On this, 6 July 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld, Arthur Kronfeld, and Friedrich Wertheim opened the Institute of Sex Research in Berlin, Germany. It was the first sexology research center in the world.
Hirschfeld, prior to the Institute of Sex Research, had run the Scientific Humanitarian Committee which campaigned for LGBTQ+ rights and tolerance. It held a library on gender, homosexuality, and eroticism. Arthur Kronfeld was a famous psychotherapist at the time, and Friedrich Wertheim was a dermatologist.
The Institute led groundbreaking research and treatment pertaining to gender and sexuality. It provided various endocrinology and surgical services, among them early gender affirming surgeries as facial feminization surgery and gender affirmation surgery. Hirschfeld worked with the Berlin police department to curtail the arrest of transgender people and to issue individual’s transvestite passes. Alongside this, the Institute provided contraception and information about contraception, even though spreading information on birth control was illegal.
The Institute held the first comprehensive collection of works about sexuality, in particular homosexuality. Hirschfeld, a gay man, published works and even a film advocating for tolerance. The Institute provided homosexuals with psychological treatment to help them learn how to navigate a homophobic society and helped to provide community.
It also was one of the first research and medical institutions to provide comprehensive care and recognition of intersex people. Hirschfeld advocated for intersex people to have the right to determine if they wanted genital surgery upon reaching the age of 18 as opposed to infancy. The Institute collected photographs of intersex cases to understand what Hirschfeld termed “sexual intermediacy.” The Institute had a significant collection of medical documentation and specimens pertaining to human sexuality and gender identity, which was later destroyed by the Nazis.
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