The Interplay of Literature and Medical Authority

The second half of this book looks at the use of hermaphroditism (in its various interpretations) in 19th century French fiction, and how that interacted with real-life dynamics. The subjects of those novels were not necessarily depicted as intersex, but might challenge the integrated sex/gender/sexuality binary in other ways. Given the treatment of grammatical gender in French and the lack of any obvious way to express non-binary identity, the problems represented by a gender-transgressive character are always foregrounded. Similar linguistic issues arose in medical reports of ambiguous patients, with doctors alternating gendered language, or resorting to references like “the patient” (which would have grammatical gender unrelated to the referent).

Novelists sometimes tackled the challenge in innovative ways, using circumlocutions and epicene names to keep character gender mysterious, as in Cuisin’s Clémentine (1820).

This was one of a multitude of 19th century French novels—many now obscure—that took androgyny as a theme. Better known works include Balzac’s La fille aux yeux d’or, Gauthier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin, Rashilde’s Monsieur Venus, and others.

Linton’s study argues against the traditional literary distinction between the “romantic androgyne” and the “decadent hermaphrodite” themes, as well as arguing that literary androgyny was closely connected to interest in intersexuality.

In one group of novels, the sex category of the protagonist is obscured until the conclusion and is the main driver of the plot, challenging the reader’s understanding of sexual difference. The consequences of the final reveal are often dodged by removing the protagonist from the story’s context by various means, without undermining the tension that pervaded the story.

The chapter focuses on a detailed dissection of several texts, which goes well beyond what is of interest to the Project, so I will only hit some highlights.

In Clémentine the eponymous protagonist has been imprinted prenatally with mixed sex characteristics by their mother’s obsessions. Although this manifests partially as mixed gender behavior, there is a dawning realization that their body is anomalous as well. The novel takes a hostile attitude toward medical curiosity and the treatment of intersex people as “curiosities” for study and display (while depicting Clémentine’s humiliating experiences in some detail). Clémentine variously attracts the romantic attention of both men and women but only returns that of the men.

Like the protagonists of Fragoletta and Mademoiselle de Maupin, an inherent part of Clémentine’s masculinity is a swashbuckling virtuosity with the sword, as well as an irresistible attractiveness to both sexes. The stories are variable in the extent to which they embrace or only tease a pansexual dynamic that inherently encompasses some form of homosexuality.

At this point I’m going to give up on the detailed summary, sorry.

One quoted passage from a translation of Madamoiselle de Maupin is worth giving in full as it demonstrates the types of characteristics that were believed to reflect biological sex. “Neither one nor the other of these sexes is my own; I have neither the foolish submissiveness, nor the timidity, nor the pettiness of women. I do not have the vices of men either, their disgusting, vile nature and their brutal tendencies; – I am of a third sex altogether that does not yet have a name; higher or lower than them, inferior or superior. I have the body and the soul of a woman, the mind and the strength of a man, and I have too much or not enough of one or the other to be able to pair up with either.”