Magnus Hirschfeld, a German physicist, sexologist and LGBTQ+ advocate was the center of discussion during a Cohen Institute-sponsored webinar, held in-person at Queensborough Community College in Queens, N.Y.
Daniel Brooks, the author of “The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin,” presented on the early 20th-century sexologist at the October 22 event, walking attendees through a series of photographs of the era and lecturing about LGBTQ+ history in Germany at the time.
“I’m going to give you a visual introduction to the life and thoughts of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld that elucidates his core idea: beyond all binaries,” Brooks remarked to the in-person and virtual audience as he began his presentation.
The event was part of the Cohen Institute’s “Gender and Genocide” 2025-2026 series, featuring a variety of presentations from speakers about their scholarly research on the topics.
Brooks was introduced by Danny Sexton, associate professor of English at Queensborough Community College.
“He [Brooks] is an acclaimed journalist and author of the following books: ‘A History of Future Cities,’ ‘The Accident of Color’ and ‘The Einstein of Sex.’ His works have appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Architectural Record, Foreign Policy and The New York Times Magazine,” Sexton said.
Brooks lectured about Hirschfeld’s place within German history and LGBTQ+ history, noting that much of his works were burned following the Nazi takeover of Germany in the 1930s.
“You can imagine that Hirschfeld was a key enemy of the Nazis because he was Jewish, gay, a democratic socialist, a scientist, an intellectual — the list goes on and on and on,” Brooks said.
Hirschfeld’s body of work mainly focused on same-sex attraction, with his first publication in 1896, “Sappho and Socrates”, essentially being a gay rights pamphlet where Hirschfeld asserted that homosexuality was a naturally occurring phenomenon that should not be criminalized.
The pamphlet was initially published under a pseudonym, but later republished under Hirschfeld’s name in its second edition.
Hirschfeld also founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the Western world’s first gay rights organization.
Brooks said Hirschfeld’s start as an obstetrician helped signal that he was open to dealing with patients’ sexual matters.
“Soon, a parade of queer patients are meeting a path to his door — many are closeted gay men who were terrified of Paragraph 175 [German law that criminalized homosexuality], which opened up all kinds of possibilities for blackmail, some are lesbians, and he’s guiding them all towards self-acceptance,” he said.
Brooks later expanded on Hirschfeld’s psychotherapy practice, noting that he differed from Sigmund Freud’s “couch and drapery” approach and preferred walk-and-talk therapy with patients.
Hirschfeld instructed transgender patients to go to trans nightclubs in Berlin as a push toward self-acceptance.
“It’s literally hit two bars and call me in the morning,” Brooks said of the approach.
Brooks further touched on Hirschfeld’s work with transgender individuals, noting the repressive German laws against them at the time, such as the fact that it was illegal to wear clothing that didn’t correspond to one’s gender assigned at birth, except on Mardi Gras.
Herschfeld also consulted on one of the earliest gender reassignment surgeries, that of Dora Richter, a transgender woman.
There was also a Q&A portion of the event, where audience members, both in-person and virtually, had the chance to ask Brooks about his work and research.
One virtual attendee asked Brooks how gender health care could have developed had Hirschfeld’s library not been burned by the Nazis and if there were perspectives/techniques permanently lost to time as a result of the burning.
“One thing that really infuriates me is when people who are critical of trans health care talk about how unadvanced it is, or how we’re experimenting on real, live human subjects,” Brooks said. “Think of how much further ahead we would be had we not stopped doing trans research and trans healthcare for 100 years.”
He added that a lot of current-day issues about debates on trans healthcare were already “litigated and dealt with” during Hirschfeld’s time.
Laura Cohen, executive director of the Kupferberg Holocaust Center, asked Brooks what has been different about his lecturing now that the Trump administration has, at times, targeted grant-funded programs and educational work revolving around LGBTQ+ studies.
“What’s going on now is definitely affecting my ability to get this message out,” Brooks said.
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, the Cohen Institute held its latest event in the Gender and Genocide series: A film screening of “999: The Forgotten Girls,” followed by a Q&A with Dana Smith, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
