num_pages: 305
description: An unprecedented examination of the ways in which the uninhibited urban sexuality sexual experimentation and medical advances of pre-Weimar Berlin created and molded our modern understanding of sexual orientation and gay identity.Known already in the 1850s for the friendly company of its warm brothers (German slang for men who love other men) Berlin before the turn of the twentieth century became a place where scholars activists and medical professionals could explore and begin to educate both themselves and Europe about new and emerging sexual identities. From Karl Heinrich Ulrichs a German activist described by some as the first openly gay man to the world of Berlins vast homosexual subcultures to a major sex scandal that enraptured the daily newspapers and shook the court of Emperor William IIand on through some of the very first sex reassignment surgeriesRobert Beachy uncovers the long-forgotten events and characters that continue to shape and influence the way we think of sexuality today.Chapter by chapter Beachys scholarship illuminates forgotten firsts including the life and work of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld first to claim (in 1896) that same-sex desire is an immutable biologically determined characteristic and founder of the Institute for Sexual Science. Though raided and closed down by the Nazis in 1933 the institute served as among other things a veritable incubator for the science of tran-sexuality scene of one of the worlds first sex reassignment surgeries. Fascinating surprising and informative Gay Berlin is certain to be counted as a foundational cultural examination of human sexuality.
language: English
title: Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity
publisher: Knopf