I don’t usually post about acquisitions from the NYC Trans Archives, but this one is too cool not to share. We recently obtained 1 of the 2 known remaining copies of the censored 1933 German booklet “Wie erlange ich eine vollendete Büste?” (“How do I achieve a perfect bust?”). It advertises an early estrogen compound using a patient who was assigned male at birth.
The text shows that not only were hormones readily available to trans people in the 1930s, but actively advertised to them. Nazis targeted this specific book in the 1930s, leaving only a few copies left in existence. This text, along with hundreds of other rare trans books, zines, and ephemera, will be available for viewing next year when NYCTA opens to the public.