Lili Elbe
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| Lili Elbe | |
|---|---|
|
Lili Elbe in 1926
| |
| Born | Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener 28 December 1882 Vejle, Denmark |
| Died | 13 September 1931 (aged 48) Dresden, Germany |
| Other names | Lili Ilse Elvenes |
Elbe's year of birth is sometimes stated as 1886. This appears to be from a book about her, which has some facts changed to protect the identities of the persons involved. Factual references to the life of Elbe's wife Gerda Gottlieb indicate that the 1882 date is correct since they clearly married while at college in 1904.[5][6] It is highly likely that Elbe was an intersex person,[7][8][9][10] though it is disputed by some.[11]
Her autobiography Man into Woman, was published in 1933.[12]
Contents
Marriage and modelling
Lili Elbe c. 1920
Elbe started dressing in women's clothes one day filling in for Gottlieb's absentee model; she was asked to wear stockings and heels so her legs could substitute for those of the model. Elbe felt surprisingly comfortable in the clothing.[14] Over time, Gottlieb became famous for her paintings of beautiful women with haunting almond-shaped eyes dressed in chic fashions. In 1913, the unsuspecting public was shocked to discover that the model who had inspired Gottlieb's depictions of petites femmes fatales was in fact Gottlieb's spouse, "Elbe".[5]
In the 1920s and 1930s, Elbe regularly presented as a woman, attending various festivities and entertaining guests in her house. One of the things she liked to do was disappear, wearing her modeling fashions into the streets of Paris in the throngs of revelers during the Carnival.[15][16] Elbe was introduced by Gottlieb as Einar Wegener's sister when she was dressed in female attire.[2] Only her closest friends knew once she had transitioned.
Surgeries and dissolution of marriage
Lili Elbe by Gerda Gottlieb
At the time of Elbe's last surgery, her case was already a sensation in newspapers of Denmark and Germany. A Danish court invalidated the Wegeners' marriage in October 1930,[21] and Elbe managed to get her sex and name legally changed, including receiving a passport as Lili Ilse Elvenes. She stopped painting, believing it to be something that was part of the identity of Einar. After the dissolution of her marriage, she returned to Dresden for a final surgery.
Lili was almost certainly intersexed.[22] But it is unclear exactly of what type. She certainly had a 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. Hormonal assays taken just before her first surgery indicated more female than male hormones present. Some reports indicate that Elbe already had rudimentary ovaries in her abdomen.[19] It is likely that she had XXY sex chromosome karyotype (Klinefelter syndrome) a condition not medically recognized until 1942.[23]
Death
Lili began a relationship with French art dealer Claude Lejeune, with whom she wanted to marry and have children, and was looking forward to her final surgery involving a uterus transplant, so that they could one day have children.[20][22][24]In June 1931, Elbe had her fourth operation, which consisted of implanting a uterus and the construction of a vagina, both of which were new and experimental procedures at that time.[19] With no medication to prevent organ rejection, she did not recover and died on September 13, 1931, three months after the surgery due to cardiac arrest caused by the rejection of the uterus by her immune system and the resulting infection.[19][20][20][24][22][25]
After the death of Elbe, whom she described to a friend as "my poor little Lily [sic]"[citation needed], Gottlieb went on to marry an Italian military officer, aviator, and diplomat, Major Fernando "Nando" Porta, and moved to Morocco. Fernando burned through all of Gerda's savings, and after living for several years in Marrakech and Casablanca, the Portas divorced. Gottlieb then returned to Denmark, where she died "penniless" in 1940.[20]
In popular culture
The LGBT film festival MIX Copenhagen gives four "Lili" awards named after Elbe.[26]The Danish Girl : a novel / David Ebershoff. - New York, Viking, 2000 (New edition: New York, Penguin, 2015). Ebershoff's novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe.[27] It was an international bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. The film version produced by Gail Mutrux and Neil LaBute and starring Eddie Redmayne as Elbe, and was well received at the Venice Film Festival in September 2015,[28] although it has been criticized for its casting of a cisgender man to play a trans woman.[29] Topics including Gerda's sexuality, which is evidenced by the subjects in her erotic drawings,[30] and the disintegration of Gerda and Lili's relationship after their annulment are omitted in both the novel[31] and the film.
Both the 2015 film and the 2000 Ebershoff novel have also received some critical attention for their notable deviations from historical fact.[20][22][32][33] Ebershoff has stated that he did not intend for the book to be an accurate representation of the facts, and that much of the content of his novel - particularly in his characterization of Lili and of Gerda - had instead been fabricated for creative reasons.[34]
References
- Rosman, Lisa. "The Heart of 'The Danish Girl': A Conversation with David Ebershoff". Word & Film. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
Further reading
- Man into woman: an authentic record of a change of sex / Lili Elbe ; edited by Niels Hoyer [i.e. E. Harthern] ; translated from the German by H.J. Stenning ; introd. by Norman Haire. - London, Jarrold Publisher's, 1933 (Original Danish ed. published in 1931 under title: Fra mand til kvinde. Later edition: Man into woman: the first sex change, a portrait of Lili Elbe - the true and remarkable transformation of the painter Einar Wegener. - London, Blue Boat Books, 2004.
- Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft by Dr. Rainer Herrn (2005), pp. 204–211. ISBN 3-89806-463-8. German study containing a detailed account of the operations of Lili Elbe, their preparations and the role of Magnus Hirschfeld.
- »Wie Lili zu einem richtigen Mädchen wurde« – Lili Elbe: Zur Konstruktion von Geschlecht und Identität zwischen Medialisierung, Regulierung und Subjektivierung by Sabine Meyer (2015), ISBN 978-3-8376-3180-7.
- "When a woman paints women" / Andrea Rygg Karberg and "The transwoman as model and co-creator: resistance and becoming in the back-turning Lili Elbe" / Tobias Raun in Gerda Wegener / edited by Andrea Rygg Karberg ... [et al.]. - Ishøj, Arken, 2015.
External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lili Elbe. |
- Lili Elbe on Biography.com
- Lili Elbe on LGBT History Month
- Sabine Meyer: Mit dem Puppenwagen in die normative Weiblichkeit. Lili Elbe und die journalistische Inszenierung von Transsexualität in Dänemark. In: NORDEUROPAforum 20 (2010:1–2), 33–61. Article in German scholarly journal
- Represented in ARKEN Museum of Modern Art's Gerda Wegener exhibition 7. november 2015 til 16. maj 2016
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