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 Eddie Redmayne in a film based on a book by David Ebershoff, 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 — Gerda Wegener. 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 Lili Elbe — 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 The Danish Girl 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 transgender 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 Christine JorgenseN 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. Alicia Vikander, 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 Tom Hooper, 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.