|
|
Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868 - 1935)
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
| The
Homosexuality of Men and Women by
Magnus Hirschfeld, Michael A. Lombardi-Nash (Translator), Vern L.
Bullough (Introduction)
One of the founders of the scientific study of
sex, Magnus Hirschfeld, M.D. (1868-1935), led the field in
objective examinations of homosexuality, transvestism, and gender
identity. The Homosexuality of Men and Women was designed
to provide a unified, comprehensive description of homosexuality
which would rid heterosexuals of homophobic prejudice and allow
gays and lesbians to accept themselves and stop feeling isolated.
This encyclopedic study opens with a definition
and a detailed biological diagnosis of orientation, including the
childhood and adolescent phases. Hirschfeld addresses the
physical, mental, and emotional life, while explaining the
differences between friendship and same-sex love; genuine and
false homosexuality; and the inborn nature of homosexuality and
bisexuality. He also disputes the theory that homosexuality is
treatable.
In the second half of the book, Hirschfeld looks
at sociology: community life, bonding, roles in society, history,
persecution, victimization, and the law. His documentation of gays
in the military and the "new technology" of his day-such
as the telephone and airplanes and their affect on the lives of
homosexuals-offers farsighted observations that strongly parallel
today's national debates and new developments.
The translator of this lengthy work, originally
in German, is Michael A. Lombardi-Nash, Ph.D. He is also the
translator of Transvestites
: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress, and The Riddle of
"Man-Manly" Love: The Pioneering Work on Male
Homosexuality.
Also about Herschfield:
Also from Herschfeld:
|
|
The Magnus Hirschfeld Centre for Human Rights is
a non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary organization engaged in
the promotion of human rights and civil liberties under
international law.
Its mandate places a special emphasis on its
work in connection with defending and promoting the human rights
of vulnerable minority communities and persons placed on the
margins of power in society: i.e., women, children, minority
ethnic, racial, religious and linguistic groups, and gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and trans-gendered and HIV-positive persons, inter alia.
Employing both its own resources and those of
other human rights advocacy organizations, the Centre acts as or
in conjunction with the legal representative of individuals and
groups of individuals within the foregoing communities whose
rights under international human rights law have been violated.
The Centre has appeared in such a capacity before a number of
international and regional tribunals, including: the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights; the UN Sub-Commission on the
Prevention of Discrimination & Protection of Minorities; the
UN Human Rights Committee; the African Commission on Human &
People's Rights; the Human Rights Committee of the European
Parliament; The European Court of Human Rights; the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, and: the UNESCO Committee on
Conventions & Recommendations.
|
|
The Society was founded in 1982 in West Berlin
on the occasion of the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the
destruction of the Berlin Institute for Sexual Science.
The Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft maintains an
historical reference library on sexual science and gender studies
(periodicals, pamphlets and books) with a focus on the
publications of Magnus Hirschfeld and other members of his
Institute. The Society's archive collection of photographs,
personal papers and manuscripts documents segments of the history
of sexual science...
|
|
From The Knitting Circle
Excerpt:
Hirschfeld's first book, under the pseudonym Th.
Ramien, was entitled "Sappho und Sokrates", (1896) and
put forward the argument that the homosexual form of love is part
of human sexuality, that both its causes and its manifestations
should be the object of scientific investigations, and that the
penal laws against homosexuality should be changed in society's
own interest...
|
|
By Raymond Melville Gay Net Staff Writer, stonewallsociety.com
Excerpt:
Born in Kolberg, Germany (which is now Kolbrzeg,
Poland) on May 14, 1868, the pioneering sexologist began his
career in medicine and was soon drawn to the study of human
sexuality. Hirschfeld's interests were personal as well as
political. He was a transvestite himself (he even coined the term
"transvestism") and an avid foot fetishist in addition
to being homosexual. Hirschfeld believed that sexual orientation
was a naturally occurring trait worthy of scientific inquiry and
political emancipation rather than social hostility.
As a Jew living in an historically anti-Semitic
country, Hirschfeld understood the vulnerability of scapegoated
populations and the need for organization. He urged homosexuals
from all walks of life to come out and get involved in the growing
campaign for emancipation that was developing under the auspices
of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee which he had formed in
1897...
|
|
By Ralf Dose, Introductory
Lecture, held at the Focus on Literatur 4th Annual German Graduate
Student Conference, October 15-16, 1999, at the Max Kade Cultural
Center, University of Cincinnati, OH USA
Excerpt:
It was in 1896 that Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish
medical doctor in Magdeburg, published the pamphlet Sappho und
Sokrates under a pseudonym. In the preface to a later work,
Hirschfeld explains to the reader that he ". . . was moved to
write [Sappho und Sokrates] by the suicide of a young
officer, one of my patients, who shot himself on the night he
married, and left me his confession" (Sex xii).
Hirschfeld describes Sappho und Sokrates as ". . . a
stone thrown into water which, falling, sets up waves that go on
spreading" (Sex xii). Hirschfeld’s intention was to
move homosexuality from the arena of illness to a natural
condition. The work also serves a sociological function as an
attempt by Hirschfeld to legitimize homosexuality to the bourgeois
society at large. In this paper I wish to analyze one) what
Hirschfeld meant to achieve via his writings, two) how he presents
his theories, and three) to what extent his arguments were
successful. To this end I will examine the writings of some of
Hirschfeld’s contemporaries...
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
|
