Karl Dürrge

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Karl Dürrge (1780–1835) was a Prussian intersex person born in Potsdam. Though listed as female at birth, he later learned his genitalia were ambiguous and chose to live as a man, using the name Karl Dürrge from around 1807. He earned a living as a traveling medical subject, allowing doctors to examine him in exchange for food, lodging, or money. His case, along with others, helped shape how sex was determined and recorded and encouraged doctors to share their findings.

Dürrge grew up in a family of a silk worker. In 1801 he was admitted to the Charité hospital in Berlin for a skin condition; during bathing, doctors noted unusual genitalia. The famous physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland examined him and, based on certain observations, concluded he was female with an oversized clitoris. Other doctors offered different views. In 1803, Johann Christian Stark concluded Dürrge was masculine, a finding later supported by Franz Heinrich Martens. Prussian officials who advised him to wear men’s clothing noted that recognizing him as male granted him civil rights similar to those of men under the law at the time.

With the Prussian law allowing hermaphrodites to choose a gender at adulthood, Dürrge began living as a man and traveled in men’s attire. He joined a broader pattern of intersex people who traveled and exchanged permission to examine their bodies for sustenance, helping establish standards for sexing based on anatomy. He carried a portfolio of medical reports that physicians used to compare cases and advance medical knowledge.

Dürrge’s travels took him from Berlin to Jena, Leipzig, Fulda, Prague, Landshut, Ludwigsburg, Legnica, and beyond, with a notable 1816–1817 itinerary including Paris, London, and the Netherlands before ending in Göttingen. In 1817 he began selling wax molds of his genitalia. In 1820 he was employed at the University of Bonn and worked as a wax artist supervising an anatomy collection, sometimes under the surname Derrier. He died in Mainz in 1835 of a stroke. An autopsy by Franz Mayer described a complex mix of male and female features—penis, prostate, and at least one testicle alongside a uterus, fallopian tubes, and an ovarian-like body—confirming his hermaphroditism, though he displayed stronger female characteristics overall.

Dürrge’s life shows how a person born one sex could gain certain rights by presenting as the other, and how intersex individuals contributed to the development of medical methods for studying sex. Historians consider him a pivotal figure in early 19th-century medicine for his role in improving the practice of serial analysis and the exchange of medical knowledge.