Dora "Dorchen" Richter (16 April 1891 – presumed 1933) was the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female

gender reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and all ...

. She was one of a number of

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

people in the care of sex-research pioneer

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...

at Berlin's

Institute for Sexual Research An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

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 Vaginoplasty is any surgical procedure that results in the construction or reconstruction of the vagina. It is a type of genitoplasty. Pelvic organ prolapse is often treated with one or more surgeries to repair the vagina. Sometimes a vaginopl ...

Biography

Richter was born as the oldest child of six to a poor farming family in Bohemian Ore Mountains region in 1891. Early in childhood, Richter displayed a "tendency to act and carry on in a feminine way". At the age of 6 years, she apparently tried to remove her penis with a

tourniquet A tourniquet is a device that is used to apply pressure to a limb or extremity in order to stop the flow of blood. It may be used in emergencies, in surgery, or in post-operative rehabilitation. A simple tourniquet can be made from a stick an ...

. 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. She joined a wandering theater troupe and got to

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, where she stayed for two years. In 1916 she got drafted to the army, but got discarded in just two weeks. From Leipzig she came back to her hometown, where she was encouraged by a friend to go to Hirschfeld's practice in Berlin. From May 1923, Richter worked with other transgender people as a domestic servant at the Institute for Sexual Research, one of the few places where a trans person could be employed, where she was affectionately known as Dorchen. In 1922, she underwent an

orchiectomy Orchiectomy (also named orchidectomy, and sometimes shortened as orchi or orchie) is a surgical procedure in which one or both testicles are removed. The surgery is performed as treatment for testicular cancer, as part of surgery for transgend ...

. 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 ''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." In early 1931, Richter had a

penectomy Penectomy is penis removal through surgery, generally for medical or personal reasons. Medical reasons for penectomy Cancer, for example, sometimes necessitates removal of part or all of the penis. The amount of penis removed depends on the se ...

performed by institute physician Ludwig Levy-Lenz, and in June that year an artificial vagina was surgically grafted by Berlin surgeon , making her the first transgender woman of whom records remain to undergo vaginoplasty. Late 1931 she was working as a cook in Restaurant Kempinski (modern Hotel Bristol) at

Kurfürstendamm The Kurfürstendamm (; colloquially ''Ku'damm'', ; en, Prince Elector Embankment) is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former ''Kurfürsten'' (prince-electors) of Brandenburg. The broad, long boulevar ...

27. In 1933 footage of Dora and two other Hirschfeld trans patients, Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque (all anonymously/uncredited) was used as a documentary segment in an Austrian movie ''Mysterium des Geschlechtes'' (''Mystery of Sex'') about contemporary sexology. 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. Richter's fate after this attack is not known. Nowadays it is presumed that she was either killed in the attack or was arrested after it and died in custody. However, in 1955, Charlotte Charlaque, who fled Germany to Karlsbad in 1933, wrote in a pseudonymized article about Hirschfeld "sex change" patients, that Dora Richter, " ..born in Karlsbad, Bohemia ..soon became an owner of a small restaurant in the city of her birth".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richter, Dora 1891 births 1933 deaths LGBT people from Germany Transgender women Victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes People murdered in Nazi Germany 20th-century LGBT people