By Mabel Wellman.
Saturday was the start of LGBT History Month.
As someone with an interest in history this has always been a busy month for me. In the past I’ve reached out through Trans Pride Southampton to research and create content for LGBT History Month that focused heavily on Southampton queer history, of which we have tonnes.
Some great examples of local queer history include the history of local queer organisations such as The Beaumont Society, founded in a Southampton hotel in 1966. This was the first of many LGBT organisations and start-ups that have originated in the city. From 1977 the Solent Gay Switchboard opened its phones for three days a week, and moving on to the current era we are one of very few places in the world to have three Pride events a year for the past few years.
Outside of Southampton, there is a particular moment in history that I like to let people know about: The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science or Institute of Sexology). This year I think it is especially important to remember this world leading research centre, which advocated heavily for the acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community and was met with a terrible fate not long after…
Constructed in 1919 in Berlin, Germany, this institute was a pioneering and first of its kind research centre by Magnus Hirschfield, a gay German physician. The centre offered many services to the general public including marital and sex counselling, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and access to contraceptives. In the first year, over a thousand lectures took place inside the institute, with international world leaders and laypeople alike taking interest in the discoveries and archiving of sexual science. The Institute of Sexology also had a museum.
In 1923, Magnus Hirschfield coined the term “transsexual”, a now unfavourable word to describe a trans person. This was the first recorded time in the western world that there was a word to describe someone who identifies as the opposite gender than what they were assigned at birth. Through the short years the institute existed, what we now know as standard healthcare practices for transgender people were achieved. These included early forms of sexual reassignment (one well known recipient would be Lili Elbe whom The Danish Girl is based on) and facial feminisation and masculinisation surgeries, and even hair removal with x-rays!
This centre advocated for trans people in Berlin to not be arrested, at a time where cross dressing was illegal, Hircshfield prescribed “hall passes” declaring trans people medically needed to present the way of the opposite gender. As a trans person myself I am aware how archaic this is, and in no way would a country or physician be praised in 2025 for these practices which ultimately medicalised trans people and excluded non-binary people, but for a time where virtually all homosexual and transgender acts were criminal, it truly was ground-breaking. The institute did also work with gay, bisexual and lesbian people and advocated for queer acceptance – this included a form of therapy to help people accept their sexuality rather than reject it.
As we all know, these good times were short-lived. As the Nazis solidified their power over Germany, there was a growing resentment against the Institute of Sexology. The Nazis disagreed with the institute and its findings, they also took issue with Magnus Hircshfield being Jewish and homosexual, and considered the education and providing of contraceptives “a threat to the German birth rate”.
On the 6th May, 1933, Nazi supporting youths of the German Student Union ( most likely specifically from the National Socialist German Students’ Union which took part in many book burnings) raided the Institute of Sexology. Artifacts, books and archives, and resources were destroyed by the students and later by the SA (a paramilitary wing of the Nazis). Over four days the entire institute was ransacked and the contents placed on a bonfire. Estimates say up to 25,000 books were destroyed, which included (among other medical and anthropological literature and artifacts) scientific findings regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people which have been lost forever.
An early colleague of Hirschfield who studied at the institute, Harry Benjamin, had moved to the United States and worked with hundreds of transgender people for decades, who were referred to Benjamin from across the world, before releasing the book The Transsexual Phenomenon in 1966 which became the international standard of transgender care. However, if it was not for sheer luck and a lot of time and dedication from the likes of Benjamin and other compassionate people, we would still be in a world where trans people could be subject to lobotomies and electroshock therapy.
This is a very important part of queer history that cannot be overlooked. Transgender people are still thought of as a relatively new occurrence (or more wrongly even, a “trend”), but we have always been here, and our existence has long been contested by many in power in the western world.
Books are now more likely to be banned rather than burned – according to the Index of Censorship in 2024, 53% of school librarians in the UK have been asked to remove LGBT+ themed books, over which over half had complied with the request. Florida in 2022 also passed the commonly referred to as “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibited the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in school – much like the “Section 28” of the UK, which was only repealed in 2001. So book burnings (by the Nazi Party of Germany) might be in the past but queer censorship, and the generational suffering it causes, is far from over.
This LGBT History month, we need to remember and educate people on our past, so our future does not repeat the same terrible fate.
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