Transforming Sexuality: The Medical Sources of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-95) and the Origins of the Theory of Bisexuality

Abstract

This article explores the medical references in the writings of the German jurist and activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs as a means of breaking new ground in diverse fields (including history of medicine, history of sexuality, and gender history). It demonstrates that the theory of bisexuality has a much deeper and more textured genealogy than has been hitherto appreciated and that dual-gendered bodies and minds must be better recognized as important through the nineteenth century. Specifically, it demonstrates that classifications and rhetoric of hermaphroditism, and other dual-gendered categories (e.g., sexual dualism and anatomical bisexuality), were deployed in diverse contexts through the period, often with little or no reference to the occurrence of genital ambiguities. Important discourses in embryology, utilized by Ulrichs, suggested that all individuals, in the earliest stages of fetal development, were hermaphroditic. In making an analogy among the ontogeny of sex anatomy, hermaphroditism, and the development of erotic preferences, Ulrichs sought to naturalize homoeroticism, rendering social and legal prohibitions untenable. His advocacy, however, was counterbalanced by the Prussian forensic expert Johann Ludwig Casper who had made some conceptual maneuvers similar to Ulrichs only couched in the rhetoric of pathology. Ulrichs was equivocal in his use of forensic works such as Casper's, condemning their authors but recognizing similarities with his own gender schema.

A CID-11 não reconhecerá possibilidades de patologização da homossexualidade

“…Além disso, homens e mulheres também parecem apresentar diferenças na frequência das atrações bissexuais 11 . Alguns autores argumentam que esse campo do desejo sexual é ainda um grande quebra-cabeça a ser montado, uma vez que parece existir uma discrepância entre o que se passa na mente das pessoas e aquilo que está acontecendo em seus corpos 12 .…”

“…A maioria das pesquisas sobre orientação sexual se baseia no autorrelato dos entrevistados e pouco em medidas objetivas ou avaliações psicológicas, como, por exemplo, a mensuração da excitação sexual mediante a exposição de vídeos eróticos. O fato é que há muito ainda a se aprender sobre a bissexualidade, que parece um grande enigma de controvérsias para muitos estudiosos da área 12 .…”

Sandor Rado, American psychoanalysis, and the question of bisexuality.

“…The "hermaphroditic" nature of human embryo was recognized by the 1840s and became the dominant paradigm among German anatomists by the 1870s. For a helpful historiographic discussion of this issue, seeBrooks (2010). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.…”

“…21The “hermaphroditic” nature of human embryo was recognized by the 1840s and became the dominant paradigm among German anatomists by the 1870s. For a helpful historiographic discussion of this issue, see Brooks (2010).…”

Contribution à l'archéologie de la distinction sexe – genre

“…En parallèle de cette contestation publique des lois, la théorie fut aussi un instrument de lutte 6 . À partir de 1864, Ulrichs, très au fait de l'ensemble des théories scientifiques du temps, publia une série d'essais polémiques dans lesquels il mobilisa la psychologie, les nouvelles sciences biologiques et le cadre de pensée darwinien (Brooks, 2012(Brooks, [2010) pour inventer une nouvelle conception psychologique de l'identité homosexuelle masculine radicalement opposée à la répression pénale (Ulrichs, 1994(Ulrichs, [1864(Ulrichs, -1880). Mais les enjeux de cette théorie allaient beaucoup plus loin que l'opposition aux lois : elle devait réfuter la psychiatrisation du désir homosexuel (l'idée que ce désir relevait d'une « perversion sexuelle », c'est-à-dire d'une maladie mentale) et plus largement toutes les conceptions stigmatisant les relations de même sexe, et devait aussi fonder l'émancipation des homosexuel•le•s dans la société politique et civile.…”