Diagnosing deviants: The figure of the lesbian in sexological and literary discourses 1860–1931

This dissertation seeks to understand the emergence of modern lesbian identity in Germany. I argue that the figure of the lesbian took form in the complex and often clashing interactions between the discourses of sexology and literature. Instead of using the anachronistic coming out narrative, I argue that the primary mode of coming to awareness of one\u27s sexuality in turn-of-the-century and early twentieth-century Germany was experienced as a diagnosis from outside, and for this process I coin the term diagnosis narrative. The diagnosis narrative depicts the story of how one becomes a subject with a sexual identity and is the primary way that individuals confronted and were confronted with the idea of sexual difference within themselves. The experience of diagnosis engendered a variety of responses ranging from empowerment thanks to the availability of a sexological vocabulary, to partial appropriation while wresting authority from medical experts, to complete rejection of the medicalized framework. The first part of the dissertation traces the emergence of the figure of the lesbian through sexological discourse: how she began as a liminal figure in forensic-legal discourse, and how, around 1870, the ability to diagnose the lesbian became a key way that sexologists differentiated their discourse from the legal one. Thus, although male homosexual case studies outnumbered female ones, the lesbian was a foundational figure for sexology, because through her sexologists defined the new limits and goals of their discourse. The second part of my dissertation examines literary and hybrid literary-sexological works, including Emma Trosse\u27s Ein Weib? (1903), Aimée Duc\u27s Sind es Frauen? (1901) and Anna E. Weirauch\u27s Der Skorpion (1919-1931). In these works I analyze how sexological definitions of the lesbian resonated in literature, and how literary discourse represented and remade the figure of the lesbian. All three authors found the medium of literature to be a space where the figure of the lesbian could be revised in a way that was experimental, ambiguous, and less programmatic than the sexological and social discourses