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'Lili Elbe' (1882 - 1931)'' (but see Notes)'' was the first known recipient of male to female sex reassignment surgery.The Living Room She was born in Denmark and was identified as male at the time of her birth. Originally given the name 'Einar Wegener', she identified as male for most of her life and was a successful artist with that name.

Contents

Einar and Gerda

Lili

Surgeries

Gender Identity

Legal Identity

Death

References

Notes

Books

Einar and Gerda

Einar met Gerda Gottlieb at the Copenhagen Art School (Kunstakademiet)Conway's Vintage Treasures and they married in 1904Gerda on Wikipedia(Spanish), when Einar was 22 and Gerda 19The Copenhagen Post. 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.the Arts, Transgender and Beyond.
They both travelled through Italy and France, eventually settling in Paris in 1912. 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.the Arts, Transgender and Beyond.

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.the Arts, Transgender and Beyond 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. The Copenhagen Post
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. Gerda Wegener. She was apparently very well accepted as a woman and even received a request for marriage many years before her surgical transition.LGBT History Month. Only her closest friends knew that she was transsexual and to others, Elbe was introduced by Gerda as Einar's sisterThe Living Room.

Surgeries

In 1930 she 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.LGBT History Month
The first surgery, removal of the male genitals, was made under the supervision of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.LGBT History Month. The rest of her 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 quickly removed in a third and fourth operation due to rejection and other serious complications.^[1] The 5th operation was to transplant a uterus and was intended to allow her to be a mothereTransgender.comQAllianceTranshistory.net.

Gender Identity

It is believed that she was probably intersexual; she looked more female than male, and may have had Klinefelter's Syndrome or some other SRY gene transfer condition. As most of the known intersex conditions were not formerly 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.Transhistory.net
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.eTransgender.com

Legal Identity

At the time of Lili's surgery her case was already a sensation in newspapers of Denmark and Germany. The King of Denmark invalidated her and Gerda's marriage in October 1930. Lili managed to get her sex and name legally changed, including receiving a passport for her new name. She also stopped painting believing it to be something that only Einar did.
Gerda went on to marry a mutual friend, Nando Porta. Lili accepted a proposal from another unknown man - which she intended to follow up as soon as she would be able to "become a mother"eTransgender.com.

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 transplanteTransgender.com. She is buried in Dresden. However, some believe that she may have just faked her death to live in peace with another name.

References

1. History of Facial Feminisation Surgery


★ 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 1904The Copenhagen Post.

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