Chapotraphouse

I think further complicating this whole thing is that human sexuality and gender identity is a lot more nebulous than the very rigid, medically-originated terminology we use implies. A lot of the identity labels we use (homosexual, transsexual/transgender, etc) were originally medical diagnoses that were later transposed onto cultural identities, which carries a lot of baggage that I think has been left unaddressed, such as the rigidity of their definition

I have to step in with some historical defense here. Magnus Hirschfeld coined the terms (and initiated the modern understandings of) "transvestite", then "transsexual" to differentiate between gender and sexual variation. Prior to that, western euro/anglo/american ideas had more nebulous concepts like "urning" (his preference) or "invert" which correspond more to modern term like "queer" (without any of the political/confrontational overtones). Even though we have reasons for also cultivating the general term, the specifics are crucial and their introduction was and remains key.

Hirschfeld took great pains to avoid creating the ideas of any false dichotomies. Below I have a few paragraphs to demonstrate this. They are from Homosexuality of Men & Women (published in German in 1920, finally translated to English in 2000 by Michael Lombardi-Nash). The whole thing is about diagnosing, categorizing, but more importantly conceptualizing sex and gender variation. There are some wacky specific ideas in there; a lot of the more general concepts were very strong and have quite a modern flavor to them but you need to read through the language to see what he is trying to say. I hope these make sense out of context, I didn't want to paste pages and pages although everything before and after is interesting especially to think it was published over a century ago and was well-known about contemporaneously. This was not obscure ivory tower gender theory, in fact efforts were made in the production and distribution to include broad sections of society. For example Hirschfeld entered into agreements with trade unions and eventually all this led him to despise and reject colonialism and structural white supremacy, which is a whole other story.

In Part I, "The Homosexuality of Men and Women as Biological Occurrence", Chapter 19, "Human Bisexuality (Hermaphroditism) as Basis for Male and Female Homosexuality (The Theory of Intermediaries)", describing why sex and gender variation are in concurrence with Darwinian evolution and every other characteristic of life and matter (pg 413):

The knowledge of the hermaphroditic character of homosexuality adds it as a link in a series of related natural phenomena, whose absence would mean a break in an uninterrupted line. It would be very noteworthy if the sex drive were an exception to the fluid transitions that lead from one to the other sex, which can be proven in the case of every organ and every function. If all the male features, occasionally in isolation or in great numbers, can appear in the case of women and in reverse all the female ones in the case of men, of which there is not the least bit of doubt, then it would be quite extraordinary if in this case the sex drive were the sole exception.

Accordingly, the absence of homosexuality would be a greater riddle than its existence, which to many appears more disconcerting and more unnatural than, say, the occasional occurrence of a beard on a woman or milk-producing breasts on a man. Just as people deduced undiscovered elements by studying the atomic weights in the periodical table of the elements; just as the position and the orbit of Neptune w ere discovered before sighting the planet by studying the distance between the other planets; just as people described the intermediary stages between the birds and reptiles before discovering Archaeopteryx embedded in the limestone at Solenhofer. so could any thinking, educated person prove the existence of homosexuals before seeing them face to face.

Dr. Kotscher of Hubertusburg correctly states: "All our phylo- and ontogeny (evolutionary and biological development) and the observation of heredity must lead us to admit that there is no absolute female animal and no absolute male animal, but rather in each individual a mixture of both occurs to produce animals of different kinds, in our case, humans of different kinds.

Then he asks "What is a woman?" and "What is a man?", providing a stereotypical response to each in detail. Starting with the production of ova and onward. So nobody can mistake what he says next for ignorance of quote-unquote-biology (pg 417):

According to this, a completely feminine, "absolute" woman would be one who not only produces egg cells, but would also correspond to the female type in every other respect; an "absolute" man one who produces sperm cells but at the same time also exhibits the average male type in all remaining areas. Such kinds of absolute representatives of their sex are constructed abstractions; in reality, up to now they have never been observed in such an extreme combination. More likely, people have been able to prove that there are remnants, no matter how small, of female characteristics in every male and correspondingly, remnants of the male in every female. However, let us assume that there exist people who, to express it in numbers, are 100 percent male or 100 percent female. There is still no question—and here, too, we are still adhering to simple facts taken from experience—there would often be a great number of persons who, in spite of carrying egg cells, showed features that in general approach the male sex and, on the other hand, there would be persons who, in spite of issuing sperm cells, showed features which in general are suited to the female. Because in our usage of language we usually define possessors of egg cells simply as women and the bearers of sperm cells simply as men, then it follows that there are women with male, men with female features, and these mixed forms are precisely what is understood by the expression "sexual intermediaries."

Then he spends a few pages setting out his scheme of categorisation (four categories, mentioned below). Worth reading for historical interest, nerds, but not required here. Then comes a (relatively) famous passage where he tells you how many (basic!) categories of gender/sex there are:

page 419

Of further importance is that all these features can appear in isolation or in combination. Every conceivable blend of male and female characteristics can occur, if we take as a basis each of the four main groups as a whole for the calculation of the number of possible combinations; thus, if we imagine that first, the sex organs, second, the remaining physical features, third, the sex drive, and fourth, the other psychological characteristics can be male, female, or mixed, then simply from that, you can obtain eighty-one basic types of sexual intermediary stages.

However, the number of possible variations is much greater when we consider that, indeed, many individual attributes are combined within each of the four groups, attributes which can appear in combination with any other one you like, with as many as you like, with as many of the others as you wish, and each, in addition, of different intensity. Let us take only four different attributes in each group, for example, in group II, hair covering, larynx, chest, pelvis, etc. (in reality there are many, many more), then that already furnishes four times four, or sixteen individual characteristics, which can bear male female, or merged features, which produces three to the sixteenth power, 43,046,721 combined possibilities or intermediary types.

And this is only in consideration of a limited subset of characteristics, not the whole range. So at the very beginning, we have the most rudimentary count of genders to be 81, or a slightly more sophisticated at 40 million, and even this is understood as an almost unforgivable over-simplification which a scientifically-minded person should not succumb to. Elsewhere, by way of carefully explaining the diagnostic criteria, he is careful to make sure the reader understands that sexuality and gender are unmoored from one another and can present in any combination. He presents vignettes of gay/bi trans people, warning doctors not to allow one aspect to mislead them regarding another.

It is very important to understand that all the people who formed the non-erased history of sex and gender studies were colleges with Hirschfeld. Harry Benjamin for example, was taken on a tour of Berlin gay bars by Hirschfeld, who hoped to influence him to a friendly feeling towards gender/sexual variant people. (He also did this with the Chief of Police, which I find suggestive of the impression made by Benjamin, but that's very speculative.) Benjamin did have access to a view of gender and transition which is remarkably in step with the more enlightened jurisdictions here in 2026, which re-frames any apologia about "being a man of his times". In fact he chose run things the way he did, even though he had a better framework available. And Freud, fucking Freud, was a direct contemporary. Hirschfeld was a founding member of Berlin Psychoanalytic Society. They disagreed on fundamental issues = divergent conclusions. Hirschfeld wanted the largest most diverse sample size possible, and also favored conducting talk therapy outside + walking rather than in a closed room reclined on couch.

As to the original subject of the thread, a little earlier in the same chapter (pg 361), Hirschfeld answers:

----reached wordcount limit for comment + no time to edit to fit. see reply for small rest of it