Lili Elbe

Lili Elbe (1882 - 1931) (but see Notes) was the first known recipient of male to female sex reassignment surgery.^[1] She was born in Denmark and was identified as male at the time of her birth. Born as Einar Mogens Wegener, she identified as male for most of her life and was a successful artist with that name. After the surgeries, however, she took the name Lili (some sources state Lily) Elbe.

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Einar and Gerda

Einar met Gerda Gottlieb at the Copenhagen Art School (Kunstakademiet)^[2] and they married in 1904^[3], when Einar was 22 and Gerda 19^[4]. He and Gerda worked as illustrators, with Einar specialising in landscape paintings while Gerda illustrated books and fashion magazines. Apparently, Einar noticed a propensity towards female dress whilst modelling for Gerda.^[5].

They both travelled through Italy and France, eventually settling in Paris in 1912, where Einar could live openly as an apparent woman and Gerda could be actively lesbian.[1] Einar Wegener received Neuhausens prize in 1907 and exhibited at Kunstnernes Efteraarsudstilling (the Artists Fall Exhibition), Vejle Art Museum and in the Saloon and Salon d'Automme in Paris. He is represented at Vejle Art Museum in Denmark.^[5].

Lili

Lili Elbe was "born" one day while filling in for Gerda's absentee model; Gerda asked Einar to wear stockings and heels so that she could substitute Einar's legs for those of her model. Einar felt surprisingly comfortable in the get-up.^[5] Over time, Gerda became famous for her paintings of beautiful women with haunting almond-shaped eyes dressed in chic fashions. However, around 1913 it was discovered that Gerda's women were in fact Einar himself. No one had suspected before then that the petite femmes fatales of Gerda's work could have been modeled on anyone other than a woman, but Einar had acted as Gerda's chief model for years. ^[4]

After that, in the 1920s and 1930s Wegener regularly dressed as a woman, attending various festivities and entertained guests in her house as Lili Elbe. One of the things Einar liked to do was to disappear, wearing one of his costumes, into the streets of Paris in the throngs of revelers during the Carnival. ^[6]. She was apparently very well accepted as a woman and even received a request for marriage many years before her surgical transition.^[7]. Only her closest friends knew that she was transsexual and to others, Elbe was introduced by Gerda as Einar's sister^[1].

Surgeries

In 1930 Elbe went to Germany for surgery, which was only in an experimental state at the time. A series of five operations were carried out over a period of two years.^[7]

The first surgery, removal of the male genitals, was made under the supervision of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.^[7].

The rest of Elbe's surgeries were carried out by Dr. Warnekros in the Dresden Municipal Women's Clinic. The second operation was to transplant ovaries, which were taken from a 26-year-old woman. These were soon removed in a third and fourth operation, due to rejection and other serious complications.^[8] The fifth operation was to transplant a uterus and was intended to allow Elbe, then nearing the age of 50, to become a mother^[9][10][11].

Gender Identity

It is believed that Elbe was probably intersexual; she looked more female than male, and may have had Klinefelter's Syndrome or some other SRY gene transfer condition.^{[citation needed]} As most of the known intersex conditions were not formally identified until after Lili's death, it is difficult to be exact. She certainly had feminine body and facial features that allowed her to pass as a young woman better than she passed as a man. When presenting in public as a man she was often taken for a young woman masquerading as a man in trousers.^[11]

A Dresden doctor claimed to have noticed rudimentary ovaries and pre-operative blood tests indicated large amounts of female hormones at the expense of the male ones. During surgery, evidence of both male and female organs were found within her body.^[9]

Legal Identity

At the time of Elbe's surgery her case was already a sensation in newspapers of Denmark and Germany. The King of Denmark invalidated the Wegeners' marriage in October 1930, and Einar managed to get his sex and name legally changed, including receiving a passport as Lili Elbe. She also stopped painting believing it to be something that only Einar did.

Gerda Wegener went on to marry an Italian military officer, aviator, and diplomat, Major Fernando "Nando" Porta, and move to Morocco, where she would learn of the death of Elbe, whom she described to a friend as "my poor little Lily [sic]." (By contrast, she described her second husband as "a magnificent, splendid and peerless hunk of man".)[2] After living for several years in Marrakech and Casablanca, the Portas divorced, and Gerda returned to Denmark, where she died in 1940.

After the dissolution of the Wegeners' marriage, Elbe accepted a proposal from another unknown man, which she intended to follow up as soon as she would be able to "become a mother"^[9].

Death

Lili Elbe died in 1931, probably due to complications after her fifth and last operation. Reviews of Lili's case leave the impression that she died of a failed ovarian transplant^[9]. She is buried in Dresden.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} The Living Room
2. ^ Conway's Vintage Treasures
3. ^ Gerda on Wikipedia(Spanish)
4. ^ ^{a b} The Copenhagen Post
5. ^ ^{a b c} the Arts, Transgender and Beyond
6. ^ Gerda Wegener
7. ^ ^{a b c} LGBT History Month
8. ^ History of Facial Feminisation Surgery
9. ^ ^{a b c d} eTransgender.com
10. ^ QAlliance
11. ^ ^{a b} Transhistory.net

• TransHistory.net
• Penguin review of The Danish Girl
• More than Vanilla(Danish)

Notes

• Lili's birth year is sometimes referred to as 1886. This appears to be from the book about her, which has some facts changed to protect identities. Factual references to Gerda's life indicate that the 1882 date is correct as they clearly got married while at college in 1904^[4].

Books

A book about the life of Lili Elbe, Man into Woman (edited by Ernst Ludwig Hathorn Jacobson using the pseudonym Niels Hoyer) was published in 1933. The book also uses pseudonyms for her friends. ISBN 0954707206

David Ebershoff's novel about Lili Elbe, The Danish Girl(2001), was an international bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. The novel is being developed for the screen by producers Gail Mutrux and Neil LaBute. ISBN 0140298487

A detailed account of the operations of Lili Elbe, their preparations and the role of Magnus Hirschfeld may be found in a thorough German study, Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft by Dr. Rainer Herrn (2005), pp. 204-211. ISBN 3-89806-463-8