Einar wegener biography samples

Publication History

In March Danish artist Einar Wegener entered Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft) in Berlin, to be interviewed, examined, and photographed before embarking on a series of surgeries that, according to the thinking of the day, would transform him into a woman.

Man into Woman () is the life narrative of Lili Ilse Elvenes, popularly known as Lili Elbe and considered by some scholars (and by the narrative itself) to be the first person to undergo what was then called genital transformation surgery (Genitalumwandlung).

Elbe’s life story, initially published in as Fra Mand til Kvinde [From Man into Woman], is the first full-length narrative of a subject who undergoes a surgical change in sex. We would now call this gender confirmation surgery, but Lili saw herself as a distinct person from Einar (Andreas Sparre in the narrative).

Einar and his wife Gerda Wegener (née Gottlieb), artists who hailed from Copenhagen, w