27.12.2015 SECTION 4 QUIZ OF News THE YEAR Review PAGE 6 Who’s girthat l?

Lili Elbe was one of the first people to have a full sex change and was vilified for it. She is now played by in a film based on a book by , who reveals her transition was made possible by the love of another woman — her wife

mysterious eyes cast in the direction of She lived at a time when there were Hearts was her biggest champion: her wife, enormous white hat ready for a masquerade something outside the frame. What is she almost no resources for her to turn to — . ball; nude, her backside exposed, on an looking at? The past? The future? Are her almost no information for her to look up; Gerda’s love and support played a funda- upholstered red chair; looking over her eyes full of joy? Apprehension? Is she no organisations for her to reach out to; no mental role in Lili’s transition. They were shoulder with those big, hooded eyes. The looking at someone we can’t see? representation in the media; and, at least both artists. Lili, as Einar, had had a suc- portraits capture Lili’s complexity — her When — whose life inspired my initially, no one in the medical establish- cessful career as a landscape painter. The gaze can make her appear both innocent It’s Paris. It’s 1928. It’s a painting — an first book and the new film ment willing or able to help. couple met in art school and shared a studio andmature,hesitantanddriven,playfuland oil portrait — called Queen of Hearts. In it a — sat for this painting she was at a cross- The doctors she first consulted labelled in Copenhagen. They were best friends and serious. They depict the contours and woman is playing cards and smoking a ciga- roads. After years of internal struggle she her insane or schizophrenic.They wantedto comrades, as they described themselves, as shadows of her soul, the contradictions, the rette. She wears a short dress as pink as a had finally come to understand who she lobotomise her or lock her up. One put her well as husband and wife. When Lili began inner strength and self-doubt. The portraits bougainvillea. One leg is tucked under her really was. Assigned male at birth and given through a harmful radiation treatment in her transition, Gerda was presented with a also show us the depth of Gerda’s love — she thigh. Her other foot is propped on a chair. A the name Einar Wegener, Lili now saw her order to “cure” her of her most fundamental question many of us have faced: what do you saw Lili clearly, accepted her fully and then large pearl hangs from her ear, almost as trueselfinthemirrorandinportraitssuch as sense of herself. Yet Lili’s heart and mind do when the person you love feels they have painted her for the world to see her as she luminous as the one the girl wears in the Queen of Hearts. But she was a reassured her of the truth. to change? Gerda answered that question by saw herself. Their story is as much about art famous painting by Vermeer. But it’s the woman decades before the word trans- Fortunately Lili was not alone in her loving Lili even more. asit isaboutlove andidentity—about seeing woman’seyesIalwaysreturnto —big,dark, gender existed. journey. In fact, the artist painting Queen of Gerda painted Lili over and over — in an Continued on page 2 uu NEWS REVIEW 2 / Pictures of Lili, the transgender

uu Continued from page 1 Until then I had always understood the thepotential inthe world; about imagining American to be the something before it exists; about defying first person to have had gender-affirma- convention in order to create. Love, imagi- tion surgery. Given the name George at nation, talent and determination opened birth, Jorgensen was a Second World War both women to the full possibility of Lili. veteran from the Bronx who, in 1951, trav- In a scene in the film, Gerda, played by elled to Denmark for two operations. , is at a gallery opening of Her return to New York the following her latest Lili portraits. They are a sensa- year brought her international publicity tion; the paintings of the mysterious (the New York Daily News put her on the Danish woman with the haunting eyes cover under the headline “Ex-GI becomes have caught the attention of the Paris art blonde beauty”). Jorgensen was an impor- world. Lili, portrayed by Eddie Redmayne, tant advocate for transgender rights and isthere,exceptshe’sindisguise:dressedas usedher celebrityto educateandengender Einar Wegener, in starched white collar empathy. But at some point a myth built up andastranglingnecktie,no one recognises around her: that she was the first in his- her, either as the woman in the portraits, tory, which turned out not to be true. or for who she really is. So I began to wonder why, outside a She feels invisible both to the world and small group of key scholars and activists, to herself. “Excuse me,” a rich American few knew the name Lili Elbe. If Lili had woman says. “Is the model here? Oh, I was been a pioneer, why had history mostly so hoping to meet her.” Lili’s face flickers. forgotten her? I’ve always read a lot of his- In her brow, in her lip, we can see her pain tory. Until recently I was an editor at and disappointment — I’m right here, Random House and worked closely with she’s desperate to say. Ignore the necktie, many historians on many books. This ignore the suit jacket — I’m here. That question about who history remembers woman in the paintings — that is me. and who history buries into oblivion has Gerda Wegener believed Queen of always interested me. Hearts was one of her best paintings of Lili, In Lili’s case the answers are complex. according to Nikolaj Pors, who is com- Notlongaftershetransitioned,Hitlercame pleting a biography of Lili. Gerda sold it for to power, overwhelming the world with a 1,000 francs but several years later tried to dozen years ofdevastatinghistory and vast get it back. “It’s a snapshot of Lili’s vitality human misery. In February 1945, allied and her will. This is Lili in the best days of bombers destroyed her beloved Dresden, her life,” says Pors. “But it also shows her including the municipal women’s clinic on the threshold of crisis. Just after the where many of her medical records were painting was done she became ill and suf- stored. fered a mental breakdown.” Then of course there are the biases of Her internal struggle had become those who write history: until somewhat external; she could no longer endure the recently, many viewed lesbian, gay, world perceiving her as anyone other than bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) history herself. Yet she had no examples of how to asmarginal,orevennonexistent;somestill solve this — to use the great Jan Morris’s do today. Yet Lili’s spirit could not be sup- word — conundrum. pressed: during the decades when few Gerda’s portraits of Lili capture her complexity: innocent and mature; playful and serious Two years after sitting for Queen of remembered her, she remained alive in Hearts, Lili travelled to Germany for a portraits like Queen of Hearts. series of experimental operations, becom- With few precedents to draw on, Lili had ingone ofthe firstto have what we nowcall to invent new ways of expressing herself, There has been real progress in the fight then, we can’t forget how much work gender-affirmation surgery. both to herself and to the world. Sitting for for transgender rights since I began work- remains. Around the world many Thesurgeriesdonotdefineherlifeorher Queen of Hearts and the other portraits ing on The Danish Girl 18 years ago. Last transgender men and women continue to gender, but she placed enormous impor- played a vital role in that self-expression. month the White House invited director face ignorance, bigotry, rejection by their tance on them and accepted the consider- She had to create nearly every step of her , Vikander and other cast and families and horrific violence. Lili’s able risks. “If sooner or later I should transition, imagining her way forward. crew members of The Danish Girl to par- struggle to find adequate medical care is succumb physically, I am quite reconciled. Inevitably she made a few mistakes. At ticipate in a programme called “Cham- not all that different from what many I shall at least have known what it is to times she underestimated her own com- pions of Change”. experience today. live,” she wrote in a letter included in the plexity and relied on simplistic tropes of This is something I could never have Yet the culture is changing, and perhaps indispensable 1933 book about her, Man femininity. imagined in the late 1990s. Back then I the greatest reason for this are the stories into Woman.Liliunderstoodthatafalselife Some of her language — her use of pro- wondered whether anyone would be being told. One by one these stories go out is no way to live. nouns, for example — is different from the interested in this story. But I gave myself into theworldandaffectmindsandchange I first read about Lili 18 years ago, in a language we use today. This is part of any the advice that I frequently share with my heartsandtouchlivesinwayswe cannever book about gender and identity. It was a groundbreaking life: not only are you students and aspiring writers: write the fully comprehend. Lili’s story is one of the briefmention but afewdetailslitmy imag- among the first to walk down a path, you book you want to read. So I bought a plane first in this growing tradition. ination: the roles of art and marriage in her are responsible for clearing the brush and ticket to Copenhagen and told my boss I A few months ago I went to Dresden’s transition, and the rich settings of Copen- laying the paving stones. Almost certainly was spending my two weeks of vacation in Trinity cemetery to visit Lili’s grave. It’s a hagen, Paris and Dresden between the a few of them will need to be reworked by Denmark. When he asked why there, I told simple,sunnyplot,thegrassalittlegreener wars. those who follow. To expect perfection him I was looking for a friend. than the lawns around it. The cemetery The first thing to really draw my atten- from our forerunners is to ask them to be While it’s important to note the master told me roughly 10 people each tion, though, was a question of history. something other than human. advancements in transgender rights since month come to pay their respects. Some leave flowers or candles or simply spend time at her side. I imagine that number will grow with the release of The Danish Girl. Through Redmayne’s portrayal of her, more people will understand Lili’s legacy. Through Vikander’s portrayal of Gerda, many more will see the depth of her love. I hadn’t been to Dresden since 1998, when I was working on the book. I returned in September to tell Lili, as best I could, that all of this was happening because she had dared to be free. Identity — who am I? Who do I want to be? Who do I want others to see? Who among us hasn’t struggled to answer those questions? Who hasn’t questioned the reflection in the mirror? Many of our ambitions, obsessions and pursuits are really about identity. Part of growing up and evolving is answering the question: is this me? For some, it’s the greatest challenge of their lives. Almost a century ago, a Danish woman — although she insisted on calling herself a girl — put her foot up on a chair and posed for a portrait. Her props were a cigarette and a deck of cards. In the painting she shows us her best card: the Queen of Hearts. In the painting she shows us her best self: a woman named Lili. David Ebershoff is the author of The Danish Girl. His most recent novel is The 19th Wife Resisting Hogmanay is futile:

(tartan) blankets and carted from house to house. JENNY Motherhood, even the impending variety, was never an excuse. In fact it HJUL was on one of these occasions, when enjoyment of the third or fourth compulsory whisky paled to the point of nausea, that I first realised I must be pregnant. Back then we had a cottage in the Angus glens about 1,000ft up a mountain and usually snowbound by ost people prefer to see in the was allowed to stay in and wash my hair December. In the Scottish countryside, new year at home, apparently, or, heaven forbid, go to bed early are a where tradition dies hard, Hogmanay is a slumped in front of the distant memory. serious business. Mtelevision, recovering from Just before the bells (you have to say it Even when the children were babies the festive excesses and saving their there was no escaping the enforced like that, “the bells”, ideally with a hint remaining cash. Although this hedonism that marks new year here, and of portent), any guests you have gathered information comes courtesy of one of they would have to be stolen from their are thrown out into the Arctic air. But not those annual supermarket surveys that cots shortly after midnight, swaddled in before a lump of filthy coal is shoved in reports bulk sales of booze at this time of their hands. You can’t refuse to go year (surprise!), it is more than plausible. outside as I did on my inaugural Who in their right minds would choose to Hogmanay — in Glasgow, as it happened. venture out into the cold night to party It’s better to obey the rules; they are on December 31, a date loaded with stronger than you. By the way, never say unrealistic expectation, when they could “Happy new year” to a Scot ahead of be snuggled up antisocially on the sofa January 1. The correct term is “When it instead? The Scots, that’s who. comes”, which they mutter slightly The pressure to celebrate is much more sheepishly because they know it’s odd. intense north of the border and even if We’ve rented a lodge for Once all the people outside have been you’re lucky enough to live in a allowed back inside, and the toasts have pull-up-the-drawbridge kind of family 20. For a week there will been drunk, it’s time for everyone to go (which I’m not), you will be roped in out again. This was the moment I most whether you like it or not. This Thursday be no early nights, dreaded. A rusty old Land Rover would will be about my 20th Hogmanay as a be cranked into action, back roads would home counties-reared incomer and I maybe no sleep at all be shovelled and off we would set, sliding know of what I speak. The days when I along perilous slopes with the snow still 27.12.15 / 3 pathfinder whom history forgot COURTESY ARKEN GALLERY Eddie, the sensitive boy with the right face to play a girl

om Hooper’s The Danish Girl mean. I don’t think I cared. I really comes as a surprise. The director’s don’t.” Adela, he says, was just the good Tlatest film has Eddie Redmayne part to get. “I would love to say that I playing Lili Elbe, originally Einar found it complicated ... I never did.” Wegener, who in 1930-31 became one of As natural as he was for Lili, then, the first people to undergo a full sex Redmayne still had a mountain to climb. change. It is really about two Danish Reading the script was, he says, an girls, as it follows the love story between education in gender, that it can be more Einar/Lili and his/her wife, Gerda (Alicia than simply binary, male and female. Vikander), who aids and abets her spouse “I’d never questioned this notion of, in the transition. The surprise, though, OK, if it’s binary then where is the isn’t how incongruous all this is, be it the dividing line? Then realising the amount sex change or the love story or of feminine men [out there] and Redmayne’s ravishing copper wig: it’s masculine women, and realising that, of how entirely normal it is for 2015. course, it’s just a spectrum — to my It has been — how can this not sound LOUIS WISE mind.” glib? — the year of “trans”, celebrating Much as with The Theory of those who have travelled, or are Everything, Redmayne thoroughly travelling, from the biological sex of their researched his role as Lili, talking to birth towards a “truer” self. To be various trans women about their “” — that is, to define your experiences. He is aware the film gender according to your sex at birth — because he is tackling a deeply sensitive arguably represents some of the most seems to be a certainty no longer. subject. Every misused pronoun is a disenfranchised and scorned people in The “trans community”, whatever Twitter firestorm. Yet I’m the one making the world today. He says, tentatively, that is, famously got a poster girl this all the mistakes now. At one point, I slowly, that he would like to be an “ally” summer in the shape of Caitlyn Jenner, suggest Redmayne was once “a normal in helping to educate others about this formerly Bruce, who unveiled herself on boy” and he interrupts me: “Careful topic. “If The Danish Girl does anything, I the cover of Vanity Fair, but there have about the word ‘normal’!” He gives a hope it continues the discussion. Am I been several other notable cultural kind but nervy laugh. making sense? Sort of?” beacons. There is the Amazon Prime We were discussing his childhood, Inevitably, the casting of Redmayne in drama Transparent, about a retired because there is something intriguing in such a historic trans role has irritated professor and father transitioning into a the casting. Redmayne’s first professional those who feel a trans actor might have woman, played by the transgender role as an actor was playing Viola in Mark been a more sensitive choice. This is a actress Laverne Cox; and Anohni, Rylance’s Twelfth Night, and since then zeitgeisty can of worms, asking whether formerly known as Antony Hegarty, the he has shown quite how protean he is, in anyone can be allowed to play anyone; singer with Antony and the Johnsons. roles ranging from the romantic (a young what our storytelling is for; how the arts Such revelations will no doubt become production assistant in My Week with can combat inequality. more common as the decade progresses. Marilyn) to camp-as-tents (an alien in “Yep, yep, yep,” he says, seeing the Into this melee daintily steps The Jupiter Ascending). question coming a mile off. “Oh, gosh, I Danish Girl. Hooper’s film is to some More than any other lead male of his think it’s a beyond valid question, with extent a romance, adapted from David generation, though, this happily married many, I mean ... there’s ...” Ebershoff’s novel, which took the basics straight man, who according to reports He regroups a little. “I suppose my take of Lili and Gerda’s story and imagined last week, is set to become a father, on it is that trans people, as far as jobs are the gaps that biography cannot fill. It seems to be able to do female well. It’s no concerned ... There is huge isn’t a reaction to the current news surprise when it turns out he played discrimination already, and there’s also agenda — the script had been in existence Adela Quested in a school production of A been a huge amount of cisgender success for years — but events have caught up Passage to India. (And yes, Eton is all- on the back of trans stories, all of which I with it. What was at first just an unusual male — but why not pick Redmayne’s — and there is not a level playing field — love story now seems prescient and far classmate, Prince William?) but ...” Upon which, he praises the trans weightier. What does Redmayne think Hooper actress Rebecca Root, who appears in The Thankfully, it could have no better saw in him? The actor pulls a face. Danish Girl as a nurse. Yet I never become promoter than Redmayne, that bright, “I don’t know, I don’t think I question entirely sure what his take is, except jolly and ever-diplomatic Old Etonian, that.” He pauses lengthily. “What had he perhaps permanent apology and who turns in a fine, nuanced seen in me? I don’t know ... I mean, I’m concession. performance as the tortured Danish not pretending ... I’m well aware ... I In the end, I say, you do represent a painter. He knows the drill: this time last played women when I was at school, my certain type of galling privilege. year he was trying to raise awareness of first job was playing Viola, and so ...” “Totally,” he replies. “I absolutely see amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, supporting Eventually, we get to what is staring that I represent all of those things, but all his turn as the ALS sufferer Stephen me in the face: “There’s an effeminacy to I can say is, within that context, I am Hawking in The Theory of Everything. the way that I look.” aware of that privilege — and what does He did so well at it all — performance, I then ask Redmayne if this ever privilege give you? It gives you the promotion, advocacy — that he sailed off bothered him when he was younger. At opportunity to try to use it, hopefully. If I with the best actor Oscar in February. my school, for instance, no boy would can be, or try to learn to be, an advocate Now here he is doing it all again, with have been pleased to play Adela Quested. and an ally for trans people’s issues ...” Lili. This is all admirable, but it’s quite a “You know what ... I do see what you And so on and so forth, as he stutters lot of responsibility. Are you a sucker for towards sainthood. I end up feeling rather punishment, I ask Redmayne when we sorry for him — is he tortured about this meet one autumn Saturday morning in a all the time? Another pause, more ums. London hotel suite. “I’m very lucky!” He gives an apologetic “It wasn’t planned, that’s the thing,” laugh. “Do you know what I mean?” he replies, diffident as always. And it’s Lili is awards bait, and Redmayne has true: actors rarely choose. In the case of duly been nominated for a Golden Globe, the Hawking role, Redmayne had to but it’s too early to know yet whether he hustle for the part. In the case of The can scoop a second Oscar in a row. In the Danish Girl, it was Hooper who dropped meantime, the actor must complete work the script in his lap, when Hooper was on the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic directing Redmayne in 2012’s Les Beasts and Where To Find Them. It’s the Misérables. “But in both situations, first mega-blockbuster in which he is genuinely, getting to play Lili Elbe and taking the lead, and another Stephen Hawking, that’s the stuff that responsibility, but of a different kind (I you never ... When you start out acting, won’t say of a lighter kind where you never think you’ll get to play people Pottermania is concerned). Is he as extraordinary as that, or as enjoying taking on these big roles? interesting,” he says. “What’s weird is that I don’t tend to I interviewed Redmayne a year ago ‘enjoy’ it in a conventional sense of the for The Theory of Everything, and if word,” he admits. “Each role comes with Queen of he is just as warm and forthcoming stakes, you know?” He is right, but I can Hearts, the today, it seems he has increased the think of few who handle them better. See 1928 picture pauses and ums and ahs and stop- you next year for the next round of of Lili by her start sentences. This isn’t just because diplomacy. wife, Gerda he is nice, posh and English, but Redmayne with his wife, Hannah Bagshawe The Danish Girl opens in cinemas on Friday Wegener

even a southerner like me must let rip Poet’s corner December 31st JAMES FRASER falling. All this effort and for what? To be The lodge is large but there is nowhere the first to cross the threshold of the to hide. There is “an absolutely gigantic by Richard Hoffman (born 1949) nearest neighbour (known as living area”, I’ve been told, which means first-footing) and hand over your there will be an absolutely gigantic party offerings — shortbread, which they get to at some stage, or possibly every stage, of All my undone actions wander keep, and whisky, of course, which they the coming days. A sound system (I’ve naked across the calendar, sip from your bottle. never liked the sound of that) has been By this stage of the night I would organised too, and a piper was invited, a band of skinny hunter-gatherers, normally have taken over the driving, but not by me — though if it’s who I think blown snow scattered here and there, being the least Scottish and therefore the it is, he is most welcome. What difference most sober member of the group. On we would bagpipes make in that mayhem, stumbling toward a future would trundle until we reached the end anyway? folded in the New Year I secure of the glen, perhaps about four in the morning, and the real partying began. n The sales bring out the crowds, which with a pushpin: January’s picture We have tried to maintain some of will gladden the hearts of high street a painting from the 17th century, these rustic rituals in town, inflicting retailers stung by a surge in online ourselves on the folk in our street at all shopping over Christmas. But if they a still life: Skull and mirror, hours. But it’s not quite the same and we really want to compete with the internet, spilled coin purse and a flower. have been greeted mostly by darkened shops should give their staff lessons in houses, their inhabitants playing dead how not to annoy customers. © Richard Hoffman, from Emblem (Barrow Street Press, 2011) until our backs are turned. The Scots are Seconds after I walked into a shoe shop becoming more like the English, I said to last week, a young woman asked, “How It’s a 16th-century painting, Hunters in the Snow, by Bruegel that first comes to my Scottish husband. They want to stay are you getting on?” Uncharitably, I said I mind when reading this poem: discrete figures in a blank winter landscape, but in, so why don’t we? Let’s admit defeat hadn’t been there long enough to know. heading in the same direction as the “undone actions” all slink into the next year. and watch television. In another shop, a girl about the age of Were the “undone actions” once written up as intentions on various dates through His response was defiant. He has my eldest daughter told me that the item the year and now stand out as accusatory reminders? And January’s picture is rented a shooting lodge for 20, within I was coveting “looked really nice on” — obviously a memento mori, a reminder that death is coming ever closer. Mirrors first-footing range of the glenners. Even on her, perhaps. Reminded that I was usually symbolised vanity, although an element of introspection is possible. Coins as I write, the crates of wine are being straying into mutton dressed as lamb signifythematerialworld,though thefactthey arespilledmight indicate that it will transported northwards, menus for the territory, I left quickly. ultimately fail. A flower can be a sign of new life, but also, if it is wilting, death. The next seven days are being planned and But my favourite flippant shop two-line verses threaten to rhyme by looking as if they might, but never quite do, sleeping arrangements finalised. For a assistant remark came from a robotic which adds to the idea of something being reached for but never quite achieved. It week there will be no early nights, maybe teller in Superdrug who said as I was is a thoughtful approach to the passing of yet another year. no sleep at all. The babies, trained from leaving, “See you later”. Call me David Mills birth to revel, have become teenagers, old-fashioned, but what’s wrong with Comments, but not poems, please, may be sent to [email protected] and they bring friends with them too. “goodbye”? Edinburgh revellers mark the new year. The pressure to celebrate is intense in Scotland