Overview

For much of Europe, the interwar period was one of cultural expansion and diversion and increased visibility for lesbians. While historical research on Germany during the period immediately after the First World War has been extensively studied by historians through the lens of gender and sexuality—with an implicit emphasis on the “masculine” dimension of queer female sexuality—the Dutch context has been virtually ignored. Through careful and sensitive studies of medico‐social discourses, media representations, and literary depictions of queer femininity, Different from the Others recovers the submerged history of queer feminine women in both Germany and the Netherlands. Cyd Sturgess provides a theoretical analysis that makes key empirical contributions to the history of Dutch gays and lesbians while reframing our collective understanding of queer femininity more broadly.

Full Product Details

Author:   Cyd Sturgess
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781836953975

ISBN 10:   1836953976
Pages:   368
Publication Date:   01 March 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Translations Introduction “Good” and “Bad” Femininities Locating the “Fem(me)” in Histories of Sexuality Labels and Names Queer Historiographical Methods
Setting the Parameters for Historical Research Part I: Socio-Medical Discourses Chapter 1. Sex and the Cities – Locating Queer Feminine Desires ‘A Child of War’ A Conservative Modernity Living Apart Together The (Not So) Frivolous Flapper ‘Bubis’ and ‘Mädis’ Little Baskets and Cautionary Owls Queer Activism in the City Policing Same-Sex Desires     Conclusions Chapter 2. Sexual Science – The Queer Feminine Mystique The Emergence of a Scientia Sexualis Ideal Women, Ideal Marriages Queer Female Desire At the Margins: Early Theories of Same-Sex Desires Somatic Signifiers: Questions of Queer Legitimac Intermediary Forms: Spectrums and Hierarchies of Queer Desire Femininity as a (Queer) Woman’s Right Seductive Don Juans and Curable Queers Conclusions Part II: Community Discourses Introduction Chapter 3. Fashioning Femininities in the Weimar Periodicals The Girlfriend and Love of Women The Girlfriend: ‘Journal for Ideal Friendship’ Women’s Love: ‘Friendship, Love and Sexual Emancipation’ Discursive Divisions within Berlin’s Queer Subculture Defining the Parameters of the Feminine Literary Discourses and Feminine Desire Fashioning Femininities Trans Femininities Anti-Feminine Discourses Conclusions Chapter 4. Marys and Mollys: Finding the Queer Feminine on the Dutch Press Landscape The Cult of Domesticity Beatrice (1939–1967) The Young Woman (1924–1938) We (1932) The Right to Live (1940–1946) Conclusions Part III: Fictional Discourses Introduction Chapter 5. A Mother’s Love: Eva Raedt-de Canter’s Internaat (1930) and Christa Winsloe’s Das Mädchen Manuela (1933) Eva Raedt-de Canter Christa Winsloe Boarding School (1930) The Girl Manuela (1933) ‘Alone in the World’: Dynamic Desires in Boarding School ‘I want to be a boy’: Queering Sexological Tropes in The Girl Manuela A Mother’s Love “Confessions” and “Comings-Out”: Queer Desires as Queer Identities? Conclusions Chapter 6. When Object Becomes Subject: Feminine Protagonists in Anne E. Weirauch’s The Scorpion (1919–1931) and Josine Reuling’s Back to the Island (1937) Anna E. Weirauch Josine Reuling     The Scorpion (1919–1931) Back to the Island (1937) Challenging Sexological Frameworks Femininity in the Foreground Hierarchies of Gender and Desire Mother-Love and “Nonlesbian” Subjects Conclusions Conclusion Bibliography

Reviews

“Different from the Others is a synthetic and original study. The conceptualization is very sophisticated and the author’s ability to use sexological literature… and other print sources to address questions of identity are extremely compelling.” • Robert Beachy, Yonsei University

Author Information

Cyd Sturgess is a queer literary and cultural historian, who works as a Leverhulme postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University. Lecturing on themes of gender and desire in the media, Cyd's latest research project concerns issues of identity and precarity in community-based film festivals and the queering of documentary and archival practices.

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