7. Lili Elbe: “The Danish Girl” whose desire to live a full female life killed her.
The subject of the film, “The Danish Girl,” Lile Elbe is one of the most famous transgender figures of recent times. She was born Einar Wegener in Denmark in 1882. Einar showed no discernible signs of being transgender until his life changed forever when his wife, the illustrator Gerda Gottlieb asked him to stand in for one of the regular models she used for her illustrations in Paris fashion magazines. The effect of women’s clothing upon Einar was instantaneous. “I liked the feel of soft women’s clothing,” Einar later wrote.” I felt very much at home in them from the first moment.”
Einar began dressing as a woman regularly, accompanying Gerda about Paris, posing as her sister Lile. However, after fifteen years, Einar’s duel nature began to take its toll. He felt two people were fighting for supremacy over his body: the “steady and sensible” Einar and the “superficial, thoughtless and flighty,” Lile. After a suicide attempt, Lile won. Doctors referred Einar to the Dresden Institute where surgeons removed his penis and implanted ovaries. Lile and Gerda divorced, and Lile began a relationship with Claude Lejeune, a French art dealer with whom she hoped to have a child. In 1932, doctors implanted a womb transplant, but Lile’s body rejected it. By September Lile was dead of the resulting infection.