The Institute for Sexual Science, founded in 1919 Berlin by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, was a medical center unlike any the world had ever seen — offering the world’s first gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies, and creating a refuge for people living outside the boundaries of conventional identity. In “The Intermediaries,” Brandy Schillace’s meticulous reporting and empathetic storytelling brings the Institute into sharp focus. The book follows Dora Richter, a patient at the Institute who became the world’s first known recipient of gender-affirming surgery. The historic excavation is a tribute to both human curiosity and the courage it takes for misunderstood people to form a loving community against all odds.
Schillace spoke with The Pulp ahead of her upcoming readings in Missoula.
The Pulp: “The Intermediaries” chronicles the rise of the first medical center in the world to champion the rights of homosexual and transgender individuals. What drew you to this particular story?
Brandy Schillace: As a historian of medicine and science — and peculiar science at that — I tend to look for stories that have been untold. I’d heard just very vaguely that there were some things going on in the Weimar era [1918 to 1933] that were quite progressive. But I hadn’t really heard about the Institute for Sexual Science, I didn’t know who Hirschfeld was. And so when I began discovering this, one of the first things that came to my notice was that there was a transgender pioneer — a person who was transgender that I had also never heard of. I knew who Lili Elbe was — I had encountered The Danish Girl. I thought, Wait a minute. How come I’ve never heard the name Dora Richter before? How come I’ve never heard of this Institute? It seemed like something worth exploring.
As I got into it, I realized there was actually a wealth of material, but it was hard to find. You had to go to the fringes and the edges. And I thought, Oh, this is a story for me. It was blowing out of the water a lot of these myths that gender-affirming care is something new — that it’s a fad. I thought, I have got to see more about this — this amazing, hopeful, progressive place that started with curiosity.
It was blowing out of the water a lot of these myths that gender-affirming care is something new — that it’s a fad.
The medical center was established against the backdrop of the white nationalist sentiment taking hold in Germany in the early 20th century. How do you think it was possible for the world’s most progressive clinic for sexual freedom to emerge in the same country at the same time?
I suppose it’s much the way we’re experiencing things now: terrible backlash, while at the same time people are being more open on their sexuality and gender than they ever have been. The question that I asked in the book was: How did we first begin to hate? How do you end up with Nazi sentiment? And that’s one of the reasons why the book starts in the 19th century, because it really stems out of misogyny. So you have a change in roles after the Industrial Revolution. Women want more rights. They’re working in industries. And you have a backlash against that — as we often see — of the patriarchy not liking this idea. They don’t want to lose power. So the reason they exist simultaneously is because it’s … that moment of progressive ideology, that movement toward legalizing gay love and gay marriage — just like in this country — that ultimately leads to the backlash. It’s this push-pull as we try to gain purchase for a better and more progressive world. This is why I say the Star Wars analogy works so well. Because you fight bad guys, and then they strike back. But it’s a hopeful story for us right now. We’re facing the empire striking back. We’re all kind of grieving that. And it’s like, you do need space for grief, but you also need space for joy. And, like, pick up your lightsaber and let’s go.
Hirschfeld uses the compelling term: “a victim of human ignorance.” I think it was first used with the young man who took his own life after being pressured to marry a woman. How do you see this theme of “a victim of human ignorance” carrying over into present day?
Well, it’s even more apparent when you look at the details of that young man’s death. For one thing, Hirschfeld refused to call it suicide, even though it was. He felt that he hadn’t murdered himself, he had been murdered by human ignorance. The person didn’t want to go through the marriage for a whole lot of reasons. Number one, he felt he would be living a lie. But, number two, he felt he knew the girl — that he had grown up with her — and he didn’t want to subject her to a loveless marriage either. Basically the misunderstanding of his family and his society left him with an option to hide and lie and bring someone else with him into hiding and lying, and he felt the only other option was to die. And so what Hirschfeld was trying to say is this is not a moral failing, it’s someone who literally could not see another avenue out and thought they were making the best choice for everyone — for his family, for his wife. I mean that’s the real crushing sadness of this.
You do need space for grief, but you also need space for joy. And, like, pick up your lightsaber and let’s go.
What was the role of anonymity in this movement as it grew?
Anonymity was a complicated issue at the time, because … if people knew about your situation — if they knew that you were gay in this time period when it was illegal — you could be blackmailed. That was another driver of suicide for people. So it was dangerous to out people. On the other hand, the desire to be open about it was there because they felt the more open we can be, the more we show how common it is. So what Hirschfeld endeavored to do was to kind of find out how many people would identify that way with surveys that were anonymous. He was like, Let’s do surveys. Let’s show how many people in the general population I find this way so that we can show that it’s natural.
He was very keen on building community. They had a lot of therapy at the Institute, which is very progressive. They also had social programs, so they would take people out, like, We’re going to a gay bar tonight and we’re going to figure out how we comport ourselves in such a place. And they taught classes on how to avoid getting blackmailed. I mean a real sense of like, Let’s socialize each other. Let’s be in community. Let’s build on this, and this will create a healthy environment and a healthy mental landscape for people who think that they’re all alone in this. That’s something the Institute was able to do at a time when there really wasn’t anything else. To have a place that was publicly being like, We’re for you, that was huge.
We have that today. And so I think when we feel crushed, we have to remember we have made strides. The fact that we can wear our colors to show other people that they’re not alone is just so important, and something they really had to walk a fine line with.
What do you hope that people will gain when they read this book?
It’s a book of hope and joy and persistence. And yes, we live in a dark time right now. They lived in a dark time, too. They lived in what we consider to be the darkest time. People today really need to realize there are people who’ve come before us. We’re part of a long lineage. It’s not untrue that the other side is going to do great damage in the meantime, but we will ultimately prevail, because we always do. We stay together in unity. And they still had balls, and they still fell in love … and so you deserve joy too. You’re allowed to look forward to things and be excited about things and enjoy things, because the reason joy is a weapon is that the other side typically doesn’t have it.
Schillace discusses “The Intermediaries” as part of a panel discussion with UM Regents Professor Anya Jabour — and author of a forthcoming book on sex researcher Katharine Bement Davis — Sat., June 21, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Missoula Public Library. Fact & Fiction is hosting a reading Sun., June 22, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and another reading focusing specifically on “The Intermediaries” takes place Mon., June 23, at 7 p.m. at Shakespeare & Co.
