The queer cases of psychoanalysis: Rethinking the scientific study of homosexuality, 1890s-1920s

Abstract

This article charts the development of psychoanalytic cases of homosexuality in the early twentieth century against the backdrop of seemingly stable sexological understandings of congenital homosexual identity and behaviour. It argues that psychoanalysts offered alternative models to the taxonomies of sexology, which had remained intellectually tied to discourses of pathology and difference. It contrasts Freud's approach to homosexuality in several famous early cases, such as 'Dora' and Daniel Paul Schreber, with rarely considered cases and writings by Isidor Sadger and others. This analysis reveals nuanced distinctions between early psychoanalytic positions: whereas Freud's approach created..