Lili Elbe was an Intersex

Intersex

Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...

 person and one of the first identifiable recipients of male to female sex reassignment surgery

Sex reassignment surgery

Sex reassignment surgery is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble...

. Elbe was born as a male

Male

Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

 in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. 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.

Elbe's year of birth is sometimes stated as 1886. This appears to be from the book about her, which has some facts changed to protect the identities of the persons involved. Factual references to Gerda Gottlieb's life indicate that the 1882 date is correct as they clearly married while at college in 1904.

Einar and Gerda

Einar met Gerda Gottlieb

Gerda Wegener

Gerda Gottlieb Wegener Porta was a Danish illustrator and painter best known for her erotica.-Biography:She grew up originally from the provinces as the daughter of a clergyman. She moved to Copenhagen to pursue her education at the Royal Art Academy, and married fellow artist Einar Wegener in...

 at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 and they married in 1904, when Einar was 22 and Gerda 19. She and Gerda worked as illustrators, with Einar specializing in landscape paintings while Gerda illustrated books and fashion magazines.

They both traveled through Italy and France, eventually settling in Paris in 1912, where Lili could live openly as a woman and Gerda could be actively lesbian. Lili Elbe 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. She is represented at Vejle Art Museum in Denmark.

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 clothing. Over time, Gerda became famous for her paintings of beautiful women with haunting almond-shaped eyes dressed in chic fashions. In approximately 1913, the unsuspecting public was shocked to discover that the model who had inspired Gerda's depictions of petite femmes fatales was in fact Einar.

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

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.

The first surgery, removal of the testicles (orchiectomy

Inguinal orchiectomy

Inguinal orchiectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a testicle and the full spermatic cord through an incision in the abdomen. Orchiectomy is one form of castration. The procedure is generally performed by a urologist. Often it is performed as same-day surgery, with the patient returning home...

), was made under the supervision of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...

 in Berlin.

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

Gender identity

It is believed that Elbe was probably intersexual; she looked more female than male, and may have had Klinefelter's Syndrome

Klinefelter's syndrome

Klinefelter syndrome, 46/47, XXY, or XXY syndrome is a condition in which human males have an extra X chromosome. While females have an XX chromosomal makeup, and males an XY, affected individuals have at least two X chromosomes and at least one Y chromosome...

 or some other SRY

SRY

SRY is a sex-determining gene on the Y chromosome in the therians .This intronless gene encodes a transcription factor that is a member of the SOX gene family of DNA-binding proteins...

 gene transfer condition. 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 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.

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.

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 Elbe managed to get her 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

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, 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"). 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 an unknown man, which she intended to follow up as soon as she would be able to "become a mother".

Death

Elbe died in 1931, due to complications three months after her fifth and last operation. This operation was designed to "allow her to be a mother", and entailed the transplantation of a uterus. Her cause of death is believed to have been transplant rejection. She is buried in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Germany.

In popular culture

The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is a novel by American writer David Ebershoff.-Summary:The novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.-Awards:...

, David Ebershoff

David Ebershoff

David Ebershoff is an American-born writer, editor, and teacher.-Biography:Born in Pasadena, California, he is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago, and studied at Keio University in Tokyo....

's 2001 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 about Lili Elbe was an international bestseller

Bestseller

A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

 and was translated into a dozen languages. The novel is being developed for the screen The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl (film)

The Danish Girl is an upcoming film adaptation of the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff. The film stars Nicole Kidman as Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe. Kidman is producing the project via her production company, Blossom Films. Tomas Alfredson was set to direct the film, but left the project for...

 by producers Gail Mutrux

Gail Mutrux

Gail Mutrux is an American film producer, best known for her films Donnie Brasco, Nurse Betty, and Kinsey.Pretty Pictures, Mutrux's company, produces most of her films as well as the upcoming Nicole Kidman-starring adaptation of The Danish Girl.-Selected Filmography as Producer:* Quiz Show as...

 and Neil LaBute

Neil LaBute

Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...

. It was announced that Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

 will be playing the role of Einar/Lili. Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...

 was originally slated to play the role of Gerda, but Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...

 took over for her only to later pull out for personal reasons. The new replacement is Rachel Weisz

Rachel Weisz

Rachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970)is an English-American film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues...

.

In music, The Stripper Project released "Filthy Wonderful" in 2008, inspired by the story of Lili Elbe.

MIX Copenhagen - LesbianGayBiTrans Film Festival

MIX Copenhagen

MIX Copenhagen | LesbianGayBiTrans Film Festival is one of the oldest LGBT film festivals in the world. Formerly known as CGLFF - Copenhagen Gay & Lesbian Film Festival , it is the oldest and one of the biggest film festivals in Denmark. In 2010 the name was changed to MIX COPENHAGEN...

 gives every year four awards (best feature, best documentary, best short, audience's favorite) named Lili after Lili Elbe.

Further reading

• Man into Woman, a book about the life of Lili Elbe (edited by Ernst Ludwig Hathorn Jacobson using the pseudonym
  Pseudonym
  A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
  
  Niels Hoyer) was published in 1933. The book also uses pseudonyms for her friends. ISBN 0954707206
• 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.

External links

• 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