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Introduction

Editors:
Friedemann Pfäfflin,
 Ulm University, Germany
 
Walter O. Bockting,
 University of Minnesota, USA
 
Eli Coleman,
 University of Minnesota, USA
 
Richard Ekins,
 University of Ulster at Coleraine, UK
 
Dave King,
 University of Liverpool, UK

Managing Editor:
Noelle N Gray,
 University of Minnesota, USA

Editorial Assistant:
Erin Pellett,
 University of Minnesota, USA

Editorial Board

Authors

Contents
book Historic Papers

Info
Authors´Guidelines

© Copyright

Published by
Symposion Publishing
  
ISSN 1434-4599



Abstracts

 

Volume I, Number 2, October - December 1997

 

Updated Look at Legal Responses to Transsexualism: Especially Three Marriage Cases in U.K., U.S. And New Zealand
Louis H. Swartz, Ph.D., LL.M., R.N.
Abstract

Transsexuals' legal problems may include validity of marriage and revision of official records of identity, such as birth certificates. Subject to an important qualification stated herein, the paper argues that compassionate, piecemeal legal accommodation to the situation of transsexuals deserves recognition as a sound legal policy to be followed by courts, legislatures and administrative bodies. This is contrasted with attempted scientific deductive logical approaches to legal problems in this area. Three marriage cases from the U.K. (Corbett), U.S. (M.T.), and New Zealand (Otahuhu), plus statutes from the U.S., are discussed to illustrate points involved in the argument. The policy advocated here rests, however, upon the validity of (and public confidence in) a medical model of transsexualism which is now under substantial challenge, leaving the basis for this legal policy in need of review.

 

Sex Reassignment, Harry Benjamin, and some European Roots
Friedemann Pfaefflin, M.D.
Abstract

This paper documents the author´s Presidential Address at the XV Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Symposium, Vancouver, Canada, 7.-18. Sept. 1997. It traces the roots of the term transsexualism far beyond the writings of Cauldwell who is generally believed to have coined the word. Benjamin, born in Berlin, had close connections to sex researchers in Europe where sex research blossomed at the beginning of the 20th century. His interests in endocrinology were inspired by the work of Steinach, Vienna. His involvement in transvestism and transsexualism was inspired by the work of Hirschfeld, Berlin. In contrast, his interests in psychoanalysis were spoiled at his first encounter with Freud. It was Hirschfeld who, in 1910, coined the term transvestism, and, in 1923, the term transsexualism. in 1918, Magnus Hirschfeld reported the first sex reassignment surgery having taken place in Berlin in 1912. The paper highlights some of the most important contributions of Hirschfeld to sexology. It traces the connections between Benjamin and Hirschfeld, and it discusses what may be learned from history for present controversies in the realm of transgenderism.