Hirschfeld was a young Jewish doctor, who was also a homosexual, residing in Germany during the development of WWII. One night he found a soldier at the entrance of his office, weeping to himself. This soldier would confess to the doctor that he himself was a homosexual, which at the time was deemed a crime and could strip the soldier of his ranks and titles and be imprisoned. Hirschfeld understood the soldier’s fears and agitation, trying to soothe him as he understood where he was coming from. Yet, faced with the reality that he was soon to be married off, something he could not accept, shot himself to not face the cruel realities this world had to offer him at the time. This affected Hirschfeld on a deeper level that he decided to leave behind his medical practice and begin a crusade for justice for the queer community by specializing in sexual health.
Here, he started to learn more about how the medical field deemed homosexuality as a sign of mental illness. He contrasted this by stating that the individual may be born with these characteristics that did not fit into the established social binary code. He suggested that these individuals may as well be deemed to be a “third sex”. He even dabbled into the non binary spectrum as he believed that there were certain individuals who did not fit the code at all and were non gender conforming. Same goes for his definition for trans people who wished to be those of the opposite sex on the spectrum that they originally lied on. He believed that these aspects of people should not be deemed as an illness, but simply as their way of acting “in accordance with their nature.”
This is surprising to see how far ahead his way of thinking was in 1919 as in today’s standards, only now are we becoming more accepting of these various forms of gender identities. Today, transphobic and homophobic people even complain that this is all simply a fad that has arisen as of late, overtaking the younger generations’ mind and corrupting them. This is of course debunked by the amount of recorded documents of the queer community’s history existing for decades or even centuries ago. So once Hirschfeld saw the strong desire individuals had to be that of the opposite sex, he believed science should provide a means to transition. Thus he opened the Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft (the Institute for Sexual Research) where it would perform the first modern gender-affirmation surgeries in the world.
This institute was “full of life everywhere” as a journalist once stated when investigating the place. A place where it could “free the individual from physical ailments, psychological afflictions, and social deprivation.” Hirschfeld would also provide sex education, advice about contraception, and research on gender and sexuality for any who sought to learn more about it. This institute would be the home to a library of books on sexuality and rare diagrams and protocols for male to female surgical procedures. He would hire Ludwig Levy-Lenx, a gynecologist, to perform male to female surgeries with surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt. This institute would only be able to treat trans women at the time as female to male phalloplasty surgery would not be practiced until the late 1940s.
These groundbreaking studies were well documented, drawing international attention. However, this did not mean legal rights and recognition followed, leaving many trans women in the dirt for the fight of survival. This discrimination would carry on as Hitler started his reign over Germany, leading to the mass cleansing of Jews, Romas, Soviets, Polish, gays, and trans people.The Nazis would storm the institute and burn all the books documenting their history. Hirschfeld had hopes of rebuilding the institution, but died of a stroke while on the run. This led to the Nazi’s effectively destroying and erasing any trace of the world's first trans clinic.
The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic | Scientific American
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