In Nazi Germany, transgender people were prosecuted, barred from public life, forcibly detransitioned, and imprisoned and killed in concentration camps. Though some factors, such as whether they were considered "Aryan", heterosexual with regard to their birth sex, or capable of useful work had the potential to mitigate their circumstances, transgender people were largely stripped of legal status by the Nazi state.
Under the German Empire (from 1871 to 1918) and Weimar Germany (from 1918 to 1933), laws such as Paragraph 183 existed which were used to prosecute transgender individuals. These laws were inconsistently enforced, often leaving transgender people vulnerable to the arbitrary decisions of individual police officers. In 1908, due to the advocacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, Germany instituted the ability for transgender people to obtain transvestite passes, which shielded them from legal consequences for being publicly transgender. From the end of World War I until 1933, transgender people enjoyed previously unprecedented freedoms and rights. Large leaps were made in transgender medicine through the Institute for Sexual Science, and transgender culture flourished in Berlin.
Following the 1932 Prussian coup d'état and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, transgender movements, gathering places and institutions, such as the first homosexual movement, the Eldorado nightclubs, and the Institute for Sexual Science were dissolved, often by force. Trans women were targeted under renewed enforcement of Paragraphs 175 and 183. Trans men were persecuted under Paragraph 183, but did not face persecution under Paragraph 175, which applied only to those assigned male at birth. Transvestite passes were revoked or ignored. Books and texts relating to transgender experiences or medicine were destroyed as "un-German".
Transgender people were imprisoned and murdered in concentration camps, though the exact number killed is unknown. According to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the German government "brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures."
Terminology
The term transgender, an English-German cognate, was not coined until 1965 and not widely accepted as a universal term until the 1990s. The German word (, adapted into English as the term transsexual) was first coined in 1923 by Magnus Hirschfeld, but would not enter widespread use until 30 years later with the work of Harry Benjamin. Before these terms, in German the term (, masculine) was used to refer to transfeminine individuals, and the term (, feminine) was used to refer to transmasculine individuals. In part because no alternative term was widespread, most Western transgender people of this time period self-identified as "transvestites".: "Some transgendered people—self identified, in the terms of the day, as eonists, transvestites, homosexuals, inverts and hermaphrodites—came to see themselves as part of a group of people who longed to change their sex." Modern literature on the subject largely uses the term "transgender" to refer to these individuals as a more accurate description of their gender identity. According to Joanne Meyerowitz and other scholars of the topic, it is difficult if not outright impossible to know what pronouns transgender or transvestite people in these times would have preferred, and as such it is common practice to simply use the pronouns which align with what is known of their gender presentation (i.e., he/him for individuals who present masculine, and she/her for individuals who present feminine).
Background
In the Weimar Republic, the government which ruled Germany from the end of World War I in 1918 until Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, transgender people gained rights and freedoms unprecedented in Europe at the time, and much early progress was made in transgender medicine.: "While unparalleled in Europe at the time, the Transvestitenschein also solidified the first part of a 'double dependency' system — dependent on both legal and medical determination — for trans people seeking to transition.": "Germany was the birthplace of transidentities, where in 1910 Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) described individuals expressing the feeling that their anatomical gender did not correspond to the one they had the impression of belonging to. Theoretical and medical progress, along with progress in surgery (vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, mammectomy, etc.), went hand in hand with advances in sex-change technologies." The key figure in these advancements was Jewish-German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who founded both the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in 1897—the main organisation devoted to the decriminalisation of homosexuality—and the (Institute for Sexual Science) in 1919.: "In 1919, Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin that housed his extensive library and archive." Other notable transgender rights activists of the period include Friedrich Radszuweit, a publisher and author who founded the (Federation for Human Rights) to advocate for gay and transgender rights in 1920, and Max Spohr, a publisher among the first to print LGBT media.
Social situation
Under the German Empire before World War I, there was no law which explicitly outlawed being transgender, unlike how Paragraph 175 explicitly outlawed male-male homosexuality. Paragraph 183 outlawed public crossdressing, which along with Paragraph 360 (a public nuisance law) was sometimes used against transgender people; however, these laws could only be applied if a public nuisance was determined to have occurred. Additionally, in practice these laws could not be applied to transgender people who were able to pass as their preferred gender. These qualities often led to uneven enforcement of the laws, and openly transgender or gender-queer people in Germany lived under constant threat of legal charges at the whim of individual police officers. In 1908, Hirschfeld discussed the matter with the Berlin Police, and convinced them to allow transgender people to obtain transvestite passes to avoid legal consequences for cross-dressing, one of the earliest known examples of legal recognition for transgender people.: "Hirschfeld offered practical aid, working with sympathetic Berlin police officials to create "transvestite passes" that allowed bearers to wear clothing corresponding to their gender identity without fear of harassment (Figure 2)."
In large part due to the less restrictive laws and LGBT-friendly culture of 1920s Berlin, known as the 'Golden Years', transgender culture began to flourish in the city, and Berlin became known as the queer capital of the world. In 1930, the world's first transgender magazine, (The Third Gender), was published by Friedrich Radszuweit's publishing company in Berlin, as was (The Girlfriend), a lesbian magazine which would often publish articles for transgender women.: "Trans people were given space in both their own magazines and even in some of the lesbian ones, highlighting a sense of cross-identity camaraderie. had a regular trans supplement highlighting these voices." In response to the advocacy of Hirschfeld and others of the first homosexual movement, the Weimar Republic even went so far as to permit legal name changes for transgender people.: "These years saw the proliferation of the (transvestite certification) and legal name changes, forms of state-legitimated trans recognition."
Berlin was also notable in this period for its queer nightlife and transvestite cabaret clubs, the most recognised of which were the Eldorado clubs, but less famous venues such as the Mikado were also popular places to watch transgender performers. Eldorado was the name of at least five known clubs in Berlin which featured transgender performers, and were a popular gathering spot for Berlin's LGBT community, though heterosexual patrons were also welcome and common. The first of these clubs was opened in March 1924 by Ludwig Konjetschni, who went on to own three locations under the Eldorado name, at least two of which are known to have catered to gay audiences specifically. The Eldorado clubs were noted worldwide and drew international tourism to the city.: "The famous 'Golden Years' of 1920s Berlin birthed the world's first trans magazine () in addition to a slew of widely circulated queer print media, and drew international crowds to Berlin's queer nightlife, especially its transvestite cabaret clubs such as the El Dorado." Though the clubs were heavily concentrated in Berlin, other similar clubs featuring transgender performers are known to have existed in most major German cities during this period: Hannover: An Eldorado club, the only club known to use the Eldorado name outside Berlin, existed in Hannover in the early 1930s, however it closed after just six months of operation. Cologne: The club featured transgender performers by the names of Tilla and Resi. Hamburg: Known to have some number of transgender-friendly entertainment venues.
Medical advancement
In addition to more widespread cultural acceptance, Berlin also became a hotbed for research into transgender medicine. The Institute for Sexual Science, located in Berlin, performed some of the first academic studies of transgender medicine, and is credited with performing some of the first gender affirming care, including hormone replacement therapy. Ludwig Levy-Lenz, Erwin Gohrbandt and other surgeons associated with the Institute performed gender affirming surgery, including early versions of facial feminisation surgery and sex reassignment surgery on trans women, as well as facial masculinisation surgery, chest masculinisation surgery, and hysterectomy and oophorectomy on trans men.: "Levy-Lenz also introduced surgical procedures to feminize or masculinize facial features by altering noses, chins, lips and cheekbones. From other sources it is clear that Levy-Lenz and other Institute-affiliated surgeons performed hysterectomies, oophorectomies (removal of the ovaries) and breast-reduction surgeries.; ; ; ; Dora Richter, the first transgender woman known to have received sex reassignment surgery, received it through the Institute, as did Lili Elbe, Toni Ebel, Gerd Katter and many other notable transgender people of this period. Levy-Lenz is quoted as saying of his time at the Institute, "Never have I operated upon more grateful patients."
The Institute collected extensive data on the transgender condition through interviews, surveys and clinical studies, and its research was some of the first to differentiate gender identity from sexual orientation. In his research for the Institute, Hirschfeld referred to transgender people as "total transvestites" or "extreme transvestites" as early as the 1920s, notably differentiating them from crossdressers, as well as stating his belief that there naturally existed people who had "characteristics that did not fit into heterosexual or binary categories".: "Not everyone arrested under Paragraph 175 identified as a man. During the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, Germany was home to a developing community of people who identified as 'transvestites.' [...] Initially, this term encompassed people who performed in drag, people who cross-dressed for pleasure, as well as those who today might identify as trans or transgender." The institute also hosted the D'Eon Organisation, which was founded in 1930 to advocate trans rights, and was also one of the only employers who would hire openly transgender people, and would often hire transgender people in need of work as receptionists or maids; both Toni Ebel and Dora Richter found employment with the Institute in this way.
Early pushback