{"id":96350,"date":"2022-07-08T17:05:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96350"},"modified":"2022-06-29T15:13:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T13:13:14","slug":"08-05-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96350","title":{"rendered":"The Sexual Scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Sexual Scientist<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

ROKHL KAFRISSEN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Rokhl\u2019s Golden City: The story of German sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld, an early activist for gay rights and founder of a clinic performing gender-affirming surgeries a full century ago, before the Nazis targeted him and his work<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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\nMagnus HirschfeldULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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What\u2019s your favorite Yiddish word<\/em>? Along with\u00a0Why aren\u2019t you married yet?<\/em>, it\u2019s among my most dreaded questions. There\u2019s a heavy implication that my answer should be something funny or\u2014God forbid\u2014colorful<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019d much rather talk about my\u00a0least<\/em>\u00a0favorite Yiddish words, of which there are a few.\u00a0Farglivert<\/em>, or congealed, is at the top of the list. Even the thought of it is slightly discomfiting, neither solid nor liquid,\u00a0farglivert<\/em>. I was gratified to find that\u00a0translator Daniel Kennedy<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0has his own problem with the word, and how difficult it is to translate properly.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Right behind\u00a0farglivert<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0geshlekht<\/em>, meaning sex or gender. Feels weird to say that I hate the word sex. But in Yiddish,\u00a0dos<\/em>\u00a0geshlekht<\/em>\u00a0(sex) has the word\u00a0shlekht<\/em>\u00a0(meaning \u201cbad\u201d) right up front! Not to mention that it is an extremely unsexy word to say. For years I assumed\u00a0geshlekht\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0shlekht<\/em>\u00a0were related, a linguistic remnant of some medieval prudery. However, despite being almost identical, it turns out the two words are completely unrelated.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Geschlecht<\/em>\u00a0means sex in modern German, too, and it shares a common ancestor with the Yiddish in Middle High German. What\u2019s interesting, though, is that today, the German\u00a0geschlecht<\/em>\u00a0has a much broader semantic field than the Yiddish, including \u201cgroup\u201d concepts such as race, lineage, and dynasty. That the Yiddish word minds its own business and sticks to sex is frankly something of a relief, and makes me hate\u00a0dos geshlekht<\/em>\u00a0a tiny bit less.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Geschlecht<\/em>\u00a0has been on my mind as I\u2019ve been reading about Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Hirschfeld was a pioneer in the scientific study of homosexuality, founder of the first clinic to perform gender-affirming surgeries (100 years ago!), and a (sorta) openly gay activist for gay liberation. His title was sexologist, a job that seemed utterly fantastical to me when I read about it as a kid. Among his published work was the five-volume\u00a0Sexology<\/em>\u00a0or, less pleasing to adult me,\u00a0Geschlechtskunde.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You may not know who Hirschfeld was, but if you\u2019ve ever seen a photo of a Nazi book-burning, it\u2019s likely you\u2019ve seen the destruction of his library without knowing it. In 1919 he founded and became the director of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Within the institute, he collected thousands of books and materials related to his research, many rare and priceless. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he immediately issued an ordinance criminalizing any organization defending or arguing for gay rights. On May 6, Hirschfeld\u2019s institute was stormed by a group of physical education students, members of Hitler Youth. They carted off thousands of Hirschfeld\u2019s books and on May 10, 1933, the books were thrown on one of the Nazis\u2019 first book bonfires.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1934, a special police task force was created to target homosexuals, the\u00a0Reichszentrale zur beka\u0308mpfung der Homosexualita\u0308t.\u00a0<\/em>According to historian George Mosse, this task force \u201cmade the persecution of homosexuals a priority of the state.\u201d Further, in his\u00a0Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe<\/em>, Mosse writes that the \u201cclose connection between the persecution of homosexuals and the effort to maintain the sexual division of labor was demonstrated when the same team which combated homosexuals was given the additional task of proceeding against abortions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As Mosse further explains, the vilification of nonconforming sexuality was crucial to the working of Nazi propaganda: \u201cAll outsiders were to a large degree rendered homogeneous, but Jews and homosexuals, rather than criminals and the insane, were thought to use their sexuality as an additional weapon against society. Whatever the differences in their stereotype, they shared this special dimension of evil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1934, Hitler ordered the murder of the leader of the\u00a0Sturmabteilung,<\/em>\u00a0the openly gay Ernst Rohm.<\/em>\u00a0His murder was ostensibly part of Hitler\u2019s campaign against homosexuals, but in reality, it was his way of eliminating competition and\/or opposition. After the murder of Rohm, Mosse tells us, \u201cit was the turn of the Catholic Church to be brought into line through ac\u00adcusations of homosexuality against priests and monks.\u201d Between 1934 and 1937, some 25,000 priests and others were accused. \u201cSuch accusations,\u201d writes Mosse, \u201cproved a powerful political weapon at the same time that they le\u00adgitimized the new regime as a bastion of respectability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hirschfeld had been on a world tour at the time of the book burning in 1933. Unable to return to Germany, he eventually fled to southern France, where he died in 1935. He was famous enough that his death was world news. Even the\u00a0Tog<\/em>, a fairly conservative Yiddish newspaper, carried an extensive and respectful obituary for Hirschfeld, detailing his many achievements, noting that his work in\u00a0geshlekhtlikhe<\/em>\u00a0research had an enormous influence. The\u00a0Tog<\/em>, however, could not quite bring itself to print the word homosexual, instead speaking of Hirschfeld\u2019s work to reform the laws around sexual crime. This was an oblique reference to Hirschfeld\u2019s ceaseless effort to repeal Germany\u2019s Paragraph 175, criminalizing homosexuality. (The code outlived the Nazi regime, and was only completely repealed in\u00a01994<\/a>.) They did, however, describe him as teaching that there was male potential within each female and vice versa.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This was likely a reference to Hirschfeld\u2019s doctrine of \u201csexual intermediacy,\u201d with each human a mixture of male and female attributes, in differing proportions. As Ralf Dose wrote in his\u00a0biography of Hirschfeld<\/a>, this doctrine \u201cmade fluid the border between male and female in an age that still made enormous and unbending distinctions between the sexes and their respective \u2018natural\u2019 attributes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Without an institution or students to carry on his legacy, Hirschfeld\u2019s work fell into obscurity. But at least for a few years after his death, his name still had currency. Dose notes that after his death, Hirschfeld was still being flogged in the Nazi press as a \u201cJewish type.\u201d And in 1937, he was named in Hans Diebow\u2019s\u00a0The Eternal Jew<\/em>\u00a0as \u201cthe most repulsive of all Jewish monsters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hirschfeld turns up in a slightly more surprising place in November 1941. Writing under Yitschok Varshavski, one of his regular\u00a0Forverts<\/em>\u00a0pseudonyms, Isaac Bashevis Singer published a long screed about the sexual perversions of Nazis, with repeated references to the work of Magnus Hirschfeld.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The headline is \u201cThe Nazi Army and Navy Is Full of Men Who Lead Disgusting, Abnormal Lives.\u201d Bashevis opens by stating his view of male-female relations: Females, whether animal or human, will always choose the strongest male and a human male must distinguish himself in some way while the female waits patiently.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But experience proves, he says, that \u201cin times of war,\u00a0upheavals return the masses to their ancient instincts.\u201d Not only does war bring out man\u2019s cruelty, he writes, \u201cbut\u00a0for a large portion of women, war causes them to lose every shame, every control,\u201d abandoning themselves to wantonness. Bashevis cites one of Hirschfeld\u2019s books (though he never says which one) supposedly showing how during WWI, German women lost all sense of morality. And as much as the German soldiers exhibited a wild barbarity, so did the German women show their own depravity. He cites a different scholar to show that \u201cGerman farm women literally raped Russian and French war prisoners.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He goes on to say that \u201cit\u2019s a known fact that Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Hess and the other present day Nazi leaders are homosexuals.\u201d In fact, he says,\u00a0Rudolf Hess\u2019 bizarre flight to England<\/a>\u00a0is easily explained. Hess was\u00a0actually Hitler\u2019s\u00a0vayb<\/em>\u00a0(wife) but they had a fight and Hess did what women do after a fight: pitched a dramatic fit and pretended to leave.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It goes on and on like that. Hirschfeld is invoked again in regard to the gay men who wanted to serve in the German army and Hirschfeld\u2019s involvement in evaluating their cases. Hirschfeld had an interest in proving that homosexuals were just as manly, just as patriotic as any other. He wanted the larger society to see homosexuals and other sexual minorities as fully human, and fully German. The point of Bashevis\u2019 screed, however, is to paint the German military as full of homosexuals and thus, full of depraved men, all of whom have nothing to lose. And it\u2019s not just men. He goes on another long tangent about women who disguise themselves as men in order to go to war. German women, he says, are especially known for doing this, as they have a drive to battle. The whole thing is so grotesque, so lurid, it starts to read more like a\u00a0Penthouse<\/em>\u00a0letter than a\u00a0Bintl Brif<\/em>\u2014though the second part of the article is actually printed on the\u00a0Bintl Brif<\/em>\u00a0page.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The piece was written in 1941 and, of course, it\u2019s obvious that those watching helplessly from America would be searching for ways to vent their rage at Hitler\u2019s demonic rampage. But from my own standpoint of 2022, it\u2019s a truly stomach-turning read, an attack on the right people (Nazis) using the innocent and well-intentioned as rhetorical ammunition.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There are, however, some kernels of truth hidden among the steaming heaps. As historian Elena Mancini explains in\u00a0Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hirschfeld, in fact, helped thousands of homosexual men and women, transvestites, and heterosexual women to enter the war by instructing them on how to pass as a \u201cnormal\u201d soldier. His\u00a0Sittengeschichte des Weltkrieges<\/em>\u00a0(Sexual History of the World War), a two-volume compendium on wartime sexual mores that he edited, is rife with accounts on how male and female homosexuals successfully passed as male soldiers. Although women were officially allowed to serve, they were banned from the front. Hirschfeld openly argued the legitimacy of their service. In many cases in which homosexual activity was discovered in the military, Hirschfeld intervened, with success, on those soldiers\u2019 behalf to mitigate penalties.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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The opening of WWI saw Germans swept up in pro-war, pro-military excitement, and Hirschfeld was no exception. He\u2019s a fascinating figure and deserving of our attention as a pioneer in LGBTQI research and activism. He was also very much a man of his time, as recent scholarship has shown. Like all people, he was complicated. Indeed, Bashevis, himself a very complicated person, closes his\u00a0Forverts<\/em>\u00a0piece with one thing I agree with:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lang konen mishugoyem di velt nisht firen
\n<\/em>The\u00a0mishugoyem<\/em>\u00a0can\u2019t rule the world for long<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Pride in Yiddish:<\/strong>\u00a0Sure, we all know about\u00a0Yidl mitn fidl<\/em>\u2019s cross-dressing adventures. But there\u2019s a lot more to\u00a0Yiddish drag<\/strong>, as demonstrated by Digital Yiddish Theatre Project\u2019s terrific\u00a0Yiddish drag timeline<\/a>. If you want to go further in depth,\u00a0Zachary Baker writes<\/a>\u00a0about two intriguing occasions when\u00a0The Dybbuk<\/em>\u00a0was staged with the lead male role, Khonen, played by a female actor.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ALSO:<\/strong>\u00a0YIVO\u2019s\u00a0Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series<\/a>\u00a0is underway and the offerings are fabulous and free. It\u2019s hard to choose among so many great programs, but I\u2019m especially excited about my friend\u00a0Sonia Gollance\u2019s talk<\/a>\u00a0about Tea Arcizewska\u2019s play\u00a0Miryeml<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Yiddish women playwrights<\/strong>. July 14 at 2 p.m. \u2026\u00a0Tsvey Brider and Baymele<\/strong>\u00a0are on tour together.\u00a0Tsvey Brider<\/a>\u00a0is a duo featuring Dmitri Gaskin and friend of the column, singer-composer Anthony Russell.\u00a0Baymele<\/a>\u00a0is a Bay Area trio, also featuring Dmitri Gaskin.\u00a0Upcoming dates<\/a>\u00a0include the Yiddish Book Center\u2019s\u00a0Yidstock<\/a>\u00a0on July 10 and Brooklyn\u2019s\u00a0Jalopy<\/a>\u00a0on July 12 \u2026\u00a0Yugntruf<\/a>\u2019s weeklong, Yiddish-only retreat,\u00a0Yidish-Vokh<\/strong><\/a>, is open for registration. Located in beautiful Copake, New York, Aug. 17-23 \u2026 Have you written and recorded a new Yiddish song between September 2021 and today? You can now submit it to the\u00a0Bubbe Awards<\/strong><\/a>. It\u2019s sort of like the Grammys for new Jewish music. The categories are: Best New Yiddish Song,\u00a0Best Original Partially Yiddish Song,\u00a0Best New Klezmer Instrumental Theme, and\u00a0Best Jewish Music Video. Deadline for submission is July 31.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rokhl Kafrissen<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a New York-based cultural critic and playwright.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Sexual Scientist ROKHL KAFRISSEN Rokhl\u2019s Golden City: The story of German sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld, an early activist for gay rights and founder of a clinic performing gender-affirming surgeries a full century ago, before the Nazis targeted him and his work . Magnus HirschfeldULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES What\u2019s your favorite Yiddish word? Along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96394,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96350\/revisions\/96394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}