Lili Elbe: the painter behind The Danish Girl

Lili Elbe's name is known today mostly through a novel and a film. Her own life was stranger, braver and sadder than either, and she deserves to be known for more than being someone else's subject.

Who was Lili Elbe?

She was born in Denmark in 1882 and trained as a painter, becoming known for landscapes. She married the illustrator Gerda Wegener, and the couple lived and worked in Copenhagen and later in Paris.

Lili began living as herself in stages. For years she appeared in Gerda's portraits, and in the couple's social circle, before she lived openly as a woman.

Her surgeries

In 1930 she travelled to Germany, where she was seen at Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and then underwent a series of operations, some of them in Dresden under the gynaecologist Kurt Warnekros. These were among the first gender-affirming surgeries on record.

Her marriage to Gerda was annulled, and Lili was able to have her legal identity recognised in Denmark. She hoped to marry again and to have children, and a further, experimental operation was performed with that hope in mind. She died in 1931, from complications following that surgery.

The Danish Girl

Her story was published after her death in a book assembled from her letters and diary entries. Much later it inspired David Ebershoff's 2000 novel The Danish Girl, and a 2015 film of the same name. Both are fiction based on her life, and both change significant details.

The film in particular drew criticism, including for casting a cis actor as Lili. Whatever you think of it, it is worth remembering that the book and the film are other people's versions of her.

Why she matters

Lili Elbe lived at a moment when almost nothing was known and almost nothing was safe, and she went ahead anyway. Her life is part of why later generations, including Christine Jorgensen two decades on, found doctors willing to help.

Who was the first transgender person? places her in that wider history.