How did transsexual experience look like in the interwar Poland? With the fascism looming and interest in gender research booming... Mentions of Polish gender reassignment are found in the short-lived "Das 3. Geschlecht" (The Third Gender, 1930) German magazine for & by trans people. 🧵1/ - ThreadSky

nataliajagielska.bsky.social • 38 days ago

How did transsexual experience look like in the interwar Poland? With the fascism looming and interest in gender research booming...

Mentions of Polish gender reassignment are found in the short-lived "Das 3. Geschlecht" (The Third Gender, 1930) German magazine for & by trans people. 🧵1/

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jungerspinat.bsky.social•37 days ago

I’ve been doing research on the queer community around the 1920s for a few years now and I’m always glad whenever other ppl share their knowledge. Especially since it’s hard for me to do research on non German speaking countries since most queer articles and books didn’t get translated. Thanks!!

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

Why German magazine? You see, queerness in the early 20th century was associated with Germany, especially the "Weimar Republic" so much so queer behaviour was dubbed “German custom” or Berlinese. Poles were the largest minority in the Weimar Republic even having their own political party and a bank.

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

The first issue of the Third Gender (1930) tells a tale of Polish patient Selma, referred to as Girlboy, who “finally fulfilled the wish of her parents and changed herself” from masculine woman to a man, undergoing operation to "be whoever she likes" 🧵(cont.)

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

The magazine entry predates the first internationally recognised Polish trans celebrity, Witold Smętek, a golden medallist, representing Poland in javelin throw, handball & table tennis. Assigned female at birth, as Zofia Smętek [in white in group photo below] in 1910.

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

"For a long time I felt like I was being watched, I saw smiles and heard unpleasant gossip. So I have decided and I say: I cannot continue to be a woman. I will become a man" he recalls

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

The founder of sports club, Stanisław Luxenburg, suggested that then-Zofia should seek a gynaecologist. This turned out to be Professor Henryk Beck, who preformed first known gender reassignment surgery on an intersex person in Poland. A really interesting character in his own right.

nataliajagielska.bsky.social•38 days ago

The gynecologist preformed one of the first sucesful gender reassignment surgeries on record. Of Polish-Ukrainian-Jewish origin, he was from an openly anti-Zionist family residing in Lwow, Galicia (now Lviv in Ukraine). He survived the war, illustrating horrors of Nazi occupation.

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