L’autre du sexe

Abstract

The ways scientists think the difference of the sexes evolve, as Laqueur showed it, in the 17th-18th centuries, which lead to a complete re-evaluation of the figures of the hermaphrodite and the homosexual in the 19th century. Built as anomalies rather than as diseases strictly speaking, the hermaphroditism and the homosexuality take part to the elaboration of a device of medical thought of the difference of the sexes, ontologicaly constituted to establish a scientific, social and political order.

Keywords

• sexual difference
• hermaphroditism
• teratology
• history of medicine
• 19th century​