The first sexology institute in Berlin: the place where the history of trans medicine began
It is 1919 and Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sexology) in Berlin. He thus opened a new chapter not only in his career, but in all sexological research. We wrote about everything that preceded this great step here.
Research and help
The Institute and the people he surrounded himself with allowed Hirschfeld to continue his research and take it to the next level. He continued the extensive questionnaire investigation he had begun as a private psychologist. On the basis of this, he concluded that gender could not be seen as a binary opposition, but rather as a scale where there was no ideal masculinity or femininity.
But he was aware that research findings were one thing and public opinion another. He therefore focused a lot on educating anyone who was interested - the Institute was free to attend, and there was a museum for visitors that displayed various fetishes, sex toys alongside photographs, and generally tried to break down the taboos around human sexuality and show that the vast majority were not pathological.
The main focus, however, was to help. The professional staff provided psychological care to homosexuals and transgender people (known as transvestites at the time). At the same time, the first gender-affirming operations took place here. A well-known case was Dorchen, who was born Rudolph Richter. Dorchen decided to undergo castration in 1922, and nine years later she underwent an ivaginoplasty. The operation was conducted by Felix Abraham, who also used Dorchen's case to demonstrate how important such operations are and that they are not a luxury or a fad. The doctor described in detail the psychological discomfort she was experiencing because of her body and stressed that this surgery was the only way to help her psyche and prevent her from seriously harming herself. Unfortunately, Dorchen's post-war fate is unknown.
Another medical capacity of the Institute was, for example, Ludwig Levy-Lenz, a Jewish physician who used his knowledge in the cosmetics industry after the war, but also published sexological papers.Erwin Gohrbandt, a pioneer of gender-affirming operations, was also an expert on trans issues. He unfortunately contracted Nazism, and even reportedly participated in some experiments in concentration camps. On the other hand, after the war he functioned in the Berlin Surgical Society, lectured and worked as deputy for health at the Berlin City Hall. History, in short, is not black and white.
For the record, transgender also had a class dimension. The majority of the community was made up of trans women, i.e. male to female. This was based on the status of women at the time - female to male trans people were looked down upon (unfortunately, even within the Institute and the transgender community itself) because their behaviour was interpreted as an attempt to better themselves socially. Similarly, gender-affirming care was usually available mainly to the middle and upper classes.
Negotiating with the law
Transvestites faced many challenges during this time. It was often not easy for them to find work. Hirschfeld thought of this too and offered many of them jobs directly at the Institute. The aforementioned Dorchen, for example, worked there as a housekeeper. Thanks to her and many others, the entire facility was able to function not only as a health care provider, but also as a residential facility and a meeting place for all those who needed it.
However, there was still the obstacle of the police. Transvestites often aroused public outrage, and law enforcement had experienced that mismatched clothing usually meant some sort of illegal activity. But Hirschfeld came up with a solution. He arranged with the police to issue trans passports - if someone presented one, the police knew that such a person was not a potential problem and acted accordingly. At first, only the Institute issued these passports, but later the police themselves adopted the same practice.
The law enforcers even went so far as to issue a directive that literally said that men with passports were not homosexuals or engaged in prostitution and were to be treated leniently. In fact, the law had no regard for transgender people, so the police could afford to set their own procedure.
Nazi destruction
You can probably imagine how Hirschfeld and the Institute of Sexology were in some people's stomachs. Already in 1920, Hirschfeld was badly attacked, even mistakenly declared dead. As the influence of Nazism grew increasingly heavy, he could barely show his face on the street in the late 1920s.
On May 6, 1933, all the threats and insults came to a head. In the morning, students sympathetic to Nazism attacked the Institute and smashed what they could find. In the afternoon, men from the Sturmabteilung joined in, and began to search the archives and library, taking away kilos and kilos of printed matter. These were the first victims of the Nazi book burning. Hirschfeld's bust also went to the bonfire, but it is said to have survived the fire, and may even be the same bust that is now on display at the Berlin Academy of Arts; however, it is impossible to be absolutely certain.
Fortunately, Hirschfeld was not on site at the time, he was travelling the world giving lectures, and when he heard what had happened he never returned to Germany. He moved his residence to France. He tried to open a similar institution in Paris, but unfortunately the project failed to generate enough interest to make it financeable. Hirschfeld ended his efforts and moved to Nice, where he died in 1935.
Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute of Sexology may be a short chapter in queer history, but that does not diminish their importance. We can only speculate how LGBTQ+ history would have changed had progressive research not been cut short by the ravages of war.
The author of this article is Martin Klecán, a historian at the Museum of Central Pootaví in Strakonice who specialises in 20th century history. As an LGBTQ ally, he also covers queer history and its often-neglected chapters.
