Dora Richter Explained

Dora Richter
Birth Date:16 April 1892[1]
Death Date:[2]
Death Place:Allersberg, Bavaria, West Germany
Nationality:German
Other Names:
  • Dörchen Richter
  • Dora Rudolfa Richterová
Known For:first known trans woman to undergo male-to-female gender confirmation surgery

Dora Rudolfine Richter[3] (16 April 1892 – 26 April 1966) was a German trans woman and the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender-affirming surgery.[4] She was one of a number of transgender people in the care of sex-research pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld at Berlin's Institute for Sexual Research during the 1920s and early 1930s. She underwent surgical removal of the testicles in 1922, followed in 1931 by removal of the penis and vaginoplasty.[5] Richter died at the age of 74 in Allersberg, Bavaria on 26 April 1966.[2]

Early life

Richter was born as the second child of seven[1] in Seifen (now), a small town in the Bohemian Ore Mountains region[6] to a poor farming family[7] on 16 April 1892.[1] Her mother was Antonia Richter (née Kraus; 1867–1938),[1] and her father, Josef Richter (1862–1931), was a musician.[1] She was baptized into the Catholic Church on 17 April 1892.[1]

Early in childhood, Richter displayed a "tendency to act and carry on in a feminine way".[8] At the age of 6, she apparently tried to remove her penis with a tourniquet.[9] [10]

In 1909, after a baker apprenticeship, she left her small town and moved to a bigger one, where she continued to dress as a girl in her free time.[6] She joined a wandering theater troupe and moved to Leipzig, where she stayed for two years.[6] In 1916, she got drafted to the army, but was discharged in just two weeks.[6] From Leipzig she came back to her hometown, where she was encouraged by a friend to go to Magnus Hirschfeld's practice in Berlin.[6]

While living in Berlin, Richter worked as a cook and waiter at hotels using her birth name and presenting herself as a man.[9] She was arrested several times in Berlin for dressing in women's clothes in public and was sent to male prisons.[9] [11]

Surgeries

In 1922, Richter underwent an orchiectomy,[6] a surgical removal of the testicles, performed by Berlin surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt at the Charité Universitätsmedizin.[9] [12] From May 1923, she worked with other transgender people as a domestic servant at Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research, one of the few places where a trans person could be employed, where she was affectionately nicknamed "Dörchen" by Hirschfeld.

In early 1931, Richter had a penectomy performed by Institute physician Ludwig Levy-Lenz, and in June that year an artificial vagina was surgically grafted by Gohrbandt,[8] making her the first recorded transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty.[3] [13]

In 1931,, a psychiatrist working at the institute, published a paper about Richter's (and Toni Ebel's) gender confirming surgeries as a case study in German: Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik: "Her castration had the effect – albeit not very extensive – of making her body become fuller, restricting her beard growth, making visible the first signs of breast development, and giving the pelvic fat pad... a more feminine shape."[9] [14] [15]

Later years

In late 1931, Richter was working as a chef at Restaurant Kempinski (modern Hotel Bristol) at Kurfürstendamm 27.

In 1933, footage of Richter and two other of Hirschfeld's trans patients, Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque (all anonymously/uncredited) was used as a documentary segment in the Austrian film German: Mysterium des Geschlechtes (Mystery of Sex), directed by Lothar Golte and Carl Kurzmayer about contemporary sexology.[16]

In May 1933, with growing Nazi influence in Germany (Hirschfeld had fled the country), a mob of students attacked the institute, and the state authorities then burned its records.[17] [18] Richter's fate after this attack was unknown for many years and she was presumed dead.[19] [3] However, in the March 1955 issue of American magazine ONE, Charlotte Charlaque, who fled Germany to Karlsbad in 1933, wrote in a pseudonymized article about Hirschfeld's trans patients, that Dora Richter, "[...]born in Karlsbad, Bohemia[...] soon became an owner of a small restaurant in the city of her birth".[20] [1] Furthermore, in February 1934, Richter applied for a legal name change, granted by the president of Czechoslovakia in April 1934.[3] [1] At this time, her address was still listed in Berlin.[1] From then on, her legal name was Dora Rudolfine Richter (in the Czech form: Dora Rudolfa Richterová).[3] [1]

According to 1939 Census records from Prague's National Archives, Richter was living in a house that she owned in her birthplace of Ryžovna as of 17 May 1939, was unmarried and earned her living as a homework lace maker.[21] Her employer was listed as Berta Kolitsch, who traded in bobbin lace.[21]

Richter lived in Ryžovna until 1946. With the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1946, she moved to Allersberg, Bavaria, where she lived until her death at the age of 74 on 26 April 1966.[2]

In popular culture

Richter was portrayed by German actor in the 1999 German film The Einstein of Sex, a biopic about Magnus Hirschfeld directed by Rosa von Praunheim.[9] [22]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 21 April 2023 . In böhmischen Dörfern – Dora Richters Taufeintrag gefunden . In Bohemian Villages - Dora Richter's baptismal entry found . live . 6 June 2023 . Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek . de . 29 May 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230529183951/https://lili-elbe.de/blog/2023/04/dora-richter-taufeintrag/ .
  2. Web site: Dora ging nach Böhmen. de. 3 June 2024. 2 June 2024. rbb24. Noffke. Oliver.
  3. Web site: 29 May 2023 . Was wurde aus Dora? . What became of Dora? . . de . 9 August 2023 . 5 June 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230605134033/https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/berlin/rbb-was-wurde-aus-dora-100.html . live .
  4. News: Magnus Hirschfeld - The Father of Transgenderism. 9 August 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20171014083358/http://www.gendernetwork.com/Magnus-Hirschfeld.html. 14 October 2017. dead.
  5. News: Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement. Google Books. May 14, 2016. 9780230114395. Mancini. E.. 8 November 2010. 14 April 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230414011420/https://books.google.com/books?id=mWXFAAAAQBAJ&q=Dora+Richter+1930+Hirschfeld&pg=PA70. live.
  6. Book: Wolfert, Raimund . Charlotte Charlaque : Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, "Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade" . 2021 . 978-3-95565-475-7 . 1. Auflage . Leipzig . de . 1286534661 . Verlag Hentrich & Hentrich.
  7. Book: Ball, Edward. Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love. Simon and Schuster. 2010. 9781451603712. 89.
  8. Web site: Rudolph R./Dorchen . Rimmele . Harald . 13 October 2017 . 3 June 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180603171337/http://www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de/institut/en/personen/pers_34.html . live . Institute for Sexual Science (1919–1933).
  9. Web site: Stroude . Will . 16 November 2021 . The incredible story of the first known trans woman to undergo gender confirmation surgery . . 9 August 2023 . 20 June 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230620111801/https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/sexuality/the-incredible-story-of-the-first-known-trans-woman-to-undergo-gender-confirmation-surgery-304097/ . live .
  10. Web site: Thomasy . Hannah . 28 March 2022 . A Rose for Dora Richter . Proto Magazine.
  11. Web site: Sheldon . Natasha . 8 October 2017 . 11 Remarkable Transgender People from History . HistoryCollection.com . 10 August 2023 . 4 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230704161117/https://historycollection.com/11-remarkable-transgender-people-history/ . live .
  12. News: A Trans Timeline – Trans Media Watch. Trans Media Watch. 3 February 2016. 26 December 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181226033626/http://www.transmediawatch.org/timeline.html. dead.
  13. Web site: McCall . Vivian . 1 August 2023 . So You Want a Vagina . . 10 August 2023 . 7 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230807203619/https://www.thestranger.com/queer/2023/08/01/79101236/so-you-want-a-vagina . live .
  14. Web site: Institute Employees and Domestic Personnel . magnus-hirschfeld.de . de . 15 January 2024 . 5 June 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230605180023/https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/institute-for-sexual-science-1919-1933/personnel/institute-employees-and-domestic-personnel/ . live .
  15. Web site: Abraham . Felix . 1997 . Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070502001044/http:/www.symposion.com:80/ijt/ijtc0302.htm . 2 May 2007 . The International Journal of Transgenderism.
  16. Web site: Mysterium des Geschlechtes . 9 August 2023 . Filmarchiv Austria . de . 26 May 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220526235422/https://www.filmarchiv.at/en/program/film/mysterium-des-geschlechtes/ . live .
  17. Web site: Strochlic . Nina . 28 June 2022 . The great hunt for the world's first LGBTQ archive . National Geographic.
  18. Web site: Schillace . Brandy . 10 May 2021 . The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic . Scientific American.
  19. Web site: Alejandra . Caraballo . 21 June 2023 . To protect gender-affirming care, we must learn from trans history . Harvard Public Health Magazine.
  20. Baronin von Curtius . Carlotta . March 1955 . Reflections on the Christine Jorgenson Case . live . 28 March 2022 . . 27–28 . outhistory.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20190603130930/http://outhistory.org/items/show/3321 . 3 June 2019.
  21. Web site: Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek . 23 June 2023 . Neues von der trans Pionierin Dora Richter! Bisher verloren sich ihre Spuren 1933/34 in Berlin. Jetzt konnte ich eine Akte finden, wonach sie als Dora wieder in ihrem Geburtsort Seifen (Ryžovna) lebte. Die Geschichte geht weiter! (Quelle: Volkszählung 1939, Nationalarchiv Prag) . News from trans pioneer Dora Richter! So far, her traces have been lost in Berlin in 1933/34. Now I was able to find a file, according to which she lived again as Dora in her birthplace of Ryžovna. The story goes on! (Source: 1939 census, National Archives Prague) . . de . 10 August 2023 . 23 June 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230623120327/https://twitter.com/lilielbe/status/1672180618086457344 . live .
  22. Web site: 4 May 2018 . TGIF: Trash Goddess in Film . magnus-hirschfeld.de . de . 9 August 2023 . 18 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220118032920/https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/netzwerk/veranstaltungen/aha-einstein/ . live .

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