Dorchen Richter

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Dora Richter , called " Dorchen " (* 1891 ; † probably around 1933) was the first person known by name to undergo a complete gender reassignment (from man to woman) including vaginoplasty . She was one of several transsexual or transgender people in the care of Magnus Hirschfeld at the Berlin Institute for Sexology in the 1920s and early 1930s.

biography

Dorchen Richter was born in 1891 into a poor farming family and was called "Rudolph". Since early childhood she has shown "the tendency towards feminine activity". At the age of 6, she tried to remove her male genitals with a tourniquet . She began to wear girls' and women's clothes, called herself Dora and lived as a woman as much as she could. Due to the strict laws of the time, however, she was initially forced to a double life : During the summer season, she worked as a waiter under her maiden name in Berlin hotels, but lived the rest of the year as a woman. She was jailed several times for wearing clothes of “the opposite sex” and was then forced to serve her sentence in male prisons until a judge released her into the care of Magnus Hirschfeld.

Hirschfeld obtained special police permission for her to wear women's clothing, and since it was otherwise almost impossible to get a job as a " transvestite ", he hired her, together with some other transgender people, as domestic workers at the Institute for Sexual Research; there she was affectionately called "Dorchen". In 1922 she underwent a self-requested orchiectomy (removal of the male gonads). Felix Abraham , a psychiatrist working at the institute , published Richter's gender reassignment as a case study: "The castration had, if not largely, had such an effect that the body became fuller, the beard grew less and the chest became noticeable and also the fat pad of the pelvis ... assumed more feminine forms. "

In June 1931 Dorchen Richter had a penectomy performed by the institute doctor Ludwig Levy-Lenz and Felix Abraham. The Berlin surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt (1890–1965) created an artificial vagina . This made her the first transsexual woman known by name to receive a real vaginoplasty (a few months before the better-known Lili Elbe ).

The growing National Socialist influence in Germany caused Hirschfeld to flee the country. In May 1933 intervened mob of Nazis , the institute and burned all his records. No further information is known about Dorchen Richter; most likely she died either in this attack or in the subsequent persecutions and arrests of the Nazis.

Levy-Lenz remembered Dorchen Richter and the other four “transvestite” maids from the Berlin Institute for Sexology: “... I will never forget the sight that was presented to me when I was thrown into the kitchen of the house after work: There The five 'girls' sat knitting and sewing peacefully next to each other and sang old folk songs together . In any case, it was the best, hardest-working, and most conscientious housekeeper we have ever had. A stranger who visited us never noticed anything ... ”.

swell

  • Felix Abraham: "Genital conversion on two male transvestites". In: Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft 18, 1931, pp. 223–226
  • Edward Ball: Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love . Simon and Schuster, 2010, p. 89. ISBN 9781451603712 .
  • Dorchen's Day - Providentia on: drvitelli.typepad.com, accessed on February 15 2018th
  • R. Herrn: “From sex change mania to sex change”, in: Pro Familia Magazin 23 (2), 1995, pp. 14-18.
  • Harald Rimmele: Dorchen Richter's biography at www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de , last accessed on February 15, 2018
  • E. Mancini: Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement, Google Books: p. 70 , accessed February 15, 2018.
  • "The surgical solution," at www.cinematter.com, last accessed February 15, 2018.
  • A Trans Timeline, online on Trans Media Watch , accessed February 15, 2018.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Rimmele: Biography of Dorchen Richter at www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de , last accessed on February 15, 2018
  2. ^ Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement . Retrieved May 14, 2016. 
  3. ↑ Edward Ball: Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love . Simon and Schuster, 2010, ISBN 9781451603712 , p. 89.
  4. ↑ Harald Rimmele: Rudolph R./Dorchen .
  5. ↑ Dorchen's Day - Providentia , at: drvitelli.typepad.com, accessed on February 15, 2018.
  6. ↑ Dorchen's Day - Providentia , at: drvitelli.typepad.com, accessed on February 15, 2018.
  7. ↑ a b c Dorchen's Day - Providentia . December 5, 2010. Accessed February 3, 2016. 
  8. ↑ Dorchen Richter was actually transsexual , but the term "transvestite" was introduced by Hirschfeld in 1910 (in "Die Transvestiten", 1910), and was initially more common. He first used the term transsexual in 1923.
  9. ↑ Dorchen's Day - Providentia , at: drvitelli.typepad.com, accessed on February 15, 2018.
  10. ↑ Harald Rimmele: Biography of Dorchen Richter at www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de , last accessed on February 15, 2018
  11. ↑ a b c A Trans Timeline - Trans Media Watch . Retrieved February 3, 2016. 
  12. ↑ Harald Rimmele: Biography of Dorchen Richter at www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de , last accessed on February 15, 2018
  13. ↑ Harald Rimmele: Biography of Dorchen Richter at www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de , last accessed on February 15, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Judge, Dorchen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Judge, Dora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trans pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH 1891
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: 1933
Place of death unsure: Berlin