Sengoopta C
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, United Kingdom.
Isis. 1998 Sep;89(3):445-73. doi: 10.1086/384073.
Focusing on the work of the physiologist Eugen Steinach and the clinician and activist Magnus Hirschfeld, this essay explores the complex interplay of experimental biology and medical discourse in the construction of a male homosexual identity in early twentieth-century Central Europe. Hirschfeld's collaboration with Steinach, the essay demonstrates, was not simply an instance of the imposition of a biomedical model of sexuality on the homosexual community by a hegemonic medical profession. Hirschfeld, a physician who was also a leader of the German movement for homosexual emancipation, used Steinach's theory to anchor a new biological model of homosexuality, claiming that male homosexuals were neither diseased nor depraved but formed a distinct, autonomous group of organically feminized men. The redefinition of homosexuality resulting from Steinach's and Hirschfeld's research, the essay argues, was not related exclusively to the specific politics of homosexual emancipation but also to more general debates, anxieties, and contestations over the cultural meanings of masculinity and femininity.
本文聚焦于生理学家欧根·施泰纳赫以及临床医生兼活动家马格努斯·赫希菲尔德的工作，探讨了20世纪初中欧在构建男性同性恋身份过程中实验生物学与医学话语之间复杂的相互作用。文章表明，赫希菲尔德与施泰纳赫的合作并非仅仅是霸权医学专业将生物医学性取向模型强加于同性恋群体的一个例子。赫希菲尔德是一名医生，也是德国同性恋解放运动的领袖，他利用施泰纳赫的理论来确立一种新的同性恋生物学模型，声称男性同性恋者既非患病也非堕落，而是构成了一个独特、自主的有机女性化男性群体。文章认为，施泰纳赫和赫希菲尔德的研究对同性恋的重新定义不仅与同性恋解放的具体政治相关，还与关于男性气质和女性气质文化意义的更广泛辩论、焦虑及争议有关。
