Magnus-Hirschfeld-Centrum (MHC)

Safe space and meeting place with a cool, empathetic team and top-notch expert advice!

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the professional and respectful counseling I received from the Trans* Counseling Center at mhc. From the very beginning, I felt taken seriously, respected, and well cared for. The counseling was competent, understanding, and refreshingly straightforward. The counselor provided me with consistently friendly and professional guidance. I particularly appreciated the calm and empathetic atmosphere, as well as the opportunity to speak openly about personal questions and concerns. Thank you for your dedicated and supportive work. I wholeheartedly recommend the Trans* Counseling Center at mhc.

Hi. I called here a week ago for advice regarding serious discrimination issues. The phone consultation lasted about 10 minutes. But what good is the offered advice if, to put it bluntly, nothing I said was even remotely addressed in a reasonable way? Why, I wonder? The tips I received, sorry, but they didn't fit our situation either. There was no rudeness during the call, no, that wasn't it at all, but I definitely expected more. Really disappointing.

As a trans person, you unfortunately can't avoid this place. It's not all bad, and at least it's well-connected. But my problem lies in the transmedical bias. At least, that's what I perceived during a one-on-one conversation when I mentioned wanting to have top surgery first (self-pay) and then hormones, which was just a question. It would have been enough to say that it wasn't possible at the moment. Instead, the person I was speaking to became judgmental and tried to talk me out of it. In an almost degrading way. Very tough. I hope there's something better in the area sometime soon.

I came here for a consultation about HRT (hormone replacement therapy). It was the very first time I'd ever officially contacted such a counseling center, which took a huge amount of courage. The welcome was friendly, but that was unfortunately where the positives ended. The consultation consisted solely of a recitation of general information about the effects and side effects of HRT. This is standard information that anyone can easily find online at home in minutes; there's no need to travel across Hamburg for that. There was no concrete, individualized help. Instead, at the end, I was simply handed a list of various doctors, and they told me I should be grateful if I could even get an appointment with them, essentially saying, "Good luck figuring it out yourself; we're not here to help." They could have just sent me that information by email beforehand to save me the trip. The absolute low point, however, was the advice given at the end that I should "try out being a woman in the meantime." To hear such a statement from a professional counselor these days is almost an insult. As if transitioning were simply a matter of throwing on a dress and conforming to stereotypes. Empathy and deep understanding are nowhere to be found here. Anyone seeking genuine, individualized support during a vulnerable phase should steer clear of this place. Thanks for nothing.

… still very important … the queer cultural and counseling center in Hamburg …