Wittig's work counters the pervasive regime of sexual oppression by assuming the role of an «escapee» or «fugitive slave». As a «not-woman» and as a «not-man»,[37] the lesbian lays claim to a site beyond the categories of binomial sex difference in the name of a «science of oppression»[38] distilled from the quandaries she has endured. What is at stake for Wittig is the capacity to lose «the sense […] of the stupid duality with all that flows therefrom»[39]. While dull dualism is the characteristic scheme of thought of the «straight mind», the «oblique point of view» of the lesbian «standing at the outposts of humankind»[40] enables the envisioning of a non-exclusionary «beyond», where – in the words of Terence – «humani nihil a me alienum puto»[41]. Significantly, the most precise depiction of sexual subjectivities beyond alienation is offered by Wittig in Paradigm, a philosophical essay in which she declares: «For us there are, it seems, not one or two sexes, but many (See Guattari / Deleuze), as many sexes as there are individuals»[42]. Wittig is well aware that the culture of liberated sexuality she envisages can only be warranted if the naturalizing ideologies of binomial sexual difference yield to the evidence that, in the last resort, the corporeality of any subjectivity is configured by a radically individualized and therefore unclassifiable sexuality. On these assumptions, the «oblique mind», contravening the views of millennia, testifies to the necessary fragmentation of the human in the irreducible sexual diversity of its individual manifestations. Therewith, it becomes apparent that Wittig's passionate self-assertion as a lesbian does not pretend to achieve a general lesbianization of the world, but, rather, intends to show how the full assumption of an «ec-centric» sexual existence can be the source of empowerment for subjectivities deprived of the social validation of their uniqueness. Coinciding with Hirschfeld's doctrine, Wittig's critique of binomial sexual difference culminates in the assertion that the number of sexualities is coextensive with that of human beings.

 16.)      In 1895 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: «The degree and kind of a human being's sexuality reaches to the outmost summit of his spirit»[43]. Exploring the organic depths from which sexuality emerges, Magnus Hirschfeld sensed that the complexities and subtleties of the psyche are all rooted in individual bodies that escape, in the last resort, the taxonomical grip of the spirit. Challenging the subsumptions of individuals under the binomial or any other closed categorizations of sexuality, Hirschfeld re-defined sexual difference within a framework of potentially infinite sexualities that can only be depicted by an asymptotical approach of the nuances constituting their unique complexity. Hocquenghem's insistence on the universality of sexual intermediariness, Mieli's idea of a polymorphous transsexuality of all humans, as well as Monique Wittig's conception of sexual individuality within an open-ended scheme of «n-sexes» resonate with essential aspects of Hirschfeld's Zwischenstufenlehre, and articulate the sexological basis of their late 20^th century struggle for realizing what Hirschfeld would have termed «sexual human rights». Far from disregarding specific minorities, these thinkers move from a provisory and restricted conception of liberation focused on the oppressed, to a vision of sexual emancipation that supersedes the traditional excisions of the sexual continuum in the name of the sexual uniqueness inherent in the commonality of being human. Tellingly, queer theory followed these forerunners in rejecting closed schemes of sexual distribution and in insisting on sexual individuality as the touchstone of liberation[44]. However, since queer theory has concentrated, by and large, on gender as the site of agitation against the putative constrictions of nature, it has failed to sketch out a phenomenology of the sexual [45] capable of exposing such constrictions not as a consequence of ‘nature’, but of the naturalizing ideology of the sexual binary. Leaving out of account the corporeal depth of Nietzschean «Geschlechtlichkeit», present-day advocates of social and cosmetic transgressions overlook that the profusion of unique sexual constitutions emerging from natura naturans – in Baruch de Spinoza's understanding of the term – necessitates a thorough deconstruction of all categorial fixations of sex. Under these circumstances, future male maternity constitutes a salutary reminder of how  – actuating upon herself by means of [46] – disrupts the discontinuities imposed on her since, at the dawn of civilization, lingams and yonis were taken to mark the allegedly insurmountable sexual divide.  As a privileged locus where self-subverting Nature re-articulates the conditions for the emergence of an inviolable ‘An-other’, the male mother is a token of the disquieting freedom that ensues from the radical de-hierarchisation and de-binarization of the sexual.                                         

 

Bibliography

Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta. Recognovit brevique adnotatione instruxit W.D. Ross. Oxonii e typographeo clarendoniano, 1958.

Atlan, Henri: L'utérus artificiel. Paris: Seuil, 2005.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Der Tod Adams. Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen zur Sexualemanzipation im Werk Magnus Hirschfelds. In: 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung. Dokumentation einer Vortragsreihe in der Akademie der Künste. Ausgewählt und herausgegeben von Manfred Herzer. Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1998, pp. 15-45.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Der Tod Adams. Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen zur Sexualemanzipation im Werk Magnus Hirschfelds. In: Seeck, Andreas (ed.), Durch Wissenschaft zur Gerechtigkeit? Textsammlung zur kritischen Rezeption des Schaffens von Magnus Hirschfeld. Münster / Hamburg / London: Lit Verlag, 2003, pp. 133-155.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Geschlechtliche Einzigkeit. Zum geistesgeschichtlichen Konnex eines sexualkritischen Gedankens. In: Capri. Herausgegeben vom Schwulen Museum. Redaktion Manfred Herzer. Berlin: No. 34, November 2003.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Magnus Hirschfeld. In: Summers, Claude J. (ed.), glbtq. An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture. www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/hirschfeld_m.html, 2004.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Magnus Hirschfeld: Der Sexualdenker und das Zerrbild des Sexualreformers. In: Capri. Herausgegeben vom Schwulen Museum. Redaktion Manfred Herzer. Berlin: No. 37, May 2003, pp. 5-18.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Magnus Hirschfeld: per scientiam ad justitiam. Eine zweite Klarstellung. In: Mitteilungen der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft. Herausgegeben von der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V. Redaktion Ralf Dose. Berlin: No. 33/34, 2002, pp. 68-90.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Magnus Hirschfeld: Sexualidentität und Geschichtsbewußtsein. Eine dritte Klarstellung. In: Mitteilungen der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft. Herausgegeben von der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V. Redaktion Ralf Dose. Berlin: No. 37/38, 2006. (forthcoming)

Bauer, J. Edgar: Magnus Hirschfelds «Zwischenstufenlehre» und die «Zwischenstufentheorie» seiner Interpreten. Notizen über eine rezeptionsgeschichtliche Konfusion. In: Capri. Herausgegeben vom Schwulen Museum. Redaktion Manfred Herzer. Berlin: No. 35, April 2004, pp. 36-44.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Third Sex. In: Summers, Claude J. (ed.), glbtq. An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture. www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/hirschfeld_m.html, 2004.

Bauer, J. Edgar: Über Hirschfelds Anspruch. Eine Klarstellung. In: Mitteilungen der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft. Herausgegeben von der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V. Redaktion Ralf Dose. Berlin: No. 29/30, July 1999, pp. 66-80.

Bauer, J. Edgar: «43 046 721 Sexualtypen.» Anmerkungen zu Magnus Hirschfelds Zwischenstufenlehre und der Unendlichkeit der Geschlechter. In: Capri. Herausgegeben vom Schwulen Museum. Redaktion Manfred Herzer. Berlin: No. 33, December 2002., pp. 23-30.

Charles, Gilbert: Homme-femme. Les mystères de la différence. L´Express. http://www.lexpress.fr/info/societe/dossier/sexualite/dossier.asp

(20. October, 2005.)

Charles, Gilbert and Claire Chartier: Dossier: Homme-femme. Les mystères de la différence. L´Express international. No. 2833. Week 20. – 26. October 2005, pp. 10-19.

Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari: Capitalisme et Schizophrénie. L´Anti-Œdipe. Nouvelle édition augmentée. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1999.

Freud, Sigmund: Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. In: Freud, Sigmund: Studienausgabe. Band V: Sexualleben. Herausgegeben von Alexander Mitscherlich u.a. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1972.

Goldscheid, Rudolf: Zur Geschichte der Sexualmoral. In: Sexualnot und Sexualreform. Verhandlungen der Weltliga für Sexualreform. IV. Kongress abgehalten zu Wien vom 16. bis 23. September 1930. Redigiert von Dr. Herbert Steiner. Wien: Elbemühl-Verlag, 1931, pp. 279-302.

Guattari, Félix (ed.): Trois Milliards de Pervers. Grande Encyclopédie des Homosexualités. Paris: Recherches, 1973.

Herzer, Manfred: Magnus Hirschfeld. Leben und Werk eines jüdischen, schwulen und sozialistischen Sexologen. Zweite, überarbeitete Auflage. Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript Verlag, 2001.

Hirschfeld, Magnus: Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes. Nachdruck der Erstauflage von 1914 mit einer kommentierenden Einleitung von E.J. Haeberle. Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984.

Hirschfeld, Magnus: Geschlechtskunde auf Grund dreißigjähriger Forschung und Erfahrung bearbeitet. 5 Bände. Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1926 - 1930.

Hirschfeld, Magnus: Geschlechtskunde auf Grund dreißigjähriger Forschung und Erfahrung bearbeitet. 1. Band: Die körperseelischen Grundlagen. Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1926.

Hirschfeld, Magnus: Sappho und Sokrates. Wie erklärt sich die Liebe der Männer und Frauen zu Personen des eigenen Geschlechts? Zweite Auflage. Leipzig: Verlag von Max Spohr, 1902.

Hirschfeld, Magnus: Was will die Zeitschrift «Sexus«? In: Sexus. Internationale Zeitschrift für die gesamte Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualreform. Herausgegeben vom Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, Berlin. Berlin (1933.) No. 1, pp. 4-5.

Hocquenghem, Guy: Le désir homosexuel [1972.]. Préface de René Schérer. Paris: Fayard, 2000.

Hocquenghem, Guy: Race d'Ep. Un siècle d'images de l'homosexualité. Avec la collaboration iconographique de Lionel Soukaz. Paris: Éditions Libres-Hallier, 1979.

Kennedy, Hubert: Ulrichs: The Life and Works of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement. Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1988.

Mieli, Mario: Elementi di critica omosessuale. A cura di Paola Mieli e Gianni Rossi Barilli. In appendice testi di Tim Dean, Teresa de Lauretis, David Jacobson, Christopher Lane, Claude Rabant e Simonetta Spinelli. Milano: Feltrinelli Editore, 2002.

Mieli, Paola: Premessa. In: Mieli, Mario: Elementi di critica omosessuale. A cura di Paola Mieli e Gianni Rossi Barilli. In appendice testi di Tim Dean, Teresa de Lauretis, David Jacobson, Christopher Lane, Claude Rabant e Simonetta Spinelli. Milano: Feltrinelli Editore, 2002, pp. 247-252.

Nietzsche, Friedrich: Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft. In: Nietzsche, Friedrich: Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden. Herausgegeben von Giogio Colli und Mazzino Montinari. Band 5. München und Berlin: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / de Gruyter, 1980.

Schreber, Daniel Paul: Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken. Mit Aufsätzen von Franz Baimayer, einem Vorwort, einem Materialanhang und sechs Abbildungen herausgegeben von Peter Heiligenthal und Reinhard Volk. Wiesbaden: Focus-Verlag, 1973.

Schreber, Daniel Paul: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Translated, Edited, with Introduction, Notes and Discussion by Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter. London: Wm. Dawson & Sons Ltd., 1955.

Turner, William B.: A Genealogy of Queer Theory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich: Memnon. Die Geschlechtsnatur des mannliebenden Urnings. Eine naturwissenschaftliche Darstellung […] Abtheilung I. [1868.]. In: Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich: Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe. Herausgegeben von Hubert Kennedy. Band 8. Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1994.

Winston, Robert: The IVF Revolution. The Definitive Guide to Assisted Reproductive Techniques. London: Vermillon, 1999.

Wittig, Monique: La pensée straight. Paris: Éditions Balland, 2001.

Wittig, Monique: Le Corps lesbien. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1973.

Wittig, Monique: Les Tchiches et les Tchouches. In: Wittig, Monique: Paris-la-politique et autres histoires. Paris: P.O.L., 1999.

Wittig, Monique: Paradigm. In: Stambolian, George and Elaine Marks: Homosexualities and French Literature. Cultural Contexts / Critical Texts. Preface by Richard Howard. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1979, pp. 114-121.

Wittig, Monique: The Lesbian Body. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.

Wittig, Monique: The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

Wolff, Charlotte: Magnus Hirschfeld. A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology. London / Melbourne / New York: Quartet Books, 1986.

Wong, Vergil and Lee Mingwei: Pop! The First Human Male Pregnancy. http://www.malepregnancy.com andhttp://www.virgilwong.com/installations/malepregnancy/index.shtml?name1=
RYT+Hospital&type1=2Select&name2=First+Male+Pregnancy&type2=3Active (last accessed 24. November, 2005.)

 

Filmography

«L´homme qui rêvait d´être enceint.» Réalisé par Sophie Lepault et Capusine Lafait. Coproduction: Doc en stock, ARTE France. France, 2005, 45 min.

«Sexe?» Réalisé par Fabrice Gardel et Sophie Nahum. Coproduction: Doc en stock. France, 2005, 42 min.

 

Biographical Note

 J. Edgar Bauer, Ph.D. University appointments in Berlin, Edinburgh, Heidelberg, Jerusalem, Kiel, Lima, Paris, Stuttgart, Tübingen and Ulm. Writer. Publications in the areas of philosophy, gender studies, contemporary religious thought and the history of psychoanalysis. Most recent / forthcoming publications: On the Nameless Love and Infinite Sexualities: John Henry Mackay, Magnus Hirschfeld and the Origins of the Sexual Emancipation Movement. In: Journal of Homosexuality. John P. De Cecco, editor. The Haworth Press, Binghamton, New York, 2005, pp. 1-26; Mêmeté and the Critique of Sexual Difference: On Monique Wittig's Deconstruction of the Symbolic Order and the Site of the Neuter. In: C-Theory. Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. http://www.ctheory.net, 2005.