Hermaphrodites on Show. The case of Katharina/Karl Hohmann and its Use in Nineteenth-century Medical Science

Summary

Katharina/Karl Hohmann was one of the most famous European hermaphrodites who demonstrated herself both to a general public and to academic medical doctors around 1870. Dozens of extensive medical reports discussed her case at the time. There has been said a significant amount already about the ethical questions of freak shows and the exposure of hermaphrodites to expert's eyes. But why were academic medical professionals at the time so eager to examine her? This article argues that it offered physicians the opportuniy to examine sex detached from its inscription in a social and moral order, as well as from lay experiences and observations of sex. Instead, they could concentrate on the sexual glands alone. However, this paper also shows that the thus ignored aspects of sex—physical appearance, coital possibilities, sexual attraction—as a sort of by-product started to become an object of inquiry in its own right: psychological sex.

hermaphrodite, freak shows, sexual identity, nineteenth century, history of science