#einar wegener

With a pet... I've never seen him post any pictures with his chickens or "adopted" stray cats, so I'll just use pictures of Eddie with animals in general.

I love these gifs because they always makes me laugh.

I know he's allergic to cats (which hurts my soul as a cat person) but he's still taken the sweetest photos with a kitten I've ever seen.

Some of his characters have had pets... so why not?

Pride Month – Trans Literature

UWM Special Collections holds numerous publications in its UWM LGBT Collection documenting the history of the trans experience. Our earliest publication is this 1933 biography of Danish artist Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, Man into Woman, An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex, compiled and edited by Niels Hoyer (pseudonym for the German writer and translator Ernst Harthern). Elbe was a transgender woman and one of the first documented individuals to receive gender reassignment surgery.

Purportedly on Elbe’s own wishes, Hoyer wrote the account “partly from his own knowledge, partly from material dictated by Lili herself, partly from Lili’s diaries, and partly from letters written by Lili and other persons concerned.” The original Danish edition was published in 1931 under the title Fra mand til kvinde, published by Hage & Clausen. A year later it was published in German by C. Reissner in Dresden under the title Ein Mensch wechselt sein Geschlecht, eine Lebensbeichte; aus hinterlassenen Papieren. Our copy is a fifth printing of the first English-language edition translated by the English socialist and translator Henry James Stenning, and published in 1933 by Jarrolds Publishing. The book includes 25 photographic illustrations and an introduction by the noted Australian/British sexologist Norman Haire.

Elbe was married to Gerda Gottlieb Wegener, a very well-noted artist in her day, and many of her paintings used Elbe as a model. The book not only includes images of Einar, Lili, Gerda, and their friends, but also images of several paintings by Gerda Wegener. Lili Elbe died in 1931 at age 48 not after a second surgery as depicted in the highly fictionalized 2015 biopic The Danish Girl, but after a fourth to implant a uterus, which was rejected by her immune system. The film by Tom Hooper is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by American writer David Ebershoff, which in turn drew much of its source information from Man into Woman.

I 've never seen this photo before !! It was taken the day after The Danish Girl premiere at the Venice Film Festival! I, Daniela Spotti and Judit were there! Beautiful memories!!

Before I go into ANYTHING else...let’s talk about the actual Danish Girl, Lili Elbe, or Lili Ilse Elvenes.

Oh, uh, full warning, this is gonna be LONG, so skip to the bottom if you’re just here for the Review! OK, history time!

Now, what the film The Danish Girl notes about the beginning of the transition is pretty spot-on, from what I can tell. After marrying portrait painter Gerda Gottlieb in 1904, the two lived in Italy and France before moving to Paris in 1912. Yeah, that’s over 14 years before they’re shown doing so in the movie. Inaccuracy #1. In 1908 (here comes number 2), Elbe (Einar at the time) painted this portrait of trees along a fjord in Denmark.

Yeah, NOT in 1926, as the film says. But, yeah, that’s a nitpick, I recognize that. Anyway, the revelation came when model Anna Larssen (not “Ulla”, which is Inaccuracy #3) was late, and Gerda asked Elbe to fill in. When Larssen eventually showed up, she suggested the name “Lili”. Basically, this scene from the movie was pretty goddamn accurate.

Except for the dates, anyway. Because while the movie mostly takes place around 1926 and afterwards, this probably happened closer to 1920, in Paris. So, yeah, Lili spent a LOT more time as Lili in real life. Additionally, Lili was pretty goddamn public about the whole thing, inviting guests and hosting parties as herself, rather than as Einar. At the same time, Gerda was getting pretty goddamn famous for her paintings of Lili, like this one.

Which, yeah, are really good! Also, they were considered lesbian erotica by many! YEAH! And here’s a fun fact: Gerda may not have been straight-up straight. Yeah, the film and the book (we’ll get there) kind of ignored the fact that their marriage was annulled by the Danish government, not by the two of them. Inaccuracy #4. Now, obviously, their relationship ended, and Lili ended up getting together with a man (we’ll get there, too), but there are a LOT of unanswered questions about Gerda’s sexuality, and views of sexuality (which is barely hinted at in the “male gaze” speech in the beginning).

After the annulment, the two just...drifted apart. Their relationship dissolved, and the details on that are fuzzy. By 1930, Lili was headed on a completely different path. She wasn’t a painter like Einar (and it turns out that she thought of them as two entirely separate people, like two souls living in the same body, which the movie got mostly right), and she was mostly unsatisfied with her career, life, and other things. And that is where Drs. Erwin Gohrbandt and Magnus Hirschfeld come in, NOT Kurt Warnerkros...yet. He’d come in for the other five (YES FIVE) surgeries, but wouldn’t be involved with the first. Inaccuracy #5, and also #6, while we’re at it! See, the film would make you think that Lili was the first complete gender reassignment surgery, but she was actually the second. The first would be Dora Richter, in a procedure that was performed by Dr. Hirschfeld from 1922 - 1931. YEAH. BIG-ASS INACCURACY THERE. Here’s Dora, by the way:

Anyway, Lili had her first procedure, to remove the testicles, performed in 1930. In the same year, the divorce between Lili and Gerda was finalized, and Lili legally changed her name. Two more procedures were performed, the first to implant an ovary, and the second to remove the penis and scrotum. Inaccuracy #7, by the way. And, hey, let’s go for number 8! Let’s talk about Henrik, a dude who didn’t exist. He and Hans were both very loosely based on an art dealer named Claude Lejeune.

Claude was an art dealer (there’s the Hans part), and was indeed in love with Lili. They got together around early 1931, and he’d actually been in love with her for a good, long time. He proposed to marry Lili, and she accepted, also hoping that the two would be able to have children together. But to do that, it was believed that Lili would need a uterus. And, obviously, having children would be MILES more complicated than that in basically EVERY way, but this was early in medical science’s understanding of some of that biology.

In any case, however, Lili would need both a uterus and a vagina to feel whole. And so, the fourth surgery was scheduled. And she had that surgery in 1931, a couple of weeks after Dora Richter successfully had the same surgery performed. But, sadly, Lili wouldn’t be so lucky.

Lili’s body rejected the uterus, and while transplant rejections of any kind wouldn’t necessarily be fatal now, they definitely were back then. They attempted to remove it, but that subsequent 5th surgery caused infection, which caused a fatal heart attack three months later. Lili Elbe died on September 13, 1931, at the age of FORTY-EIGHT. Yeah, Inaccuracy #9.

By the way, you may be wondering: what about Dora Richter, the first successful person to get these surgeries? Well, she disappeared...in Germany...as the Nazis were coming into power...yeah. Fuckin’ YIKES.

And so, that’s the true story of Lili Elbe. And there are far more differences than that, I’m sure, but those 9 inaccuracies aren’t insignificant, that’s for sure. Although, it probably doesn’t help that the movie was based on a fictionalized book.

Oh, uh...did I not mention that? Yeah, this movie is based on The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff, which means that this film is essentially a cinematic game of telephone. Which, uh...not great. Granted, Ebershoof made some other...interesting changes, which the film didn’t inherit. In the book, for example, Gerda is named Greta, and is American? Um...why? I dunno, it’s kind of weird. Oh, and that’s not including one more issue with the movie. But, you’ve waited long enough, huh? Recap of the film is here and here if you wanna check that out! Let’s get to the Review already!

Views of Rome -  Einar Wegener, 1910

Danish, 1882-1931