Amandus Balitzki (1890 - ?) postal clerk

Balitzki was born in the then German city of Stettin, the illegitimate, later legitimate, child of a railway man and a nurse. Although raised as a girl, Balitzki had no interest in dolls or cooking, and when playing family with other girls was usually given the role of ‘father’. Comments by others re a lack of femininity were defiantly taken as a complement. At the age of 17 Balitzki was supposed to learn bookkeeping, but not liking arithmetic, gave up this occupation after half a year, then learnt floristry at the age of 19, in the belief that there was more ‘manly work’ to be done. 

With the outbreak of war in August 1914, Balitzki obtained a Transvestitenschein and was able to work as a postal clerk. From 1917 Balitzki was a patient of Magnus Hirschfeld, who presented Balitzki in his Sexualpathologie, 1918 as an example of a ‘hermaphroditic preliminary stage’ and showed the patient in a series of specially produced photographs. 

In October 1919 the Berlin Chief of Police permitted a change of first name from Amanda to Amandus, and the birth certificate was amended accordingly. This was based on an expert opinion by Hirschfeld and Arthur Kronfeld, psychiatrist and co-founder of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, that although born female, the ambiguity of the adult's sexual characteristics now justified assigning him to the male sex. 

However Balitzki’s mother, not only a nurse, but a midwife whose profession required the sexing of babies, did not agree. She applied for a further medical examination of her ‘daughter’ in February 1921. Amandus was then examined by the district physician Dr Schreber, who alleged fraudulent intentions, as ‘the applicant was undoubtedly of the female sex and she had led the doctors to a false opinion by providing incorrect information’. The following April, Balitzki’s authorization to use the name ‘Amendus’ was withdrawn, and his Transvestitenshein was revoked. 

Walther Niemann, a lawyer with close ties to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK), had campaigned for name changes for several trans persons. In November 1921 he applied again for Balitzki to be allowed to be Amandus: “correction of the birth certificate [...] to the effect that a child was not born of the female sex, but of the male sex”. Niemann enclosed with his application a copy of the cited decree of the Minister of Justice on the change of first name as well as a new expert opinion by Hirschfeld who attested - without mentioning Schreber's expert opinion - that Balitzki had ‘a certain discrepancy in the physical and mental sexual characteristics’, whereby Amandus ‘was to be attributed to the male sex for predominant reasons’. It was therefore ‘medically justified and better suited to the facts to correct his sex designation in the civil register to that of the male sex’. Niemann also referred to an analogous case, namely Berthold Buttgereit, in which ‘the correction order had been issued in the same situation’. 

Niemann followed this up in January 1922 enclosing a ‘certificate of recognition’ dated 1 December 1921, in which Amandus Balitzki declared that he was ‘the father of the illegitimate child born to the seamstress Erna Blumenthal on 24 May 1921’. As such Balitzki was obliged by law to provide the child with the support ‘corresponding to the mother's position in life’. However this was too much, and the authorities did not buy it. The manoeuvre was too transparent. Balitzki was threatened with being charged with Falschbeurkundung, (false certification). In May the Ministry of Justice stated that there was no reason to grant the ‘authorisation to use the first name Amandus’ and that the ‘applicant’ should continue to use the female first name. However the letter was returned with the note ‘moved on 29 April 1922 [...] unknown’. Amandus was not accepting the result.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. „Hermaphroditismus“. Sexualpathologie Volume 2: Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, A Marcus & E Webers Verlag, 1918: 21-3.
• Magnus Hirschfeld. Geschlechtskunde, Volume 4, Bilderteil. Julius Puttman, 1930: 471.
• Rainer Herrn. Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2022.

-------------- 

There seems to be no record of what happened to Amandus after1922. There is a short mention in Hirschfeld’s Geschlechtskunde, but no futher details. Herrn found the applications and replies in the official records, but again nothing after 1922. Did Amandus leave Berlin? Did he survive the Third Reich? Did he and Frau Blumenthal raise the child together?

Dorchen Richter/Dora Richterov (1892 - 1966) waiter, cook, maid.

Original July 2008.  Revised to include information from Rainer Herrn, Raimund Wolfert - and Clara at Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek in particular for her discovery of Dora's documents in the Czech archives.

- - - - - - - - - -

Rudolph Richter, the second of six children of a musician-farmer and his lace-maker wife, was born and raised  in Seifen (now Ryžovna in Czechia) (map), a village of some 600 persons in Bohemia close to the German border, which was then part of Austria-Hungary.  Germans referred to the high-altitude region on both sides of the border as Erzgebirge.

Dora, as she would become, once attempted to tourniquet her penis. She expressed a strong dislike of male clothing, and was permitted to live as female. She showed a preference for girls' clothes, girls' games and girls' company, as well as a deep aversion to everything rough, coarse and crude that was considered typical of boys. Her favourite occupations were typically feminine tasks such as cooking, cleaning and other household chores. Richter was brought up as and remained a Catholic.

After an apprenticeship as a baker, Richter moved to a city- probably the nearby Bohemian spa town of Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) in 1909, and was able to dress as female in his spare time.  Later he was in a travelling theatre and moved to Leipzig in Germany and worked checking tickets in a cinema, and then in a chocolate factory.  Then she was able to find work as a woman – as a waitress.  She was successful in sexual contacts with men who in some cases did not realise her non-standard anatomy.

Called for military service, Rudolph was twice suspended because of his "feminism" – wearing female clothing.  By 1916 as the war dragged on, the authorities became more desperate and standards were lowered. Richter he was now "found fit" "after some reservations" and was then drafted after all. But only two weeks later he was discharged “home” because of a severe fainting spell, and returned to Leipzig.

After the war, Richter returned to Seifen in the newly independent Czechoslovakia.  A friend, who hoped that Dora could also be "helped by an operation", told her of the 1922 Steinach film, a popular version of the scientific film Steinachs-Forscbungen. The film briefly featured images of trans women and mentioned the possibility of a change of sex and named the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, at In den Zelten 9A-10 in the Tiergarten area of Berlin. She registered there and in May 1923 was assessed at the Institut, where surgeon Heinrich Stabel suggested that she could be castrated [orchidectomy] by year’s end.  This was done.  Stabel was of the opinion that he always succeeded in:

“dissuading the patients concerned from their urgent desire for penile amputation, by insistent and serious references to the dangerous possible consequences. So far it has always turned out that after castration the patients always felt such a great relief and liberation of their condition that in time the desire for amputation of the penis disappeared completely”. 

He reported to Werner Holz that this was the situation with Dora also – although her life would be otherwise.

Having no other source of income, she worked as a maid at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  Magnus Hirschfeld gave her the affectionate name of Dorchen, and arranged for her to gain a Transvestitenschein.

Werner Holz, at the time an assistant physician at the Oberlin district hospital in Nowawes near Potsdam,  had come to the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft  to write what is probably the first dissertation on a trans topic.  It is mainly an individual case study and biography of one person, Dorchen, whom he refers to as “Rudolph R”.  His primary focus is on her desire for castration, and it is also the first major work to use Hirschfeld’s terms “extreme” and “total” transvestites.  Holz uses male pronouns for Dorchen throughout.

“From that moment [when as a child he became aware of the difference between male and female sexual organs] he had acquired a direct hatred of his genitals until the present day. [...] Since then, all his thoughts and efforts had been directed towards freeing himself from those genitals he hated so much, which did not at all want to fit his mental constitution. At the age of 13, he had once made warts disappear by cutting them off with a thread. He therefore had the idea of freeing himself from his genitals in the same way by tying them off with a strong thread. Since this intention failed, he is said to have been quite depressed and then several times seriously thought of cutting off his genitals with a razor. Only the fear of bleeding to death is said to have prevented him at the last moment from cutting off his genitals. Even today he would give anything if he could be freed from his genitals by an operation. He had also come to Berlin for this purpose.” (Holz 1924, p 8)

"In our patient, the mental feminism is so pronounced that in conversation with him, one completely forgets that he is a man.” (Holz p 27)

Dorchen working as a waitress 

In April 1925 Richter applied to the Czechoslovakian consulate in Berlin for two passports, one as Dora for her stay in Germany, and a second in her male name for visits home to the family.  A copy of the Institut's report, describing her as intersex and that she had a Transvestitenschein,was attached.  The request was passed to the Ministry of the Interior in Prague.  They took six months to reply, and then declined the request in that Dora had not changed her legal name,

Hirschfeld had initially been opposed to surgical changes, but the castrations for Dorchen and others had gone well – in particular threats of suicide had declined. 

"In the beginning I was strongly opposed to these methods, which I judged to be very dangerous to health and, on the other hand, considered unnecessary" (Hirschfeld, 1933:6)

However Werner Holz, Felix Abraham and Heinrich Stabel gave positive reports and Hirschfeld changed his mind.

“But the more I got to know of these individuals, the more I realised that some of them were ready to commit suicide in the event that their desires for the transformation of their sexual identities were not satisfied. So I told myself that in view of this I must give up my hesitation.” (ibid.).

Arthur Kronfeld, psychoanalyst, co-founder of the Institut, left in 1926.   He was the major advocate of ‘curing’ queer people through psychoanalysis.  Such conversion therapy ceased with his departure.

In 1926 the Hamburg doctor, Otto Kankeleit, gave a paper on self-damage and self mutilation at the Internationalen Kongress für Sexualforschung, which was then organised by Albert Moll.  Kankeleit included photographs, and reported on ‘transvestites’ including cases which he had learned about at Hirschfeld’s Institut.  One of these was Dorchen referred to as “Rudolf Ri”. 

“His sexual attitude was passive female to the point of bondage. He turned to Dr Magnus-Hirschfeld to have his testicles removed, as otherwise he would have to do it himself.”

In January 1928, Toni Ebel’s wife Olga died, and Toni met Charlotte Charlaque.  They both came to the Institut, were employed and given room and board and 24 Reichsmarks a month.  They met Dorchen and the three became friends.

In spring 1930, the nascent Lili Elbe (actually Lili Elvenes) was sent by her doctor, Kurt Warnekros, to Magnus Hirschfeld for a second opinion.  In the waiting room, Elevenes encountered trans women, and it is highly likely that they included  Toni Ebel and Dörchen - Charlotte Charlaque was working as the receptionist.  All three had had a first operation by this date. Lili did not relate to them: “The manner in which they were conversing disgusted him; their movements, their voices, the way in which they were attired, produced a feeling of nausea.”  In addition, Ellen Bækgaard, a Danish dentist who stayed at the Institut, said later that Elbe expressed discomfort at being classed with Dorchen Richter.

Dochen, Magnus and one other

In 1931 at the latest, Dora Richter moved to the Kempinski restaurant at Kurfürstendamm 27 as a kitchen maid.  This was the year that her father died,

Dorchen was offered vaginoplasty that year, and so was one of the first persons to have a sex-change completion. The surgeons were Hirschfeld’s colleagues, Ludwig Levy-Lenz  who did the penectomy and Erwin Gohrbandt, the director of the Urbank Hospital in Berlin-Kreuzberg who did a vaginoplasty a few months later.  Felix Abraham wrote up two cases as "Genitalumwandlung an zwei männlichen Transvestiten" in the Zeitschriflfiir Sexualwissenschaft in 1931, naming the two cases as "Rudolph (Dora) R." and "Arno (Toni) E.".

Pierre Najac, a young French doctor who had spent an internship year at the Berlin Institute for Sexual Science, also wrote a report on Dorchen and Toni Ebel, which was published in 1931.

An anonymous article "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen" („Operative transformation of men into women successful") appeared in the medical journal, Die Geburtenregelung in 1933 and discussed the operations on Dorchen, Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque.

Toni, Charlotte & Dorchen in Mysterium des Geschlechts

Lothar Golte put together a film in Austria released in 1933, Mysterium des Geschlechts, with input from Felix Abraham & Serge Voronoff.   The story features two medical students who learn about "most interesting questions of sexology" and fall in love in the process. Documentary sequences show sex reassignment surgery and transplants of animal testicles and explanations about abortion and contraception.  Included are scenes filmed in the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft  featuring Dora Richter, Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque – both nude and clothed. A voice-over proclaims: "We see three people here who, according to their clothes, appear to be women. In fact, however, these are three men who, as a result of their mental attitude, have possessed feminine tendencies since birth and have surgically become women through their desire."

In April 1933 the film was shown in Vienna cinemas for two weeks before it was banned. In Germany, it was not even shown in public, as it was banned by the censors.

Also that year, Magnus Hirschfeld, in exile in Paris, commented to Voila magazine:

“Dorchen, as ex-Rudolf now called himself, feels completely like a woman. He is very happy and works in a woman's profession, having modified his marital status. Dorchen shows no symptoms of mental disturbance, she is hard-working and intelligent.”(p6)

Norman Haire, the London sexologist and associate of Magnus Hirschfeld wrote an introduction to the 1933 English version of the Lili Elbe autobiography.  Therein he wrote:

“In Berlin in 1923, I saw, at the clinic of a colleague, an individual who was apparently male, but who felt himself to be a female just as Andreas did. This patient, too, had his male organs removed at his own request, and was given injections of ovarian extract. No operation was ever undertaken to determine whether ovaries were present in his body or not. I saw him—or her—again in 1926, after the removal of the male organs, and quite recently I received a report about the case. The individual is very unhappy, and has not succeeded in becoming completely a woman.”

Not the nicest comment, but some have taken this as a reference to Dorchen.  (See the note p 59 of Caughie and Meyer).

6 May 1933 the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organised attack on the Institut, followed by the Sturmabteilung (SA).  They destroyed many of the books and put an end to the Institut.

When Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque fled Germany, they chose Karlsbad in Czechoslovakia, partly because it was a hub of German speaking emigrants, but also because they thought that was where Dorchen was from.  Charlotte, writing in 1955, said of Dorchen:

"Because she is an excellent cook, she soon took over a small restaurant in the town of her birth” - meaning Karlsbad.

In February 1934, Richter applied for a legal name change “Due to congenital intersexuality – established at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft  Berlin”, which was granted by the office of the president of Czechoslovakia in April 1934. At this time, her address was still listed in Berlin. From then on, her legal name was Dora Rudolfine Richter (in the Czech form: Dora Rudolfa Richterová).  The approval letter asks the parish office to correct the baptismal entry – although that was not done at that time.  Also corrected at this time was Dora's Heimatschein, the Czechoslovak homeland certificate that gives the right to reside in Czechoslovakia, to vote and, if necessary, to social welfare.  The Heimatschein described Dora as a domestic servant and as unmarried.

 Charlotte, writing in 1955, said of Dorchen:

"Because she is an excellent cook, she soon took over a small restaurant in the town of her birth” - meaning Karlsbad.

Dora's mother died in 1938.  

By 1939 Dorchen was living in Seifen as documented in the German census of that year (which included Austria and the Sudetanland) but not in her parents’ house  No 12.   She is at No 61, previously the home of a master baker - presumably the baker who had trained her in the 1910s.  She earned a living as a lace maker working at home.  

The correction in the Seifen/Ryžovna records had not been done, but was finally recorded in January 1946 – perhaps Dorchen herself produced the approval letter from Prague.  There was an urgency for the Germans in Bohemia, the Sudeten Germans, to have their papers in order. 

With the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans (whose location had been used as an excuse for the German annexation of Czechoslavakia in 1938), Dorchen moved to Allersberg, Bavaria in May 1946, where she lived until her death at the age of 74 on 26 April 1966.  Her final years were spent in a seniors' care facility.

-----------------------------------

Dorchen was played by Tima die Goettliche in Rosa Von Praunheim’s movie about Hirschfeld, The Einstein of Sex, 1999, IMDB.

Several sources claim that Dorchen was medically castrated in 1922 by Dr Erwin Gohrbandt at the Charité Universitätsmedizin in Berlin.   This is not the account in Holz, 1924 – the earliest account, which gives the surgeon as Heinrich Stabel.

Herrn says: “After Dorchen had been at the institute for assessment since May 1923, waiting for the doctors' decision, Heinrich Stabel held out the prospect of castration to her at the end of the year.” (p182). However Pierre Najac provided an exact date eight years later. According to this, the operation took place on 22 May 1923 (p184).

Richter was drafted, apparently, by the German army, although technically at that time he was an Austrian citizen. After 1918 Richter would of course be a Czechoslovak.  The EN.Wikipedia article simply declares Richter to have been German.

How did Dorchen get to Hirschfeld’s Institut?  I have gone with the version in Holz, 1924 based on interviews with Dorchen.  There is an alternate account:

She worked as a waiter or a cook in the fancy hotels in Berlin in the summer, and lived as a woman in the off-season. The police arrested her several times for cross-dressing, and she was sent to a male prison. Eventually a judge took pity on her and referred her to Magnus Hirschfeld who helped her obtain an official permit to dress in women’s clothes.

These two accounts are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  This other account was included in older versions of the EN.Wikipedia article and other secondary sources.  What is missing is a provenance, who first said or wrote that.  So I have not used that version in the account above.

It is not conceivable that Dorchen having returned to Seifen – a small village - at the end of the Great War could have seen the Steinach film there.   It must have been on a trip to Berlin.

Should ‘Dorchen’ be spelt with an umlaut: ‘Dörchen’?  EN.Wikipedia does so; DE.Wikipedia does not.  Neither does Herrn nor Wolfert, so I have not done so.

Bibliography

• Curt Thomella, Leopold Niernberger, Nicholas Kaufmann (dir). Steinachs-Forscbungen.  Germany BW silent 83 mins 1922.
• Werner Holz. Kasuistischer Beitrag zum sogenannten Transvestitismus (erotischen Verkleidungstrieb) mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Aetiologie dieser Erscheinung.  Diss. Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität zu Berlin, 1924.
• Otto Kankeleit. „Selbstbesch~idigungen und Selbstverstiimmelungen der Geschlechtsorgane“. Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, 79, 1927: 431-2
• Felix Abraham. “Genitalumwandlungen an zwei männlichen Transvestiten”. Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 18: 223-226. 1931. English translation as “Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites”. The International Journal of Trangenderism. 2, 1. Jan-Mar 1998. Case 1.   Archive.
• Pierre Najac. “L’Institut de la Science Sexuelle à Berlin” in Janine Merlet (ed). Vénus et Mercure, Editions de la Vie Modern, 1931 : 165-192.
• Felix Abraham, translated by Pierre Vachet. Les Perversions Sexuelles, d’apres les travaux de Magnus Hirschfeld. Paris: François Aldor, 1931:245-7.
• Lothar Golte (dir).  Mysterium des Geschlechtes.  Scr: Felix Abraham, Lothar Golte, Professor Peham, Hofrat Teilhaber & Serge Voronoff, with Charlotte Charlaque, Toni Ebel and Dorchen Richer (all three uncredited). Austria 63 mins BW 1933.  
• Magnus Hirschfeld. 'L'amour et la science'. Voila, 3, 199, 1 Juli 1933: 6.
• "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen" Die Geburtenregelung, 1, 4, 1933:33
• Norman Haire.“Introduction“ to Neils Hoyer (ed).  Man Into Woman. Jarrolds, 1933.
• Pierre Vachet. Psychologie du Vice : Les Travestis. Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1934: 216-9,
• Charlotte Charlaque writing as Carlotta, Baronin von Curtius. "Reflections on the Christine Jorgensen Case". One, the Homosexual Magazine, March 1955: 27-8.
• Rosa Von Praunheim (dir & scr). Der Einstein des Sex - Leben und Werk des Dr. M. Hirschfeld (The Einstein of Sex: Life and Work of Dr. M. Hirschfeld). Scr: Chris Kraus, Valentin Passoni, Friedl von Wangenheim, with Tima die Goettliche as Dörchen. Germany/Netherland 100 mins 1999.  IMDB 
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press. 363 pp 2002: 19-20, 292n13.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen, 2005: 96, 176-7, 181-3, 201-4, 217.
• Elena Mancini. Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom. A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010: 69-70.
• Heika Bauer. The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture. Temple University Press, 2017: 86-7.
• Pamela L Caughie & Sabine Meyer.  Lili Elbe : Man into Woman: A Comparative Scholarly Edition.  Bloomsbury Acdemic, 2020: 59, 80.
• Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“. Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 37-9, 42-8, 52-3, 56-8, 59, 63-7, 72-3, 76-7.
• Leah Tigers. “On the Clinics and Bars of Weimar Berlin”.  Tricky Mother Nature.  Nd.  Online.
• Clara. "A Puzzle Piece for the Trans* History".  Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek, 25. April 2023. Online. 
• Oliver Noffke. “Was wurde aus Dora?“.  rbb24-de, 01.06.23.  Online
• Oliver Noffke. "Pioneer of trans* history Dora went to Bohemia". rbb24-de, 02.04.24.  Online.  
• Clara. "Neue Dokumente zu Dora Richter gefunden – und ihr späteres Leben aufgeklärt".  Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek, 30 August 2024.  Online. 

  Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (1919-1933)        EN.Wikipedia     DE.Wikipedia

-------------

 

Jenny O. Hushler (1862 - 1953) embroiderer, book seller.

(this article was previously of Jenny O.   However the discovery of her obituary gave us her surname.  Originally post 4/2/2015)

Hushler was born in Vorarlberg, Austria. Hushlet's father, a gamekeeper and horn player, died when Hushler was 5, of consumption, and his mother 1½ years later. Hushler was still wearing a dress after his brother, two years younger, had switched to trousers. The aunts who took in the orphan did not permit him girls' clothing except at Shrovetide (Mardi Gras).

After a few years in an orphanage of the Sisters of Mercy, Hushler stole some clothes from a girl of the same size and took her certificate of domicile and ran off to Switzerland, where she found work as a nanny, and taught herself embroidery. When she was 16, a man tried to force himself on her and denounced her as a 'hermaphrodite'.

Hushler moved to France and found work as an embroiderer. She also worked for a while as a man after a friend's boyfriend threatened to report her to the police. In 1882 Hushler emigrated to New York, and again worked as an embroiderer. A co-worker forced himself on her, and discovering her body, used threats of calling the police to make her an involuntary sex partner. One day when he was away Hushler dressed as a man and fled to Milwaukee and worked in a timber-yard and as a cook.

In 1885 Hushler arrived in San Francisco, where cross-dressing had been a crime since 1863. As a man Hushler became an itinerant bookseller using the name John, invested in property and began traveling for German newspapers. Indoors Hushler, as a woman, helped with children, and provided accommodation for dance-hall women.

In 1905 Hushler  wrote to the new German magazine Mutterschutz (Mother Protection) enclosing an article re feminine boys and men:

"If he is raised as a girl, then he will lose all doubt and will be more stable in his girlishness, so that he will then never will ever want to become a man; if he forced to behave as a boy, then he will feel destroyed and will yearn for the time when he can make a living as maid or something like that".

Despite that Mutterschutz advocated the equality of illegitimate children, legalization of abortion, and sexual education, it was not ready for this, and did not reply. Hushler then wrote to Magnus Hirschfeld enclosing the rejected article. They corresponded.  Jenny is Case 13 in the 1910 Die Transvestiten.  She provided photographs for the 1912 supplement to Die Transvestiten.

++ In 1922 Jenny moved to Mississippi, to the village of Waynesboro, population 700, 30% white.   She was quite accepted, her gender unquestioned, regarded as a spinster recluse.   She died there 31 years later at the age of 91, and only in preparation for burial was her gender history revealed.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. Die Transvestiten; ein Untersuchung uber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb: mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Material. Berlin: Pulvermacher, 1910. English translation by Michael A Lombardi-Nash. Tranvestites: The Erotic urge to Crossdress. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.  1991: s. 1991: Case 13: 83-93.
• Magnus Hirschfeld & Max Tilke. Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb (Die Transvestiten). Illustrierter Teil. A. Pulvermacher, 1912: plate XXII.
• "Lived as Woman; Buried as One".  Humboldt Standard, March 23, 1953. 
• Clare Sears. Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Duke University Press, 2014: 74, 76, 78-80.

lili-elbe.de   

Thanks to researcher Kyle Phalen for finding the obituary.

_________________________________________________________________________________

If born a century later Jenny would, quite likely, have been an early transitioner. She did as much as she did without estrogens, and probably had no way to find out that there were cities others than San Francisco that did not have such anti-cross-dressing laws.

Emilie Kellner (1873 - ?) police officer and Hirschfeld patient

Kellner, born in Hanover, a husband and father, had been for many years a Berlin police officer (Kriminalschutzmann). Kellner had also been divorced on grounds of adultery. By 1912 Kellner was allowed to dress female while on duty:

"As a police officer, he loves to do investigations in his female persona. This was approved of and the use of female clothing outside of such investigative cases was excused by the fact that he should and wanted to acquire confidence in his behaviour as a woman. Afterwards they gave in to his being a woman, since there was no problems for the police”.

In that year Kellner approached Hirschfeld for an expert opinion so that she could acquire a Transvestitenschein. Hirschfeld and Ernst Burchard wrote a report citing a "case of hermaphroditism … in which the female component decidedly predominates by far". They requested a Transvestitenschein so that Kellner could wear women's clothes all the time, as well as a change of the first name from Emil to Emilie with a corresponding change in the civil register. The Berlin Polizeipräsident approved the Transvestitenschein eight weeks later on 21 October 1912, but rejected the application for the name change because Kellner "could only be recognised as a man based on the official medical report at the time".

By now Kellner had moved to Charlottenburg, a town soon to become a Berlin suburb, to the west of Hirschfeld’s Institut, where she encountered difficulties, especially with employment, because of the discrepancy between her dress and her first name. She was becoming destitute. Two ministry officials reported on this to the Prussian Minister of the Interior at the beginning of 1917. They described Kellner's situation as "quite ambivalent and desperate", an assessment also shared by Charlottenburg's mayor, who "warmly recommends" Kellner's name change. The ministry officials unsuccessfully tried to have Kellner’s first name transcribed in the church register of Kellner's birthplace in Hanover, and requested the Minister to grant the name change as an "exception”. However, the minister found that there was "no sufficient reason" and that a further medical expert opinion had to be obtained first. 

6 July 1917, the Ministry of the Interior commissioned another expert opinion from the Royal Medical College, which arrived on 4 October 1917. In contrast to the Hirschfeld-Burchard report, this emphasised Kellner’s male build and found no basis for evaluating her personality as other than male. The Ministry ruled that Kellner could not be recognised as a woman. Perhaps due to the chaos at the end of the War, the notice of rejection was not sent until July 1919.

• Magnus Hirschfeld & Ernst Burchard. “Zur Kasuistik des Verkleidungstriebs”. Ärztliche Sachverständigen-Zeitung, 18, 23, 1912: 477-9.
• Magnus Hirschfeld. “Ein Transvestit”. in Ludwig Levy-Lenz (ed). Sexualkatastrophen: Bilder aus dem modernen Geschlechts- und Eheleben.A H Payne, 1926: 6-18.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Psychosozial-Verlag, 2005: 91-2.

Toni Ebel (1881 – 1961) artist.

++Original January 2015; revised February 2022, to incorporate information about Charlotte Charlaque, and August 2022 to incorporate more information from Wolfert's book.

Hugo Otto Arno Ebel was raised in Berlin, the eldest of eleven children, of a merchant and his wife.  The child was noticed for being 'girlish' and for liking domestic work.  After secondary school, Arno completed apprenticeships first as a merchant and then as a decorator, but lacked aptitude in both cases.  At age 19 Ebel bought a wig and some female clothes.  However the parents discovered them, and they ended up in the fire.

A year or so later Ebel had an affair with a man.  This was taken to be homosexuality, and consequent arguments with father and brothers led to Ebel leaving home.  After some travel in Germany, Austria and Italy, Ebel worked, as a woman, in a women's dress shop while studying painting in Munich. She then travelled abroad with an older man, an American by birth, who kept her for a few years. Afterwards Ebel travelled alone through Italy, Spain, France and North Africa, but returned to Germany around 1908, and had reverted to being male  It is said that, as 'Arno Ehe', Ebel joined the circle of noted artist Käthe Kollwitz, and produced paintings that were noted.

Arno met Olga Boralewski (1873-1928).  They married in 1911 and had a son – however Arno was not comfortable in this role and attempted suicide several times, and once was admitted to a mental asylum. He was able to cross-dress only in private. Arno Ebel was drafted into the Army in 1916,  and at the 2nd Battle of Champagne (25 September - 6 November 1915), was ambushed and finally suffered a severe nervous breakdown, and thereupon was assigned to a reserve hospital before being discharged with a 30 per cent pension. 

After the war Ebel was recognised as "severely disabled" and obtained a position as a draughtsman in a Berlin electricity firm.   Ebel became involved with the workers' movement, painted and made a living as a commercial artist.  In 1925 Ebel joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). However Olga Ebel became seriously ill and bedridden, and Toni was left to care for her.  At home, Toni put on women's clothes, cooked the food, looked after the wife, cleaned the flat and did the laundry.

Olga died in January 1928. Ebel, despite another nervous breakdown, became Toni again. Trans woman Charlotte Charlaque introduced Toni to Magnus Hirschfeld, and Toni was assessed by Felix Abraham who had replaced Arthur Kronfeld as the transvestism specialist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft:

"The case of A. E., painter, born 10 November 1881 in Berlin. The patient was referred to me (at first he came in male clothes) because from his youth he has been inclined to wear female clothes; moreover, he felt completely female and consequently wanted to take a female name. The patient was 47 years old at the first consultation. He was outwardly very agitated, but this calmed down and almost disappeared when, at my request, he came to the next consultation in female clothing. He then confessed to me that he felt so uncomfortable in male clothing that the result was a physical and nervous agitation which gave way to absolute calm when he put on female clothing. His aversion to men's clothing is so great that he had only one suit, which, moreover, was in very poor condition." (1931, last page of Transvestitisme chapter)

Abraham wrote an expert opinion so that Toni was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein in spring 1928 so that she could be a woman in public.  Toni made a formal application for a legal name change - but it was not approved until 1929. The five surgeries by Drs Erwin Gohrbandt, Felix Abraham and Ludwig L. Lenz took only two years (compared to the seven years for Dörchen Richter) and were complete in 1931.  Felix Abraham wrote up an account of the operations on Dora and Toni for the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, where he referred to Toni as "Arno (Toni) E." .

From 1930-32 Toni lived in the basement and supplemented the domestic staff at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft as she was too poor to pay for treatment.  She was paid 24 Reichsmarks a month, plus room and board.

She did sell some paintings and donated others to the Institut.  Adelheid Schulz (1909-2008) then 19,  who had just become housekeeper at the Institute,  paid twelve Reichsmarks for a painting by Toni Ebel that reminded her of her mother - more than half her weekly wage. Hirschfeld and Ludwig Levy-Lenz also bought paintings from her. 

Surgeon Ludwig Levy-Lenz wrote of the trans maids at the Institut: 

"I will never forget the sight that met my eyes when I was once whisked away to the kitchen of the house after work: there the five 'girls' sat knitting and sewing peacefully next to each other and singing old folk songs together. Anyway, they were the best, most diligent and most conscientious household staff we have ever had. Never once did a stranger who visited us notice." 

The French doctor, Pierre Najac, who did an internship at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, wrote about Charlotte and Toni.   

Toni lived awhile at Wolliner Straße 47 in Berlin-Mitte. But because Charlotte Charlaque was called a Jew by the neighbours when she came to visit, Ebel moved in with her in Berlin-Schöneberg. The Swedish journalist Ragnar Ahlstedt visited them at their flat at Nollendorfstraße 24, and wrote about them in his Män som blivit kvinnor, 1933. They lived cheaply: Charlotte said that she was an actress and Toni was able to sell some paintings and drawings.  Ahlstedt incorrectly claimed that after the death of Lili Elbe "Frau Toni" and "Fräulein Lola" (Charlotte) were "the only operated transvestites in the whole of Europe" („die einzigen operierten Transvestiten in ganz Europa").

Toni and Charlotte had become lovers, although both spoke about men-friends when the topic came up.  In August 1932 Toni - using the pseudonym 'Wally E.' - was interviewed by a journalist L. Rhan for Das 12-Uhr-Blatt which was printed under the headline: "Conversation with a woman who was once a man".  There was also an anonymous article in  Die Geburtenregelung titled "Surgical transformation of men into women succeeded" ( "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen"), which discussed Dora, Toni and Charlotte.  

6 November 1932:  Federal election: the NSDAP (Nazi Party) won 196 seats out of 584 and became the largest party.

30 January 1933:  New Cabinet sworn in, with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.  Hermann Goering ordered the closure of the queer bars.

In Lothar Golte's 1933 Austrian film, Mysterium des Geschlechts, advertised as a "foray through the night life of sexual abnormals" two medical students, one male, one female, learn about "most interesting questions of sexology" and fall in love in the process. This is intercut with documentary sequences which show sex reassignment surgery and transplants of animal testicles and explanations about abortion and contraception. Toni, Charlotte and Dora Richter can be seen in the sex-change scenes which are presumably film archives from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  The premiere was in Vienna 27 April 1933, but due to massive protests it was removed by police intervention after only a few days. In Germany, it was not even shown in public, as it was banned by the censors.

A couple of  trans women were associating with Charlotte and Toni at their flat: Fritz, the nephew of a German-American writer, and Felicitas, who as Felix had worked as a police officer.   In the March 1933 elections, following the Reischstag fire, Toni voted for the Communist Party (KPD), but the NSDAP (Nazi) got the most seats and that was the last multi-party election until 1945.  

10 May: The library and archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz.  Between 12,000 to 20,000 books and journals, and an even larger number of images and sex objects, were destroyed.  This included paintings by Toni Ebel. 

Toni had converted to Charlotte's Jewish faith.   Toni was warned that they were under surveillance, and in 1934, with the help of the Berlin Jewish community, Toni and Charlotte fled to Czechoslovakia.  They settled in Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary where Toni painted pictures for spa guests and Charlotte gave English and French lessons. Toni still received her war pension from the Reichsversicherungsanstalt and life in Czechoslovakia was comparatively cheap, they were able to live in relative peace for a while.

Late Summer 1934 they moved to Prague where they made contact with the "Emigrants Committee" of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but the city was swarming with German emigrants and they returned to Karlovy Vary.   In November 1936  they moved on to Brünn/Brno.  Toni was  using the professional name of Antonia Ebelová.    There, they were in contact with Karl Giese, Hirschfeld’s lover and archivist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft,  who had fled to Brno after being expelled from France for the wrong kind of sexual activity.  He had been bequeathed considerable money from Hirschfeld's estate, but was depressed and after the Anschluss, the German occupation of Austria 16 March 1938, he took his own life. 

The Wehrmacht occupied Czechoslovakia and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the spring of 1939.  Toni's German passport had expired and they were to report to the police every fortnight.  Their accommodation was searched and they were advised to leave.  However an employee of the German Consulate was taking English lessons from Charlotte, and he was able to arrange a new passport for Toni at the end of 1938.  It was initially valid for one year only, but was later extended until 1943.   Toni was designated therein as Protestant, which given the circumstances she let stand.  

In March 1939 they returned to Prague which they saw as more "Czech" and less "German" than Brno.  They found a flat at Velkoprevorské nämésti 7, and aided Jews with English and documents needed for emigration. 

Portrait by Josef Brück, 1952.

In March 1942 Charlotte was arrested by the Czechoslovak Aliens Police and jailed for being a Jew. Toni managed to persuade the Swiss consul that Charlotte was a US citizen.  Charlotte was interned and then deported to New York via Lisbon.  They continued to correspond, but apparently never met again.

Toni was summoned by the Gestapo several times in 1943-4, but was not arrested.  However after the war in Europe ended, VE Day, 7 May 1945, Toni like other Germans in Czechoslovakia had to leave the country, leaving her belongings behind. Toni was taken to the German border, walked from there to Cottbus and finally got permission to travel to Berlin on a coal train. On the way she had to beg. On 22 June 1945, she reached Berlin. By this time the Opfer des Faschismus (OdF - Victims of Fascism) was beginning to be organised, and Toni was one of the first victims to be recognised.    Later she was able to claim compensation from the German Democratic Republic. 

She rebuilt her life as an artist.  From around the mid-1950s, she lived in a studio flat on Strausberger Platz (Friedrichshain), and it was here that she also received a visit at least once from Adelheid Schulz, who had been housekeeper at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.

Portrait by Rudolph Kramer

Charlotte and Toni corresponded after 1945, but they never met again. 

She was recognized at the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin.  In articles about her in the East German press on the occasion of her birthdays or her exhibitions, she was often described as a spirited woman who was "mischievous" and "tomboyish" - and spoke in a deep voice. Her femininity was never questioned.

She died at age 80.

 

• Felix Abraham. "Genitalumwandlungen an zwei männlichen Transvestiten". Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 18, 1931: 223-226. Translated as "Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites". The International Journal of Transgenderism, 2,1, Jan-March 1998. Archive.
• Félix  Abraham, translated by Pierre Vachet. Les perversions sexuelles. Romainville (Seine): impr. Tessier, 1931: the last page of the Transvestitisme chapter. 
• Pierre Najac.  "L'Institute de la Science Sexuelle à Berlin" in Janine Merlet.  Venus et Mercure.  Editions de la Vie Modern, 1931: 165-192. 
• L. Rhan.  "Gesprach mit riner Frau, die einmal ein Mann war". Das 12-Uhr-Blatt, 2.8.1932. 
• Ragnar Ahlstedt. Män som blivit kvinnor. Två fall av könsväxling på operative väg. En study of transvestitism. Tranås: mountain, 1933.
• Anon. "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen. Die Erfahrungen aus drei Berliner Fällen".  Die Geburtenregelung,1, 4, 1933: 33.
• F. E. "Das Portrait, Toni Ebel".  Berliner Zeitung, 19.1.1952: 16.
• Ludwig Levy-Lenz.  Diskretes und Indiskretes: Erinnerungen eines Sexualarztes.  Wissen & Fortschritt, 1953: 204. 
• Sander L. Gilman. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999: 276.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2005: 203-4.
  
• Ralf Dose. "Ralf Dose, Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany: Thirty Years of Collecting Our History - Or: How to Find Treasure Troves". LGBTI ALMS 2012: The Future of LGBTI Histories, 2012.06/18. http://lgbtialms2012.blogspot.com/2012/06/thirty-years-of-collecting-our-history.html.
  
• Julie Nero. Hannah Höch, Til Brugman, Lesbianism, and Weimar Sexual Subculture. PhD Thesis, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University, 2013: 269. PDF.
  
• Ralf Dose. Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. 2014: 55.
  
• Přehled Historických Událostí Vztahujících Se K Tématu. (Overview historical events related to the topic) [Czechoslovakian Artists]:101. PDF.
  
• Raimund Wolfert. “ ‘Sage, Toni, denkt man so bei euch drüben?’ Auf den Spuren von Curt Scharlach alias Charlotte Charlaque (1892 -?) und Toni Ebel (1881-1961)”. Lesbengeschichte, 3/2015. Online. And also at issuu.com   Online.
• Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“. Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 59-62.

Kunst in der DDR      Deutsche Digitale Bibiothek      DE.Wikipedia     

__________________________________________________________

Wolfert says "To all appearances, Olga was suffering from syphilis" (Allem Anschein nach litt Olga an der Syphilis).   But says no more.  There is no mention of Toni being syphilitic.   Did Toni bring it from a previous relationship? Did Olga bring it from a previous marriage?  Olga was 38 when she entered this marriage - it is very likely that she had a previous marriage.  If Olga was in the latent and then tertiary stages, she may not have been infectious, but her son may have had congenital syphilis. 

In any case there is no information about what happened to the son.

Neither the Gestapo nor the Statsi nor the East German press nor the West German Press seems to have questioned Toni's femininity.

The document on Czechoslovak artists is not sure whether Toni was Jewish or Protestant.  

The French for the paragraph from Felix Abraham's book:

"Voici le cas de A. E., artiste peintre, né le 10 novembre 1881 à Berlin. Le malade vient chez moi (en costume masculin) pour avoir eu dès sa jeunesse un penchant à porter le costume féminin; d’ailleurs il se sent complètement femme et veut, en conséquence, prendre un nom de femme. Le malade a 47 ans à la première consultation. 11 présentait extérieurement une agitation très forte qui se calma et n’existait presque plus quand, sur ma demande, il vint àla consultation suivante en costume féminin. 11 m’avoua alors qu’en costume masculin il se sent si mal à son aise que le résultat en est une agitation corporelle et nerveuse qui fait place à un calme absolu quand il revêt un costume féminin. Son aversmn contre le vêtement masculin est si grande qu’il ne possède qu’un seul complet qui, d’ailleurs, est en très mauvais état."

The German  for the quote from Ludwig Levy-Lenz:

" ich werde den Anblick nie vergessen, der sich mir bot, als ich einmal nach Feierabend in die Küche des Hauses verschlagen wurde: da saßen die fünf ,Mädchen‘ strickend und nähend friedlich nebeneinander und sangen gemeinsam alte Volkslieder. Jedenfalls war es das beste, fleißigste und gewissenhafteste Hauspersonal, das wir je gehabt haben. Niemals hat ein Fremder, der uns besuchte, etwas davon gemerkt."

Berthold Buttgereit (1891 - 1983) bookkeeper

Buttgereit was born and raised in Berlin, a tomboy who grew up to be a trans man. In 1912, at the age of 21, Buttgereit approached Magnus Hirschfeld and with an expert opinion from Hirschfeld and the neurologist Ernst Burchard was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein from the Berlin police. 

He lived with a woman who was in all but name his wife. In 1918 the Buttgereits moved to Cologne and he obtained a Transvestitenschein from the police there. 

His Transvestitenschein

The next year he attempted to legally change his first name to Berthold, and obtained new expert opinions from the Berlin physicians Ernst Burchard and F. Lehmann. A year later, September 1920, the process was still ongoing. In an attempt to speed it up, he submitted his Transvestitenschein, and the application was finally approved. The decision became legally effective with the announcement on 8 November 1920 in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger and the Preußischer Staatsanzeiger. 

The public announcement in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger.

Buttgereit then applied to officially marry his wife of eight years, but the registry office refused based on his birth certificate. Despite being represented by the Berlin lawyer Walther Niemann (who was close to the WhK) he apparently did not succeed. 

Buttgereit lived the rest of his life in Cologne. From 1920-5 he was a bookkeeper, from 1926 - 1942 (through most of the war) he was bookkeeping foreman, and in 1950 he was promoted to office manager. By 1958 he had retired, and he died at the age of 92.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. Geschlechtskunde, (4th vol.).  Stuttgart : Julius Püttmann, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1930: 593 (fig. 883, 884).
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen, 2005: 128-131.
• Erwin In het Panhuis. “Bertha/Berthold (Emma Charlotte) Buttgereit (1891 – 1983) Tragen von Herrenkleidung nicht untersagt”. Lesbengeschichte, 2006. Online.
• Erwin In het Panhuis. “Queerer Pionier: Als trans Mann offiziell anerkannt vor genau 100 Jahren”. queer.de.    Online.

Karl Kohnheim (1885 - ? ) businessman

Kohnheim, a tomboy who had grown up a masculine woman, and then passing as a man, was often mocked if he wore female clothing. As a man he passed well, had a small inheritance and wished to open his own business. 

However he ran into constant problems applying for positions or renting an apartment, because of the female name on his papers. In Hamburg Kohnheim did not inform the police about his sex, although they knew anyway. 

In Berlin he was picked up by the police, and referred to a physician, Dr Oskar Lubowski, who in turn contacted Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld examined him, and with the psychoanalyst Karl Abraham (1877-1925) wrote an evaluation using the pseudonym ‘Katharina T’ and referring to him as 'Fräulein',  with the conclusion: 

“Considering her sexual abnormality and psychological characteristics, wearing men’s clothing is natural for the patient. The granting of permission is a question of existence for her. Forcing her to live as a woman can have an adverse effect on disposition. In men’s clothing she causes no public outrage, while in her women’s clothing she caused a disturbance, The very difficult existence of the petitioner would be greatly reduced by the police tolerating a masculine first name on the part of the petitioner.” (Hirschfeld: 154)

Hirschfeld and the lawyer Walter Jaffee went with Kohnheim to the Polizeipräsidium where Kohnheim received first a provisional permit and then a written one from Ernst von Stubenrauch (1853 - 1909) who had become Berlin police chief in 1908. 

However as Hirschfeld had conceded that Kohnheim had perfectly formed female genitals, he was not permitted to change his name legally although he used the name Karl anyway. Hirschfeld learned from the experience and used more vague language in later cases. 

In 1912 Kohnheim learned from a newspaper article that another masculine woman/trans man had succeeded in a change of the first name; he again appealed to the police, but again to no avail.  He wrote:

"I have proved that I could support myself as a man if I didn't cause offence and a stir everywhere because of my female first name. Up to now, I have only received temporary employment on recommendation, and (for example) I worked as a server in a large Berlin department store for a quarter of a year, without anyone having any suspicions or doubts about my masculinity! That is certainly saying a lot in a circle of at least 100 servers!" (Mak: 389)

This was the first German Transvestitenschein (permission to cross-dress) copying the French Permissions de Travestissement (which had been issued since 1800). 

Karl Kohnheim was not included in the 17 cases detailed in chapter 1 of Die Transvestiten, 1910 as Kohnheim freely admitted to female lovers, and Hirschfeld restricted his cases to non-homosexuals. Kohnheim is in a follow-up chapter “Transvestitism and Homosexuality” in which only Kohnheim and Dina Alma de Paradeda are discussed.

Geertje Mak knew in 1998 that the real name of ‘Katharina T’ was Karl Kohnheim, so why do Herrn, Sutton and Frost not also know?

• Jur. Wilhelm. “Die rechtliche: Stellung der (körperlichen) Zwitter de lege lata und de lege ferenda '' veröffent.licht hat”, Grenzfragen bei Machold in Halle 1909: 54ff. (quoted in Hirschfeld, 1910: 344-6 (Deutsch) and 265-6 (English).
• Magnus Hirschfeld. Die Transvestiten; ein Untersuchung uber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb: mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Materia. Berlin: Pulvermacher, 1910: 192-8. English translation by Michael A Lombardi-Nash. Tranvestites: The Erotic urge to Crossdress.Prometheus Books, 1991: 151-5
• Geertje Mak. “,Passing Women': im Sprechzimmer von Magnus Hirschfeld: Warum der Begriff „Transvestit“ nicht für Frauen in Männerkleidern eingeführt wurde.”. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 9, 3, 1998: 386-9..
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft.Psychosozial-Verlag, 2005: 63-4.
• Katie Sutton. “ ‘We Too Deserve a Place in the Sun’: The Politics of Transvestite Identity in Weimar Germany”. German Studies Review, 35,2, 2012: 337-8.
• Natasha Frost. “The Early 20th-Century ID Cards That Kept Trans People Safe From Harassment”. Atlas Obscura, November 2, 2017. Online.

Josefine Meißauer (188? - ?) friar, trader

Original version February 2015. 

Meißauer was born to a devout Catholic family in Mühldorf, Bavaria, the youngest of six children. The father - addicted to drink - left 14 years later.  One brother died of consumption, and one sister of dropsy. Josef (as she then was) went through many illnesses from childhood, including a severe meningitis at the age of 28, which left him unconscious for several weeks. 

Meißauer was an anxious child, who preferred the company of girls, took great pleasure in dolls, learned to cook and embroider at his own request. Even as a boy he secretly dressed in girls' clothes as often as he could and, when his hair was long enough, he braided it, about which he was often ridiculed.  Puberty was late, and there was no beard growth until age 25. Meißauer tried repeatedly to fight his female gender identity, however prolonged abstinence from women's clothing always led to severe mental depression. 

Meißauer had been a sacristan at the local church for seven years, but lost the position after being seen in female clothing during Carnival. He responded by becoming a Trappist friar - possibly because the friars wear robes rather than ordinary male clothing. The Trappist order is severe and requires silence, sleeping in full clothes, vegetarian diet and hard field work. Meißauer was assigned to a friary in Natal, South Africa. However after almost four years, Meißauer fell ill and returned to Bavaria. 

Meißauer then  started wearing a long dark coat and was accused of impersonating a priest but was acquitted. To avoid a repetition Meißauer wore a coloured coat, and was again brought to court. The judge pointed out that there was no law concerning the type of clothing. The only thing was that one was not allowed to wear the costume that characterised a certain class, e.g. a uniform. Meißauer took this to mean that she could dress in normal female clothing.  Also she had heard of that in Schliersee, district office of Miesbach, Upper Bavaria, a ‘lady’ named Rosina Danner had gone dressed as a man without any permission for 30 years until dying in 1908. However Meißauer, dressed female, was accused again in 1910, sentenced in the first and second instance, but acquitted by the Royal High Court of Munich on 24 December 1910.

 

After Magnus Hirschfeld's book Die Transvestiten came out in 1910, Meißauer, who was then 48, contacted him in early September 1911. The Berlin lawyer, Fritz Selten, took the case and submitted the application with a recommendation written by Hirschfeld and Iwan Bloch to the Prussian Police Prasidium, which on 27 September 1911, on the basis of the expert opinion, "granted permission to wear women's clothes”.  The same written legitimation was also issued by the Munich police chief.

 

Josefine Meißauer was the first trans woman in Germany to get a Transvestitenshein.

• Magnus Hirschfeld, & Max Tilke. Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb (Die Transvestiten). Illustrierter Teil. A. Pulvermacher, 1912: plate XVIII.
•  Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Psychosozial-Verlag, 2005: 79-84.

Ruth Fischer-Freund (188? - ?) tax official, Hirschfeld patient

​Rudolph Fischer was a tax official in Berlin. In 1912 he married Hilde Freund who was aware of his cross-dressing and rather enjoyed the masquerade. In 1916 Fischer was conscripted into the Landstrum, the reserve army. However as a tax official he was left in Berlin, and wore the uniform during office hours only.

In 1920 Rudolph and Hilde had a son Heinrich, despite protesting that they rarely did regular sex. Rudolph was off put by Hilda’s pregnancy and birth pains and he decided to be castrated. He did achieve being castrated - in Leipzig in 1924. In 1927 Fischer took early retirement from the tax bureau after working there fifteen years, and also citing a nervous condition. Fischer’s pension was 150 Reichsmarks a month.

Fischer was now to live full-time using the name Ruth. Their son was sent to live with his uncle in Dresden, and Ruth and Hilde took a small flat in the Babelsberger Str, deciding to rent out rooms to transvestites. Both Ruth and Hilde Fisher went to the “Lotte in der Behnerstrasse”, Hirschfeld’s little club which was run by Karl Giese and Charlotte Charlaque, and through them met Magnus Hirschfeld. Ruth also met Dorchen Richter and following her example decided upon a penectomy. This was performed at the Urban Krankenhaus in January 1930. The marriage was now dissolved, but Ruth and Hilde kept living together. Hirschfeld saw to it that Ruth continued to receive the tax office pension.

By 1931 Ruth had her legal name changed to Ruth Fischer-Freund. However for some reason Ruth lost her previous boldness and confidence when she had not cared whether she was read or not, and became sensitive about having to shave, her hair, her voice, and if she went out she wore men’s clothing. She applied for a vaginoplasty, which was performed in 1932.

The coming of the Third Reich required some adaptation. The name ‘Fischer’ was sometimes taken to be Jewish. To show that it was otherwise, Hilde joined the Nationalsozialistische Frauenbund, and their son Hienrich entered the Hitlerjungend.

After WWII Ruth and Hilde settled in East Germany, and ran a boarding house in Losehwitz near Dresden, renting out to summer visitors. Ruth joined the Communist Party of Saxony (KPS).

---

• letter from Charlotte Charlaque to Harry Benjamin, August 9, 1956.

• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2002: 298n110.

Disambiguation:

*not Ruth Fisher (1895-1961) a prominent member of the German Communist Party in the 1920s who fled to Paris in 1933, and the US in 1940.

*not Ruth von Fisher (1911-2009) a Swiss artist.

---

Charlotte says of Ruth: that her “first name was now Friedel (the three names the Nazis permitted sex changes to take were Christel, Toni, and Friedel)”. This quoted in Meyerowitz p298n110, and has been repeated citing Meyerowitz. However I have not been able to confirm this. In particular there is no mention of it in Rainer Herrn’s “Transvestitismus in der NS-Zeit – Ein Forschungsdesiderat”(Transvestitism in the Nazi era - a research desideratum). Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung, 26,2,2013.