Identities and gender at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg

Today, 6 November 2019, a literature evening with author Ulrike Draesner will take place at 8 pm at the Hamburg Bucerius Kunstforum. Her novel Mitgift (Dowry; 2005) is one of the first German-language novels with an intersex main character. The organiser is the charitable foundation ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.

For further information about the event, visit: “https://www.buceriuskunstforum.de/veranstaltungen/zwischen-den-geschlechtern-die-lust-der-literatur-am-spiel-mit-sexuellen-identitaeten
e-reading

“Female, male and… diverse?” – Book Presentation and Panel Discussion at the IPU Berlin

MANN_INTER_FRAU (MAN_INTER_WOMAN) (Photo and sculpture: Fabian Vogler)

On 7 November 2018, a panel discussion and book presentation entitled “Female, male and… diverse?” took place at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) Berlin. The anthology and illustrated book “Die Schönheiten des Geschlechts: Intersex im Dialog” [The Beauties of Gender: Intersex in Dialogue], edited by Katinka Schweizer and Fabian Vogler and published this year by CAMPUS, was presented. It comprises a large number of inter- and transdisciplinary contributions to the title theme and numerous bronze works by the sculptor Fabian Vogler, as well as artistic interventions by other international artists. Continue reading ““Female, male and… diverse?” – Book Presentation and Panel Discussion at the IPU Berlin”

Panel discussion and book presentation on 7 November in Berlin

A panel discussion on the third sex marker in the birth register will take place at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) Berlin on November 7 at 8 pm. The event will include a presentation of the book Die Schönheiten des Geschlechts. Intersex im Dialog [The Beauties of Gender. Intersex in Dialogue], edited by Katinka Schweizer and Fabian Vogler, which was published this year (2018). Among the participants are also Prof. Dr Konstanze Plett, Lucie Veith and Dr Ina-Marie Blomeyer. The new president of the IPU, Prof. Dr Ilka Quindeau, will moderate the evening. Further information about the event can be found here.

Positive response and constructive debate at the HOOU: Successful intersex symposium at UKE

The symposium “Intersex Controversies” on 22 November 2017 was the second symposium hosted by the HOOU Intersex-Kontrovers project. The response was tremendous and the ballroom in Erika-Haus at the UKE in Hamburg was fully booked. Prof. Peer Briken, Director of the Institute for Sex Research and Forensic Psychiatry at the UKE, opened the event.The initiator, Dr Katinka Schweizer, was delighted that so many people accepted the invitation. She introduced the host project along with all the guests, and moderated throughout the afternoon. Continue reading “Positive response and constructive debate at the HOOU: Successful intersex symposium at UKE”

Interviews with professional experts

In this contribution you can watch interviews with a range of professional experts. Dr. Ute Lampalzer has interviewed experts who have been dealing with intersex, the body and gender in their work over a long period of time.

We would like to thank the interviewees for their time and openness and for their consent to publication.

The following interviews can already be seen here:

Dr. Michael Groneberg, philosopher

Prof. Dr. phil. Konstanze Plett, jurist

Dr. med. Wilhelm Preuss, psychiatrist and sex researcher

Fabian Vogler, sculptor

Dr. phil. Katinka Schweizer, psychologist

Intersex – from a sculptor’s perspective

A contribution by Fabian Vogler

For me as an artist or figurative sculptor, the mere knowledge of intersex has greatly expanded and enriched my understanding of the world. By “coincidence” I found myself in a lecture by Dr. Katinka Schweizer on the topic of “Intersex and Transsexuality”, and the realisation that there is a difference shook my previous conditioning that was built on the gender-binary construct. At no time during my entire school or university education, whether in Germany, in Austria, Spain or Great Britain, had intersex ever been mentioned. Without knowing it, however, I had repeatedly depicted intersexual figures in my work for years, and for this reason alone, the existence of intersex seemed to me to be a revelation!

Personally always bored by the male stereotypes which I should have lived up to in my role as a man, shifting the task of maintaining a strict dichotomy towards expanding the concept of gender identity seems to me a great liberation. What fascinates me above all is that EVERY HUMAN is intersex as an embryo until at least the 7th week of pregnancy. Only then, depending on the situation, do female or male internal and external sex characteristics develop. Thus all our origins are the same and the information about these origins is in all of us. Internalising this is something I see as a great societal opportunity. Let’s embrace it!