Magnus Herscfeld was a gay jewish sex researcher who worked out of Berlin until fleeing to France where he died in 1942.

In Berlin he oversaw Institute of Sex Research. There, people who would be know as trans* today received gender affirming social and medical care, including the first modern gender reassignment surgery.

Hirschfeld was deeply curious about the sexual and inner lives of all sorts of people. He traveled widely and saw no reason to restrict his inquiry to wealthy people, nor did he have the kind of attitude problem you;d expect of an educated person of that time. In fact he had relationships with some major trade unions in order that working class people could find their way to him. This breadth of human experience led to what would be his last book Racism, published posthumously. In it, he utilized his extensive knowledge of sex (and therefor, reproduction, familial relationships, genetics etc) to inform a scientific argument against "race" having a biological basis, but instead being an invention of humans minds, and one we'd be better off without. This of course in a time when overt eugenics was not yet a discredited scientific concept.

Over 100 years ago Hirschfeld had a nuanced understanding of sex, gender, presentation, and relationship dynamics. He concluded based on his research that the wide variety of desires and behaviours in humans were natural and mostly healthy, contributions to the richness of humanity rather than deviations which should be eradicated. He fought to change laws criminalizing LGBTQ behaviour. And he was absolutely convinced that you can always tell a lesbian because among women, only lesbians can whistle.

questions

So, while no one is right 100% of the time, he does seem to have made important contributions. Yet in my (non academic) readings on the subject of sex/gender history he often goes un noted, or there is a short bit of information. It seems that his writings were only translated into English after many decades, many never at all. (Not to be an anglo chauvinist or anything, but it's unusual.) What have been translated are prohibitively expensive, if you can locate copies.

• Why in a century, has so much of his writing avoided english translation?
• Why is he so obscure?

Through the gay grapevine I have heard a rumour that amounts to "Hirschfeld was a protege of Freud but then he did something Freud didn't like so he blackballed Hirschfeld, which prevented translations among other things, and it was so effective it basically continues to this day.

• did Sigmund Freud set out to sabotage him because of some disagreement? and if so, why?

It seems he had some sort of relationship with Harry Benjamin, whose name is everywhere in the history of transsexual/transgender care since WW2, having stumbled somewhat by accident (as I understand it) into being the foremost expert for decades. I have seen it described as "they met once or twice" or as "Hirschfeld mentored Benjamin." What is the reality? From my reading, Benjamin was significantly less insightful and more conservative than Hirschfeld and if you imagine what couldvebeen.... a lot of pain and suffering might have been avoided if we had Hirschfeld Standards of Care.

• what influence did Hirschfeld have on Harry Benjamin and his later work?
• do we know what care protocols Hirschfeld and his Institute colleagues would have advocated? (I have read Homosexuality in Men and Women but not yet Transvestites)

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