Scientific American
The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic
The Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin would be a century old if it hadn’t fallen victim to Nazi ideology
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Magnus Hirschfeld, right, and his protege and partner Li Shiu Tong, left, at the Fourth Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform, 1932. Credit: Wellcome Images
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The first gender affirmation surgeries took place in 1920s, at a facility which employed transgender technicians and nurses, and which was headed by a gay Jewish man. The forgotten history of the institute, and its fall to Nazis bent on the euthanasia of homosexuals and transgender people, offers us both hope—and a cautionary tale—in the face of oppressive anti-trans legislation in the United States.