“I introduced myself as a man never as a woman. What am I really? Am I a man? Oh God, no. It would be an indescribable delight if I were. But miracles don’t happen anymore these days.”
– Karl M. Baer
Content note for Holocaust, mentions of sexual harassment, suicide, trafficking
As the first man to undergo modern gender affirmation surgery, Karl M. Baer’s name is a familiar one in the story of queer history. Tangled together with the legacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, a fellow queer Jewish man living through the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, Baer’s is an interesting and worthwhile story to tell. Growing up as an intersex child who was assigned female at birth, he would go on to become a fierce feminist who identified as a man years before he got the medical support he would stumble upon. Like many transgender people, he was able to carve out a way to authentically exist as himself before he received any level of validation and would go on to live through one of the darkest moments of human history and find life after it.
Born on the 20th of May 1885, Karl’s assigned gender was a complicated case from the beginning, with the nurses describing him as “weird.” Though he was assigned female at birth, from the details that are available it is speculated that he would have likely been assigned male by contemporary standards. This is less of a sign that gender assignment has gotten better over time, and more of a display as to how the standards of sex change over even small expanses of time. What was understood as inherently female is not something that has stood the test of time, and current understandings are flawed in new ways that will seem obvious to the oncoming generation. In the case of many intersex individuals, it is often encouraged that their medical history not be shared with them, and this was the case with Karl, who grew up with significant anxiety over his assigned gender.
As puberty began, signs became clearer that he was intersex, and those signs were largely misunderstood by him, believing his deep voice to be a symptom of tuberculosis. He would also grow up to find himself attracted to women, something that was believed to be a distinctly masculine trait at the time, though this theory has since been debunked.
It is impossible to know how much of Karl’s feminist beliefs were informed by living as someone assigned womanhood who didn’t physically fit into all the expectations that come along with that assignment. What is more clear is how his stances would develop around his job in a department store, where he would be subject to everyday sexism and sexual harassment. He would also enter the queer community around this time, accepting and naming his attraction to women and identifying as a lesbian for a time.
He would move in with a fellow Jewish man, and this man would inform and spark a passion in Karl against the trafficking of women in Europe. He would become known for his papers and speeches campaigning for the rights of women, as well as for the protection of women against trafficking.
As he was educated and grew as an advocate, he would also begin dressing and being understood as a man. He would use he/him/his pronouns and change his style of dress to reflect his gender, something for which he would receive significant pushback.
After developing a relationship with a married woman named Beil Halpern, the two could not see a future for their relationship and formed a suicide pact. On the day before the deed was meant to be done, he would get into an electrical accident that would land him in the hospital. Confiding in the doctor he was assigned about his troubles, and having his status as an intersex individual discovered, the doctor called for Magnus Hirschfeld who was one of the few known experts on these subjects in Germany. Hirschfeld would suggest “a little surgery” and in 1906 Karl would be the recipient of one of the first modern gender affirmation surgeries. In 1907 he was able to change his papers and marry Beile. He would go on to write a book titled Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years in the same year and it was published under the pseudonym N.O. Body.
His story would spark interest throughout the world and would go on to be adapted into a film, though the first film made about it would be destroyed by the Nazis. Beile Halpern did not live long past their marriage, and Baer would go on to marry another woman named Elza Max. Karl would begin working on the Council for Jewish Life in Berlin in 1911. He would go on to become an important man in Jewish society in Germany, which made him a target for the Nazis as they rose to power. In a raid on his place of work, he was captured and tortured in 1937.
In 1938 he was released and able to move to Palestine with his wife. There he would become an insurance agent and would include another woman in his relationship with his wife. His secretary, a woman named Gitla Fish, moved in with him and his wife, and the three formed a polyamorous relationship.
Not much is known about his later years. He would keep the initial M. in his name, fluctuating between saying it stood for Max, Meir, and Martha. It also tied him to the feminist texts he published when he still went by Martha. It is known he had to give up his job when in 1950 he went blind. When he died in 1956 he was buried in Tel Aviv under the name Karl Meir Baer.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Davies, B., & Funke, J. (Eds.). (2011). Sex, Gender and Time in Fiction and Culture. doi:10.1057/9780230307087
Polat, G. (2022, June 10). Karl M. Baer: First Person To Undergo Female-To-Male (FTM) Surgery. Trailblazing Women & LGBTQ Folks. https://letherfly.org/en/karl-m-baer-the-first-person-in-the-world-to-undergo-sex-change-surgery/
Recalling the First Sex Change Operation in History: A German-Israeli Insurance Salesman. (n.d.). Haaretz. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2015-12-05/ty-article/.premium/the-first-sex-change-surgery-in-history/0000017f-f3fd-d5bd-a17f-f7ffa4970000
Rutledge, S. (2022, May 20). #BornThisDay: The First Person to Undergo Sex-Reassignment Surgery, Karl M. Baer. The WOW Report. https://worldofwonder.net/bornthisday-the-first-person-to-undergo-sex-reassignment-surgery-karl-m-baer/
Sheldon, N. (2017, October 8). 11 Remarkable Transgender People from History. History Collection. https://historycollection.com/11-remarkable-transgender-people-history/