Lili Elbe, born Einar Wegener December 28, 1882 in Vejle, Denmark, was a transgender woman, who is the first person to receive a uterus transplant. She began painting under her birth name and married Gerda Gottlieb in 1904. Gottlieb was also a painter and she and Lili moved to Paris in 1912, where Elbe cold live more openly as a woman, passing herself off as Gottlieb's sister-in-law.
Elbe considered suicide before learning about sex reassignment surgery, which was highly experimental at the time. In 1930, she traveled to the Hirschfeld Institute for Sexual Science in Germany, and went through four surgeries. The first was a removal of the testicles, and the second implanted an ovary into her abdomen. The third operation removed the penis and the scrotum.
The fourth surgery which took place in 1931 was for Elbe to receive a transplant uterus and construct a vaginal canal, making her one of the first transgender woman to under go a vaginoplasty surgery. Her immune system rejected the transplanted uterus, causing an infection. She died in September 1931 three months after the surgery.
The LGBTQ+ film festival MIX Copenhagen gives out four Lili Awards each year, named for Elbe. She painted many successful images before stopping after the transition.
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