Representing the "Third Sex": Cultural Translations of the Sexological Encounter in Early Twentieth-Century Germany

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the cultural mediation, or "translation", of encounters between the sexological profession and the individuals collectively and variously designated by that profession as "sexual intermediaries", "inverts", or members of a "third sex" in fin de siecle and interwar Germany. Specifically, it investigates how sexological classifications, medical case histories, and clinical encounters were negotiated in different textual and filmic genres, and what was at stake in these representations for nonscientific audiences. Show more