As someone in my early 30s, I lived through the rapid life events of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to legalization of same-sex marriage, to the threats currently being faced in America by a not-small group of people intent on reducing my family to second-class citizens. Reading Beachy’s subtle, passionate recounting of the events that led to a new understanding of sexuality and personal identity makes me think in particular about how identity is shaped today. Beachy specifically recounts the events of the life of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1800s and his coining of the term “Urning” which coincides with his effort to be legally recognized as a man who desires intimacy with other men. Interestingly, the conversation between the ideas of identity-as-being and identity-as-what-one-does only continue to be explored today in today’s language and subsections – am I a Leatherman because of what I do, or am I a Leatherman because of who I am? Beachy elucidates the fine interweavings of desire, agency, the law, and the threats to identity that could be found within Germany in the 1800s, and leaves room for the audience to question what identity does in a modern sense as well.
Submitted by Pup Hellbeast
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