Anniversary of the death of Lili Elbe

A word from our sponsor:

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

I was just installing a few bookmarks on a new computer (refurbished variety) as I'll be putting my regular one in for repair - tipped a cuppa over the keyboard and have been running it on a plug in kepboard - when I discovered that according to wiki, today, September 13th is the anniversary of the death of Lili Elbe, the Danish transsexual woman who died from complications arising from surgery in 1931.

As she was a real pioneer in the world of gender realisation, I think it fitting we remember her as a real person not just the subject of the Danish Girl. May she rest in peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Elbe

Comments

Trust me, I'm a doctor...

laika's picture

I wonder what made a doctor think he could transplant a uterus into someone. Lilli Elbe really wanted to have babies, and I can sure understand that, but Doctor Warnekos should have known better than to go all Frankenstein on a person before a procedure like that had been tried on animals. I don't know how big of a Nazi he was, but he was a party member, and that just seems so typically Nazi to use a human being as a guinea pig and then go "Oh well... now we've learned what we can't do!"

Or maybe he really did just want to help her, and had some reason why he thought a foreign body part wouldn't be rejected. And it's sad that the Nazis later destroyed all the records at the Hirschfield Institute, shrouding big chunks of Ms. Elbe's story and much of what went on there in mystery. I wonder especially what happened to Little Dora, one of the five trans housekeepers who worked at the institute. I like to think that she got to live a longer happier life than poor Lilli did, that wasn't cut short by someone's medical incompetence. Maybe I'll write a book about her. It would probably be at least as factual as The Danish Girl...

More complicated

erin's picture

A transplant of an ovary had already been done and appeared to work, or at least did not lead to rejection and massive infection like the uterus transplant did. It was the infection that killed Lili, not the transplant itself.

Pioneers are often martyrs.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.