Trans & gender-nonconforming life in Weimar Germany:
>Berlin in the 1920s was famous for its relative openness to queer life.
>Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science, 1919–1933) was the center.
>Hirschfeld coined the term transvestite in 1910 and treated cross-dressing as a medical/psychological identity, not a crime.
>The Institute issued special “transvestite passes” so people could legally dress according to their gender identity without being arrested for public disturbance.
>Some of the world’s first gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments were carried out there.
>Dora Richter (or Dorchen Richter, ca. 1891–1933) is often considered the first known trans woman to undergo complete male-to-female surgery (orchiectomy + vaginoplasty).
>Lili Elbe (1882–1931), the Danish artist made famous by The Danish Girl, underwent a series of surgeries in Dresden starting in 1930, though she tragically died after complications.
>Berlin also had trans social clubs, performance spaces, and publications — many of which were suppressed after 1933.
What changed under the Nazis:
>The Institute for Sexual Science was raided and destroyed in May 1933. Its library, medical files, and research on sexuality and gender identity were burned in one of the infamous Nazi book burnings. This wiped out decades of pioneering trans-related science.
>Those “transvestite passes” were invalidated. People who had lived openly in Berlin suddenly became targets of police surveillance again.
>Trans women like Dora Richter disappear from the historical record around 1933 — scholars believe she may have been murdered during or shortly after the Institute raid.
>People who had benefited from medical support (hormones, surgeries, counseling) were left without care. Many tried to survive underground, but arrests for cross-dressing or for homosexuality were common.
The difference in treatment
>In Weimar: trans people had early recognition, even medical and legal accommodations.
>Under Hitler: that recognition was obliterated. Trans people weren’t given their own category of persecution the way gay men were, but they were left vulnerable, stripped of protections, and often punished under “asocial,” “degenerate,” or homosexual statutes.
The Weimar period produced people like Lili Elbe and Dora Richter, who were visible, recognized, and medically supported in ways that wouldn’t be seen again until decades later. The Nazis didn’t just repress them; they deliberately erased that entire scientific and cultural foundation.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
