LOCATION
GLBT Historical Society Museum
4127 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
ADMISSION
$10 admission; Free for GLBT Historical Society Members
More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld — the “Einstein of Sex” — became renowned for his groundbreaking theory of sexual relativity. Nearly 100 years after the Nazis burned his books and hounded him from the queer mecca he helped build, Hirschfeld’s vision of sexuality and gender as continual and fluid, rather than rigid binaries, has never been more important.
Join the GLBT Historical Society for an Author Talk and book signing with journalist Daniel Brook, in conversation with historian and Society founding member, Gerard Koskovich. Brook will highlight Hirschfeld’s 1931 visit to the Bay Area, including a tour of San Quentin State Prison, during which he advocated for Black transgender inmates ensnared by California's capriciously enforced law against consensual oral sex.
About the book:
In this new biopraphy, journalist Daniel Brook retraces Hirschfeld’s rollicking life and reinvigorates his legacy, recovering one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In an era when gay sex was a crime and gender roles rigid, Hirschfeld taught that each of us is their own unique mixture of masculinity and femininity. Through his public advocacy for gay rights and his private counseling of patients toward self-acceptance, he became the intellectual impresario of Berlin’s cabaret scene and helped turn his hometown into the world’s queer capital. But he also enraged the Nazis, who ransacked his Institute for Sexual Science and burned his books.
Driven from his homeland, Hirschfeld traveled to California, Asia, and the Middle East to research sexuality on a global scale. Through his harrowing lived experience of antisemitic persecution and a pivotal late-in-life interracial romance, he began to see that race, like gender, was a human invention. Hirschfeld spent his final years in exile trying to warn the world of the genocidal dangers of racism.
The Einstein of Sex at last brings together this unsung icon’s work on sexuality, gender, and race and recovers the visionary who first saw beyond the binaries. A century after his groundbreaking work—as book bans, gender panics, and the fascist politics of “us” and “them” threaten anew—Hirschfeld’s gift for thinking beyond the confines of his world has much to offer.
Copies of The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
This event is co-sponsored by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco.
Speakers
Daniel Brook (he/him) is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. His previous book, A History of Future Cities, was longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize and selected as one of the ten favorite books of the year by the Washington Post. Brook has received numerous research and writing grants including a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship from the Biographers International Organization. Born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island, and educated at Yale, Brook lives in New Orleans.
Gerard Koskovich (he/him) is a San Francisco historian and rare book dealer. A founding member of the GLBT Historical Society, he has been active in the movement to create LGBTQ archives and museums for nearly four decades and has curated numerous exhibitions. Koskovich has presented widely, including talks at the Ecole du Louvre, Kyoto University and Oxford University. His writing on LGBTQ history and culture has been published extensively in English and French.
Members Perks
Interested in becoming a member of the GLBT Historical Society? Members enjoy all sorts of perks, including free access to this event. Learn more.