Magnus Hirschfeld, his biographies and the possibilities and boundaries of ‘biography’ as ‘doing history’

Brennan, Toni; Hegarty, Peter

doi:10.1177/0952695109346642

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…These ideas emerged initially not from European psychology or psychiatry but from the new discipline of “sexology,” particularly in Germany (e.g., Hirschfeld, 1922/2000; Krafft-Ebing, 1886). There is evidence to suggest that this scientific narrative actually emerged in an attempt to ensure compassionate treatment—rather than criminal condemnation—for individuals with same-sex desire (Brennan & Hegarty, 2009; Bullough & Bullough, 1997).…”

Section: Should Same-sex Sexual Behavior Be Legally Permissible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychology and the politics of same-sex desire in the United States: An analysis of three cases.

Hammack¹,

Windell²

2011

History of Psychology

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Psychological science has assumed an increasingly explicit role in public policies related to same-sex desire in the United States. In this article, we present a historical analysis of the relationship between policy discourse and scientific discourse on homosexuality produced within U.S. psychology over the 20th and early 21st centuries through the lens of three cases: Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), Lawrence v. Texas (2003), and Perry v. Schwarzenegger (2010). Our analysis suggests that, for the majority of its disciplinary history, psychology produced knowledge that supported a status quo of legal and cultural subordination for same-sex-attracted individuals. The discipline's shift in understanding of homosexuality, reflected in a 1975 policy statement of the American Psychological Association, reversed this relationship and opened up space for advocacy for social and political change regarding homosexuality. Our analysis of policy decisions rendered by the courts reveals the increasingly important role psychological science has assumed in challenging the legal subordination of same-sex-attracted individuals, though the basis upon which psychological science has sought to inform policy remains limited. We conclude with a critical discussion of the type of knowledge claims psychologists have traditionally used to advocate for gay and lesbian rights, suggesting the vitality of a narrative approach which can reveal the meaning individuals make of legal subordination and political exclusion.

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Section: Should Same-sex Sexual Behavior Be Legally Permissible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychology and the politics of same-sex desire in the United States: An analysis of three cases.

Hammack¹,

Windell²

2011

History of Psychology

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“…Although the intent of many European scholars may have been benevolent (Brennan & Hegarty, 2009;Bullough & Bullough, 1997), this conception of same-sex desire codified a master narrative of sickness that likely created tremendous psychological challenges for same-sex-attracted individuals (e.g. Duberman, 1991).…”

Section: The Sickness Scriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative, psychology and the politics of sexual identity in the United States: from ‘sickness’ to ‘species’ to ‘subject’

Hammack

Mayers

Windell

2013

Psychology & Sexuality

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Since early legal, medical and scientific discussions of homosexuality, the discipline of psychology has assumed an instrumental role in both maintaining and challenging cultural and political perspectives on same-sex desire, identity and behaviour. This article presents a critical historical review of psychological research on same-sex desire in the United States, with a focus on the way in which studies reflect three master narratives on the nature and meaning of same-sex attraction: (1) a sickness script that dominated the majority of research from the late 1800s to the 1970s; (2) a species script that became popular with the removal of homosexuality as a diagnosable mental illness in 1973 and initiated several new lines of research; and (3) a subject script inspired by scholarly and cultural shifts beginning in the 1990s that challenged the taxonomy of sexual identity. We conclude with a discussion of the transformative potential of a narrative approach that integrates analysis of historical forces and individual psychological development.

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“…As Alan Stewart (2003) notes, the hope of finding more famous 'great homosexuals in history' continues to incite essentialist histories. However, historians of psychology now have available a wider range of studies of the ways that the lives of bisexual, gay or lesbian human scientists such as Alfred Kinsey (Capshew, Adamson, Buchanan, Murray, & Wake, 2003), Harry Stack Sullivan (Hegarty, 2005), Charlotte Wolff and Magnus Hirschfeld (Brennan & Hegarty, 2009) or Jan Gay and Thomas Painter (Minton, 2003) have been written in different periods of psychology's histories. The conditions under which writing about psychologists' same-sex intimacies could be reconciled with narratives about their intellectual achievements have been, to say the least, unstable.…”

Section: A Little History Ii: Smart Jews and Queer Geniusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexuality, normality and intelligence. What is queer theory up against?

Hegarty

2011

Psychology & Sexuality

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I engage queer theory and the history of the intelligence quotient (IQ) movement in the United States here to re-imagine the critical nature of both projects. Early IQ researchers, such as Terman and Goddard, hypothesised that IQ was necessary for sexual morality and tested the hypothesis that prostitutes had lower IQ than other women. Terman was further concerned that gifted children not be 'queer' and appealed to a Freudian logic of sublimation to explain why children whom he deemed gifted sometimes engaged in homosexual acts. Intelligence testing is not simply a 'disciplinary' form of power/knowledge of the sort described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish; it is not oriented towards normalising 'gifted' people that it individualises. Rather, gifted people are made visible within a strategy of changing government to accommodate their difference from typical intelligence. This analysis of power suggests new ways of thinking about the intersectional politics of conservative rhetoric that relies on IQ testing, such as the book The Bell Curve.

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Magnus Hirschfeld, his biographies and the possibilities and boundaries of ‘biography’ as ‘doing history’

Abstract: This article considers the two major biographies of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, MD (1868MD ( -1935, an early campaigner for 'gay rights' avant la lettre.

Cited by 6 publications

References 25 publications

Psychology and the politics of same-sex desire in the United States: An analysis of three cases.

Psychology and the politics of same-sex desire in the United States: An analysis of three cases.

Narrative, psychology and the politics of sexual identity in the United States: from ‘sickness’ to ‘species’ to ‘subject’

Sexuality, normality and intelligence. What is queer theory up against?

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