http://www.bilerico.com/2008/03/transgender_history_from_germany_to_ston.phpTransgender history: From Germany to Stonewall (1933 - 1968)
Filed by: Guest Blogger
March 4, 2008 10:45 AM
[EDITOR'S NOTE:] Frequent guest blogger Mercedes Allen has written a six part history of transgender people for the Project that is running weekly on Tuesdays. A listing of the other sections is at the bottom of the post.
The 1920s and early 1930s Germany enjoyed a kind of intellectual and social renaissance, as unbridled culture reached out toward all that fascinated it. Richard von Krafft-Ebing and then Havelock Ellis had unlocked the door to serious study of non-heteronormative behaviour, even if they and their studies weren't always taken seriously or dignified in some medical circles. Ellis' book, Sexual Inversion was the first serious English medical exploration of homosexuality, and many of his other studies delved into autoeroticism, narcissism, and things that are now classified as fetishes and paraphilias (Ellis himself became fond of "Undinism," a fetish involving the sight of a woman urinating). Magnus Hirschfeld followed in these steps.
