Dora Richter (1892–1966)

(this text can also be heard in the audio clip)

Dora Richter was born into a poor farming family in the Bohemian Erzgebirge in 1892. At the age of 6, she tried to tie off her penis with a string. Her doctor documented this later in 1932: ‘R[..],, domestic servant, is now a 40-year-old “man”. He was born in the Erzgebirge and is the child of healthy parents who have several other children, all of whom are healthy and without abnormalities. Today’s tendency appeared in the child at an early age and manifested itself in him trying to tie off his penis with a string at the age of 6. As he found this organ annoying, he tried to get it to rot off in this way. This attempt was noticed in time and the child was saved from further, more difficult complications: however, his inclination towards female behaviour and activity grew stronger and stronger.’

Together with other trans* people, Dora worked in the household of the Institute for Sexual Science, which was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld. The institute was a safe space for people who did not conform to the heterosexual norm. Dora was able to meet like-minded people here, live and work with them, wear women’s clothes and also find work. Together with her friends Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque, also former trans* patients of the institute, she lived at Motzstraße 76 (now 11). Ludwig Levy-Lenz remembered Dora Richter and the ‘transvestite’ maids of the Berlin institute: ‘… I will never forget the sight that presented itself to me when I was once waked into the kitchen of the house after work: The five ‘girls’ were sitting peacefully next to each other knitting and sewing and singing old folk songs together. In any case, they were the best, most diligent and conscientious house staff we have ever had. …

When Hirschfeld first published about trans* people in 1910, he created the name ‘transvestites’. He suspected an erotic disguise instinct. At this time, Hirschfeld could not yet imagine that trans* people would dress according to their gender perception. Dora Richter is the person who expanded Hirschfeld’s imagination and changed his scientific opinion. He recognised that surgical interventions could also be necessary.

Initially, Dora had herself castrated in 1923 at the Institute for Sexual Science, but after a few years, much pleading and urging, her penis was amputated in 1931 by Ludwig Levy-Lenz. In June 1931, she was the first trans* patient to have a neovagina – an artificial vagina – created by the surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt at the Urban Hospital in Berlin-Kreuzberg. After her, her friends Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque also underwent gender reassignment surgery. Lili Elbe was also examined at the institute and underwent her first surgery in Berlin. The following surgeries took place in Dresden. Her story is now internationally known thanks to the film ‘The Danish Girl’.           

Much of what happened back then is reminiscent of laboratory experiments on humans, although many of the suffering trans* people insisted on this from the doctors. The doctors may have been motivated by the urge to help, but certainly also by scientific prestige. As far as we know, Dora Richter was able to live her life as a woman thanks to the successful operations.

On May 6th 1933, the Institute for Sexual Science was plundered by the Nazis and subsequently closed.

Dora Richter now worked as a flower seller in Berlin and successfully applied to change her name in Prague in 1934. From then on, she could officially call herself ‘Dora Rudolfa Richterová’.

Like her friends Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque, she immigrated to her native Bohemia. Dora was expelled after the Second World War and moved to Allersberg in West Germany, where the pioneer of trans* history died on 26 April 1966 at the age of 74.