Talk:Karl M. Baer

Untitled comments
This is a first pass and result of a lot of work (for this length of article during first release, in one go) and is bound to be with errors and in te wrong tone or style ... Be gentle with me! :-)

Best Regards

Petra PeH88 (talk) 17:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems fine to me, though a little too long. I would read this wp:summary. Also, in case you don't know, this person has an entry in the German Wikipedia, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_M._Baer --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 18:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, (as it said at the start of the Article, I actually started with the German Wikipedia page, but realised after just a few lines that it does not cover very much of the information already known in Germany, so went and collected and translated as much of that as I could. Best Regards Petra PeH88 (talk) 21:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Copy edits
Hi all - fascinating article. I've just given this a copy edit sweep, since someone tagged it for copy editing. Most of my changes are just questions of vernacular phrasing, but I've cut one section that I thought read as original research. I'm reproducing the text here so someone can reincorporate it if there's a decent source.


 * "It should be noted that anyone reading the 2005 "first" English translation of Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren called Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years (N. O. Body.) by Deborah Simon, (Translator), will be confronted by many errors. Some clearly accidental, some from misleading information made in the original book when Baer's transition was underway and he was at risk of being hounded by sensation hungry reporters, and thus chose to deliberately hide Bare's Identity, some however clearly to dismiss the notion he was a transsexual or even intersexed. appearing to support a notion he was born male and forced to be a girl in his early years. If this is due to the lack of words like Transsexual, or Intersexual, then it mist be remembered that in 1907 when it was published, the word Transsexual (created 1917/published 1923), nor even Transvestite (created and published 1910) had been invented. In fact at that time there was not even an actual term for Intersex (first created in 1916 by Geneticist Richard Goldschmidt) or for what Hirschfeld called "Scheinzwitter" (having one "normal physical sex" yet wanting to be the other) Even the identification of sex by chromosomes had not yet been fully understood, having been discovered first at the end of 1905 by Dr. Nettie Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson and the reliable method of testing by chromosomes not published until 1931. The most obvious sign that the translation is not safe is the description "The first translation into English of a startling 1907 memoir of a writer who was born a boy, was raised as a girl, and who lived as a man. Who was the real N.O. Body, and why did he go to such lengths to hide not just his name but his Jewish identity?" then the adjacent copy of his birth certificate shows there was no doubt about his original birth sex when he was born and first registered. Nor is any claim made to him being wrongly identified at birth in the marginal notes, as was required by Imperial German registration of birth law between 1847 (later authority removed from the church and given to the centralized State registry 1876) and 1918. "

The key would be to find an external source that discusses the validity of Simon's translation; at the moment it reads as original criticism, which isn't the remit of Wikipedia. Otherwise, great article. Thanks. Gonzonoir (talk) 16:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gonzonoir,

Once again (like in my draft for Alan L. Hart) thank you for undoing my chaos and making it readable. I was in fact the one who marked it for copy editing, knowing it was just a jumble of facts and extracts that I had attempted to put together into one package. Often (due to the depth of research one gets involved in) it becomes difficult to step back and make an entirely fresh look at it as others would, the old "Can't see the wood for the trees" syndrome. Hence my cry for help which you so bravely (given my chaotic writing style) picked up and ran with.... Thanks again,

Petra PeH88 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 12:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC).

Facts and fiction
Most of the content about Baer's work in Galicia and her "transition" is not based on facts but is pure fantasy. Baer was never a transsexual, he was a pseudo-hermaphrodite with hidden male genitals that look like female genitals at the first sight. Therefore Baer was registered as female and raised as a girl. At age 21 Baer had a little accident and while he was in hospital the doctor disgnosed the erroneous gender assignment. It took only a little operation to correct Baer's genitals. Magnus Hirschfeld reported Baer's case in an article about "Three cases of erroneous gender assignment" in 1906.

Baer was jew and was sent to Galicia by the jewish organization B’nai B’rith as a social worker for the jews in Galicia. Her job was to fight rafficking of young jewish women and to care for women education. That has nothing to do with wild speculations about genital mutilation done by christian priests and books from an American doctor named Kellog.

So I threw out most of the nonsese I found. That article needs urgently to be revised. --Eva K. is evil 00:07, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello Eva, No problem, do as you want, especially if you have some real evidence to confirm your version(s), please write or totally re-write as you see fit.

However before you do, please look at the first version I wrote and in particular scroll down (film and books) to comment I made that have since been deleted, regarding the errors of the cited English version of the Semi-fictional Book "Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren" from 2005 under the name "Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years" by N. O. Body and Deborah Simon, Translator. Preface by Sander L. Gilman. Afterword by Hermann Simon, which most people cite, also the German book was strongly modified by Baer himself to try to hide his identity and case as far as possible. The fiction in the book cannot override the facts in the records of the medical documents and those later used to gain his "Personenstandsänderung" (Change of civil status) to male.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl_M._Baer&oldid=249442419

If you are using either the German version or later English version of the book "Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren"/"Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years" as his real story, you will be misled and possibly mislead others?

Also someone deleted all the medical references and evidence from the article (under the header) and so is trying to rewrite history...? The original said...

Martha's Transition to Karl Baer

''In 1903 Bear (18 years old) was living as a woman, by 1905 he was living as a man. He was however discovered to be "not a male, but a female in disguise" when he was delivered into a Berlin major hospital after an accident, and moved to the woman's special ward of the Charity Hospital in Berlin, against which he strongly protested! Because of his claims to be a man, yet clearly having normal female genitals he was referred to the Hospital's gynecologist Levy-Lenz[6], who also occasionally worked with Magnus Hirschfeld’s "Scientific-Humanitarian Committee" (das Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee (WhK) which was relaunched after the end of WW1 as the "Institut für Sexualwissenschaft / Institute for Sexology". There discussions about this "confused young lady" attracted the keen attention of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld[7] who had helped with sex change surgery several similar female to male cases including one in 1882 for Sophia Hedwig to become Carl (Karl) [8]''

''All Medical and Judicial Issues about Transsexualism (although the term was not yet invented - see below) and all other sexual abnormalities such as cross dressing, were referred by the courts, police or hospitals to Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Nicknamed later "the Einstein of Sex"[9] and the "Scientific Humanitarian Committee" / das Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee (WhK), he set up and run on 15th May 1897, in his large Charlottenburg, Berlin residence, (at number 104 of the Berliner Strasse, today the street aving been renamed, is the Otto-Suhr-Allee). Bear moved quite close to this address for the duration of his co-operation with Hirschfeld, and later (such as in his marriage certificate from October 1907) gave his residential address as Charlottenburg, Kleiststraße 1, [10]''

''Hirschfeld who in 1901 published his first book of many about "the third sex" (covering Trans-people and Intersexuals)[11] discovered more such people during both of his 1903 and 1904 studies of Homosexual Men and Lesbian Women in his two large scale clinical studies of Students and Metal-workers[12], and again was interested in the fact that clearly there were also Men who were not Homosexual but clearly female, despite male physical appendages, and Women who were not lesbian but Male (like Baer) despite having normal female body. He defined these as Scheinzwitter (a clever word that in German can mean mock- or sham-hemaphrodite or even apparent-hemaphrodite) as in the later redefined "Pseudohermaphrodites" or "Third sexed"[13] but basically these are what today medical experts and society would generally call Transsexual-People unless finding medical proof of physical intersexuality.''

''Between 1904 and 1910 he studied these "interesting people" more closely (including Baer), realized that inside the class of people he was throwing under the term Pseudohermaphrodites a further sub-group existed of those wishing to live full time in the other gender role and so invented the term "Transvestite"[14]. He issued the first "social"-medical Diagnosis for both Female-to-male and Male-to-female transsexuals patients in issuing them with a German Court approved letter showing they were "Transvestites" and protecting them from arrest, ridicule or imprisonment and importantly for male to females from call up. During Word War One the German Army running out of new recruits, decreed that automatic medical exemption due to being "a transvestite" was no longer valid and tried to call-up Dora "Dorchen" under her still legally assigned male name "Rudolf R."[15] a Transwoman friend of Hirschfeld who was previously found unfit due to her certification as a "Determined-Transvestite" (i.e. seeking surgical intervention) He immediately declared "Dora" to be a Transsexual and issued a medical note that she was unfit for military service due to „seelischen Transsexualismus“ (traumata [med.] [psych.] Transsexual). This new word that he coined in 1917 as a trick to save Dora and other people he had diagnosed from being called up, then no one questioned a "medical sounding" latin worded diagnosis from the famous Sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. After the end of WW1 he began to study the difference of two sub-classes of Transvestite, (those who dressed for sexual thrills or part time, and those who actually were determined to be the sex they dressed as). He quickly realized the "Determined Transvestites" were not actually fixed on their choice of clothing, but their gender identity, and found the word Transvestite since it focused on dress, to be wholly inappropriate. In 1923 after a five year study of Transsexuals, he revised his ever growing tree of sexual differences and remembering his "invented" term for Dora, for the first time officially published it in a book[16] and set down the diagnostic criteria to define people like Baer to be Transsexuals. Later the word Transsexual was attributed (wrongly) to being invented by David O. Cauldwell, in his 1949 published Article "Psychopathia transexualis" and one of Hirschfeld's keenest followers (who he met in 1907 and discussed the case of Baer and other such patients and remained in regular contact[17]) Harry Benjamin. In 1953 Benjamin used Hirschfeld's term "Transsexual" in his Article "Transvestism and Transsexualism" based on Hirschfelds 1923 article and also in his 1966 published book "The Transsexual Phenomenon."''

''Baer (who in public reports made by Hirschman about her/his case was called "Anna Laabs"[18], was diagnosed by Hirschfeld and two other doctors to to be suffering from Pseudohermaphroditismus, a form of Intersexuality or then not yet invented term or defined Transsexuality, and being "wrongly seen as being a female baby and raised girl" this made the way free for him to have a hysterectomy and also be given experimental male hormones (extracted from vast amounts of male urine, collected by Order of the Kaiser and German Prussian Government from all Police and Military personnel for Magnus Hirschfeld's experiments. These Hormones although crystallized and reduced, were not without major risk to health, then many infections or sexual diseases could also be carried through them, but they allowed Baer as a Jewish man to grow a (at that time) very important gender-confirming beard and obtain a deep male voice.''

Together with the physical appearance of being a male, and a certificate of medical intervention to correct his sex (issued in December 1906), he was able to get his Arolsen in Waldeck Hesse state issued Birth Register entry changed "by correctional note in the Margin" and this note confirms that he was born a female and named Martha to the Merchant Bernhard Baer and his wife Lina, but is now forthwith by order of the Court of Arolsen in the Principality of Waldeck (dated 8th of January 1907) of Hesse allowed to carry the male name and birth sex for all purposes and is hereby recorded by the Registrar on 2nd of February 1907.

''However Hirschfeld wrote later that all three medical appraisors (Himself, Dr. med. Iwan Bloch und Dr. Georg Merzbach) [19] tasked with making the medical diagnosis of Baer (Laabs) were certain she/he was not a Hemaphrodite/intersexed. ("Alle drei Gutachter waren sich in bezug auf die Geschlechtsbestimmung einig: Baer war kein Hermaphrodit (Zwitter)")[20]''

''His "sex reassignment surgery" was recorded as such "Im November Jahre 1906, erfolgte die Geschlechtsberichtigung in Berlin." and took place in Three stages, removal of Ovaries, Womb and finally some modification to his genital outer appearance. This took place between October and November 1906 in Berlin. The German word Geschlechtsberichtigung can be read both as Sex Rectification Surgery or as Sex Corrective Surgery.[21] To get permission of the State for the change of documented birth gender, a wax form was made of the corrected external genital area and taken by Hirschfeld to be inspected by the Minister for the Interior, and since now this was clearly not a female, the Minister conceded to the request of Hirschfeld to follow the recommendations for recognising Baer's new Gender and correction of his documents. [22]''

''After the Berlin Institute was raided by the Nazis in May 1933 all records were scrutinized to single out gays, lesbians and Transsexuals, especially since the Transsexuals now had new identities and would otherwise not be discovered. Baer was singled out many times by the Gestapo, arrested, tortured and abused, [24].''

I do not care either way, but felt it was important to write all I could find about this fascinating case since there was no Wikipedia page about him. As to Transsexual or Intersexual I am not one to try to divide or sub-divide these as many TS are IS and many IS do not know they are IS and assume themselves to be only TS - for my feeling TS is IS, even if there is not the usual detectable signs others like to force onto people.

Viele Grüße (auch aus Frankfurt/Main raum), PeH88 (talk) 23:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yesterday I contacted Dr. Rainer Herrn, project director of the Berlin based Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft and asked him for his opion about this matter. Herrn has written several books and articles about the history of transvestism, transsexualism and gender change in the early 20th century. He also says that there's no historical evidence for a case of transsexualism with Baer in special and before 1910 in general. Cf. Rainer Herrn: Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Gießen 2005: Psychosozial. --Eva K. is evil 18:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Pseudohermaphroditism
Karl M. Baer was a case of pseudohermaphroditism, i.e. an intersexual person, and not an ftm trans person. It is simply wishful thinking to turn Baer into a trans person which he never was. Actually, he hat covered male sexual organs comparable with the guevedoce phenomenon or the case of Erik Schinegger. To uncover Baer's male organs was quite easy, a simple cut released them. As Hirschfeld stated later, this could have also happened directly after birth if the doctor in Arolsen hadn't been an uptight ignoramus. All fact in give evidence for a sex correction surgery and not for trans surgery: "In a lecture to other doctors, Hirschfeld described Baer as 'a man who was mistakenly identified as a woman.' He said Baer was a case of 'erroneous sexual attribution.'" Also cf. article. --FreieKunst (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)