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Author Brandy Scillace recounts Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute and pioneering transgender patient Dora Richter
Summary
Brandy Scillace described the Institute for Sexual Science founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, its services for sexual- and gender-diverse people, the trail of community and science it fostered, and the life of Dora Richter, a patient and later staff member who lived publicly as a woman.
At a Missoula Public Library talk, author and historian Brandy Scillace recounted the work of Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science in early 20th-century Germany and told the life story of Dora Richter, one of the institute’s best-documented patients.
Scillace described the institute, opened in 1918 in Berlin, as a hub of counseling, medical treatment, community education and social support. She said the institute offered counseling, job help, educational courses, a movie room, community dining and balls, and that it performed early forms of gender-affirming surgery and hormone treatment. Scillace said the institute’s approach combined medical treatment with community building and public education.
Scillace traced scientific precursors—work on hormones and early genetics—and showed how different scientific developments led to divergent political trajectories: one strand that she said supported acceptance and diversity, and another that fed eugenics and nationalist backlash. She said Hirschfeld viewed sex and gender variation as natural diversity and strove to use scientific research to reduce persecution.
Scillace told the personal story of Dora Richter, whom she described as born Rudolph Richter in a small village and who began living as a woman from an early age. According to Scillace, Richter attempted self-harm as a teenager, later lived a double life in several towns and ultimately traveled to Berlin, where Hirschfeld’s team interviewed and took her in. Scillace said Richter worked at the institute, supported other patients and underwent transition-related treatment; she described Richter as a central, stabilizing presence for other patients.
Scillace also recounted the attacks on Hirschfeld’s work: antisemitic and masculinist critiques, the loss of institutional support, and the notorious 1933 ransacking and book burnings that destroyed much of the institute’s collection. She gave specific figures for material losses, saying the institute’s holdings included about 20,000 books and 35,000 pamphlets and photographs, many of which were destroyed or looted.
Scillace closed by reclaiming Hirschfeld’s legacy and urging contemporary listeners to treat community and joy as forms of resistance. At one point she said, “Joy is a weapon,” a line she used to stress that public, authentic lives and community networks were central to Hirschfeld’s strategy for social change.
