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The original was posted on /r/truscum by /u/zjuua on 2025-10-16 17:58:10+00:00.
I remember so much research that was way ahead of its time being destroyed by nazi’s, the institution as well. I grieve what we could’ve had today if it weren’t for that terrible event. but what I don’t remember are the names of these doctors and when terms were coined.
I saw “Dr Magnus Hirschfeld”, a German-Jewish, gay physician and sexologist. I’m pretty sure he was the one who theorised the concept of trans people. I think he coined “transvestite”? “transsexual/transsexualism” was coined by Harry Benjamin (I assume). Hirschfeld understood the distinction between cross-dressers and people who had a persistent cross-sex identity. I’m still researching about this so I’m not entirely knowledgeable on the whole thing besides Harry Benjamin.
what I’m mainly focusing on, is all the sites looking extremely anachronistic. painting Hirschfeld as this historical “LGBTQ+ activist who understood transgenderism on a spectrum” and it genuinely lags my brain. half the things they say didn’t even exist in his time at all. they’re doctors from the mid to late(?) 20th century, they were focused on binary and mostly natal males, no? “transgender” and the separation of gender and sex didn’t exist. I even saw a site claiming Hirschfeld was the one who theorised “identities beyond the male-female binary” and I just can’t help but question where? he probably understood gender expression was on a spectrum since there were transvestites and also acknowledged a variation of mixed male-female traits which is intersex, but “identities” beyond male and female?
when I searched for more info and came across a transsexual tiktoker who was informed of the history, I heard “John Money” and immediately searched him. turns out he’s the one who separated gender and sex and was actually the one who ruined one of the lives of the Reimer twins, plus his theories were denounced multiple times. same thing with Virginia Prince and their whole anti-transsexual act because they believed you could live as the opposite sex without medical intervention and thought medically transitioned transsexuals were “bad” or something. this made me question, is this where all the modern social identity ideology came from or at least evolved from? because the modern ideology fits more with John Money and Virginia Prince’s beliefs than Magnus Hirschfeld and Harry Benjamin… because I don’t see the correlation with them and the modern ideology. would they have supported this? they used compassion with science, not compassion instead of science.
it just sickens me seeing history being warped by people who claim to be allies or progressive. not to mention the amount of times I’ve heard the case of the Reimer twins being used to support their ideology which is gross?