A Look Back at the History of Transgender Healthcare
This piece begins a series in our blog discussing transgender healthcare and the importance of access to all, including the disability community.
Transgender individuals are people whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth. They have existed since time immemorial and are found in every culture across the globe. For various reasons, care for transgender people around the world is still developing in many key areas. This includes understanding the complex needs of disabled individuals in the trans community. Though this care and understanding must evolve to ensure better health outcomes for trans people, we can learn from the history of trans health care and reflect on these foundations for future work.
August is Transgender History Month. We will honor it by starting a series on the history of transgender healthcare and how that affects the disability community today. This series traces the history of transgender healthcare and its evolution over time. First, a look at the past will take us to Germany and the first sexual health clinic (called the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft or Institute of Sexology), run by Dr. Magnus Hirschfield, one of Berlin’s pioneers of the early LGBTQ+ rights movement.
Dr. Magnus Hirschfield was a young, gay, Jewish doctor in early 1900s Berlin. He specialized in sexual health. He believed in a “third sex,” outside of both heterosexual and binary categories. It was a natural sex, neither male nor female. He called people with this identity “sexual intermediaries.” He understood gender and sexuality exist on a spectrum between homosexuality and heterosexuality with people falling between either point. This was the first time that bisexual identity was recognized. He also coined the now-outdated term “transvestites.” It refers to those who wear clothes to be seen as the opposite sex. Hirschfield gave these individuals a space to “be a human being at least for a moment.” Hirschfield saw those outside the gender binary as natural; he did not see them as “other.” He believed in caring for them and giving them a safe place. This included their healthcare. He did what others deemed unspeakable. Even some today would balk at his practices.
In 1930, his Institute for Sexual Research performed the first modern gender-affirmation surgeries. The Institute for Sexual Research was a pioneering hub that combined research, teaching, and healing. Its goal was to “free the individual from ailments, afflictions, and deprivations” that society often put upon them. At the Institute, Hirschfield would provide education on sex and contraception. He would run health clinics and research gender and sexuality. He would also treat male-to-female gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapy. His work was seen as revolutionary.
Unfortunately, in 1933 the Nazis destroyed the institute and its work. They erased all evidence of the discoveries made by Hirschfeld and his staff, burning it all to the ground. Hirschfield fled to Paris. In 1935, he died of a stroke while still on the run. He never continued his work. The clinic’s work is mostly erased.
Looking back at his clinic’s work, one wonders what might transgender healthcare be today if the Nazis had not destroyed it? With his protocols for medical care, mental healing, and creating social change, what could have been? Stay tuned for the next in our series on transgender healthcare. It will explore the current state of transgender healthcare, including for those with disabilities.
Author: Devon Anderson