Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft (review)

Rainer Herrn's recent book, Schnittmuster des Geschlechts, offers a groundbreaking contribution to historical investigations of transvestism and transsexuality as well as to our understandings of the development and practice of sexology in early-twentieth-century Europe. Highly original and innovative, the book traces the emergence of transvestism as a sexological category as well as the interplay of this category with juridical and social relations. As such, the book makes an important contribution to the history of medicine, the law, and social movements.

Herrn begins his treatise with a consideration of cross-dressing in sexology, notably its association with the notion of pathology. He goes on to provide an extended discussion of the work of the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld published Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstreib (Transvestites: An Investigation of Erotic Cross-Dressing) in 1910, and it situated transvestism within the realm of a drive, a notion itself highly medicalized. The book goes on to discuss the reception of Hirschfeld's work in both sexology and psychoanalysis.

Having provided an overview of these epistemological issues, Herrn outlines the experiences of transvestites in World War I before considering the development of specific clinical services for them, notably located at Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sexology) in Berlin (1919–33). Herrn documents the research and counseling services offered as well as providing an overview of Berlin's transvestite social scene. Moreover, Herrn teases out the implications of a particular category, "extreme transvestites" (extreme Transvestiten), who articulated the desire to change sex—individuals whom today one would label "transsexuals." The book then proceeds with detailed empirical analysis of the clinical treatment and services for such individuals, giving evidence of attempts at self-castration and self-operation, to procedures for removal of the beard, breast augmentation (paraffin wax and or hormones), and genital reconstruction for male-to-female transsexual people.

Part of the great contribution of Herrn's scholarship lies in its nuance. In a discussion of transvestism during the Nazi era, for instance, Herrn teases out the contradictions and ambiguities of state policies and practices. Thus, while transvestites (both male to female and female to male) could obtain official papers to dress in their chosen gender during the Weimar period of the 1920s, Herrn shows how the Nazis could use such official documents to track and imprison these people. Yet Herrn's analysis remains subtle: although there is certainly clear documentation of state persecution of sexual minorities (Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was rampaged by the Nazis, and there is ample documentation of the state persecution of homosexuals), Herrn also presents evidence that would dispute a characterization of Nazi social policy as a priori hostile to transvestites. He cites a number of cases in which official state documents recognize the right of transvestites to dress in their chosen gender. One notable case is that of a female-to-male transvestite who was released from the women's concentration camp Lichtenberg in 1938, was allowed to dress as a man, and one month later was permitted to adopt a gender-neutral first name to facilitate social integration.

Methodologically, Herrn draws on a variety of different archival sources. While many of the materials come from the archives of the Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, where Herrn is a researcher and collaborator, the study also uses newspaper reports, autobiographies, sexological studies, police statistics, and unpublished dissertations. Taken together, these varied sources enable Herrn to present a compelling history and overview of transvestism in German sexology, law, and society.

Schnittmuster des Geschlechts will stand as the definitive statement on the history of transvestism and transsexuality in sexology. Yet given the central role of sexology in the development and practice of science itself, a carefully researched monograph explicitly devoted to questions of sexology has implications for understanding the history of scientific investigation itself. Herrn's book thus...