Magnus Hirschfeld

This week I read a biography of Magnus Hirschfeld, the head of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, a research center and clinic for the study and treatment of sex-related conditions. Among many other endeavors, Hirschfeld campaigned for the repeal of paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which outlawed homosexuality. The Institute existed from 1919 until 1933, when it was ransacked and shut down by the Nazis, with much of its library burned on the Opernplatz in May 1933.

I have been thinking of Hirschfeld because I have been looking forward to reading Judith Butler’s new book, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, which outlines the links between anti-trans ideology and fascism. A certain children’s author and anti-trans activist also recently crossed over into Holocaust denial, neatly demonstrating the link Butler describes.

I realized that although I had heard of Hirschfeld, I was not all that familiar with his work or that of the Institute. Hirschfeld was a successful doctor who built up a practice during the later years of Imperial Germany, originally interested in naturopathy but increasingly drawn to medical and social approaches to homosexuality. Early in his practice, he had a patient who committed suicide the night before his wedding, revealing in the suicide note—which was addressed to Hirschfeld—that he was homosexual. After that, Hirschfeld started organizing with other doctors to take a more humane approach to such patients and also use their influence to attempt decriminalization. Along with several colleagues, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (SHC) in 1897, an early gay rights organization.

The date is striking to me, because Oscar Wilde was still serving his prison sentence at the time over in the UK. It’s notable that one of Hirschfeld’s successors, who tried to carry on his work after the destruction of the Institute, felt he had to drop the entire subject of homosexuality in order to work in England.

Hirschfeld was homosexual himself, which is why his tormented patient made such an impression. Details of Hirschfeld’s private life were not widely known. Even close friends of his did not realize that he had a relationship with the Institute’s archivist, Karl Giese. His respectability was a factor in his work and political influence, so he did not advertise his own identity. He may have actively suppressed his homosexual leanings for much of his life, because he felt he had to be objective as a scientist. Not that his circumspection helped him much with his Nazi critics. They lambasted him in their propaganda organs as “The Apostle of Sodomy” anyway. Since Hirschfeld was Jewish, he also endured endless antisemitic attacks.

Hirschfeld also worked for the decriminalization of cross-dressing and often defended transvestites who were arrested for public disorder. People in this group could apply for a kind of license to cross-dress from their local court, with an affidavit from a doctor, and Hirschfeld wrote many, many of these doctor’s notes. Indeed, Hirschfeld is credited with first coining the term “transvestite,” which he used as an umbrella term both for cross-dressing and for what we would now call transgender identity.

Because the Institute was destroyed and most of its contents burned, we have lost most of the case histories and testimonies of these vulnerable early crusaders for LGBT rights. The few examples that survive—mostly in police files—show how brave these people were. And how we have had to learn over and over the lessons they tried to teach. When you read an account of a transvestite arrested by the Gestapo for cross-dressing, who argues their case and presents their Weimar-era permit, signed by Hirschfeld, it’s an indicator of how intrinsic that identity is. Hirschfeld was giving them permission to be who they were at their very core. They attempted to affirm that identity even to the most hostile audience imaginable.

Hirschfeld reasoned that since homosexuality and transvestism occurred naturally and seemed inborn and almost impossible to eradicate, doctors should instead try to help patients feel normal and build up their self-esteem. He encouraged introducing patients to like-minded people, and organized some of the earliest support groups in medicine.

It is painful to think of how much was lost, and how much earlier gay rights could have flourished, if the Nazi counter-revolution against the Weimar republic hadn’t swept away everything in its path. The destruction of the Institute became something of a footnote to the wider path of razed earth, but it’s useful to keep in mind that Hirschfeld was one of the primary targets of the Nazis’ wrath. He was someone who knew exactly what the Nazis would do when they came to power, what they were capable of even before they got their hands on the Chancellery. He knew it was impossible for him to return to Germany after his last lecture tour, and died in exile, aware that his life’s work was scattering to the winds. It feels like the smallest of tributes to him to try to be as clear-sighted about the goals and targets of the fascist movement of our own era.