Eugenics Department for Mother and Child and Experimental Treatments for Impotence

One focus of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft‘s research and services was sexual and reproductive health. A subdivision of the institute called the Eugenics Department for Mother and Child offered marital counseling services, and the Center of Sexual Counseling for Married Couples provided access to contraception.

• Brennan, Toni (2015-04-20). “Eugenics and sexology”. In Bolin, Anne; Whelehan, Patricia (eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 325–368. doi:10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs139. ISBN 978-1-118-89687-7. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
• Beachy 2014, p. 182.

It was especially a goal of the institute to make contraceptive services accessible to the poor and working-class of Germany. This was despite a prohibition on advertising birth control in the Weimar Republic’s constitution.

• Beachy 2014, p. 182.

Following looser regulation on advertising contraceptive methods, the institute published an educational pamphlet on the matter in 1928 which ultimately reached a distribution of about 100,000 copies by 1932.

• Beachy 2014, p. 184. 

Hirschfeld and Hodann developed pioneering strategies for sex counseling services that would inspire later practices.

• Grossmann, Atina (1995). Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950. Oxford University Press. pp. 15–17. ISBN 978-0-19-505672-3.
• Beachy 2014, p. 161.

The institute also offered general gynecology services and treatment for venereal diseases.

• Matte, Nicholas (2005-10-01). “International Sexual Reform and Sexology in Europe, 1897–1933”. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. 22 (2): 253–270. doi:10.3138/cbmh.22.2.253. ISSN 2816-6469. PMID 16482697.
• Strochlic, Nina (28 June 2022). “The great hunt for the world’s first LGBTQ archive”. National Geographic. Archived from the original on 5 July 2022. Retrieved 9 October 2022.

Experimental treatments for impotence were also implemented.

• Beachy 2014, p. 163.

Bibliography

• Dose, Ralf (2014). Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-439-0. JSTOR j.ctt9qg6t2. OCLC 870272914.
• Beachy, Robert (2014). Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-47313-4.
• Wolff, Charlotte (1986). Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology. Quartet Books. ISBN 978-0-7043-2569-2. OCLC 16923065. USHMM: bib31255.

Further reading

• Isherwood, Christopher. (1976) Christopher and His Kind, 1929-1939, 1st edition. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Full text on OpenLibrary.
• Blasius, Mark and Phelan, Shane ed. (1997) We Are Everywhere: A Historical Source Book of Gay and Lesbian Politics (See the chapter: “The Emergence of a Gay and Lesbian Political Culture in Germany” by James D. Steakley).
• Grau, Günter ed. (1995) Hidden Holocaust? Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933-45.
• Lauritsen, John and Thorstad, David (1995) The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935). (Second Edition revised)
• Steakley, James D. (9 June 1983) “Anniversary of a Book Burning”. pp.18–19, 57. The Advocate (Los Angeles)
• Marhoefer, Laurie. (2015) Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press.
• Taylor, Michael Thomas; Timm, Annette F.; Herrn, Rainer eds. (2017) Not Straight From Germany: Sexual Publics and Sexual Citizenship Since Magnus Hirschfeld. JSTOR: 10.3998/mpub.9238370.