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Mrinmoyee Manna

Simran Vijan

PAMAENG302

7 September 2022

The Issue of Gender Identity in David Ebershroff’s The Danish Girl

Abstract:

Gender identity is a personal concept of oneself, if the self is male, female, both or

neither. Judith Butler says that a gender is something that is socially constructed and it will

not always depend on one’s physical aspect. There have been a lot of struggles and protests

by the people of the LGBTQI (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex), fighting

for their rights and place in the society. In the same way The Danish Girl also deals with

gender identity. The central character Lili goes through a phase of uncertainty regarding the

gender and, decides to take up a gender reassignment surgery to end the confusion. This

paper aims to study how Lili goes through struggle with her own gender identity.

Keywords: gender identity, LGBTQI, Social construction, gender reassignment.

The Danish Girl is the first novel of New York based writer David Ebershroff. He is a

twentieth century writer, editor and teacher. Some of his works include The Danish Girl, The

19th Wife, Pasadena, and The Rose City. His works have been translated into more than

twenty-five languages. His books Pasadena and The 19th Wife have been the New York

Times Best sellers. The Rose city has been adapted into a television movie. The Danish Girl
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was too adapted into a movie which was nominated for the Oscars and was also named by the

New York Times as one of the twenty-five books that have shaped the LGBTQ Literature.

His works have been honored by The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Lambad

Literary Foundation and The American Library Association. Ebershroff had been named

twice in the Out Magazine’s 100 list of influential LGBT people.

Gender identity is a personal idea of one’s own self, whether that self is a male,

female, both or neither of it. The main protagonist of The Danish Girl struggles with his own

gender identity throughout the novel. The book The Danish Girl can be said to be

fictionalized version of an autobiography- Man into Woman: The First Sex Change by Lili

Elbe. Wegener the central character of the book was born in Vijle, Denmark in 1882. He was

one of the most successful and famous painters in Copenhagen. He got married to a fellow

painter, his former student Greta Gottileb. It is only after the marriage that he slowly started

to transitioning into a woman. The Danish Girl shows the transition journey of Wegener after

his marriage.

Einar is much more successful with his landscape paintings, while Greta was still

struggling to gain some recognition with her work. She was commissioned to paint the

portrait of Anne Fonsmark- a famous opera singer of that time. As her subject Anne was

unavailable so she asked her husband Einar to pose for her so that she could finish her

portrait. She asked him to hold a bouquet of lilies and wear Anne’s dress. She saw that Einar

seemed to enjoy the experience, she maned his alter ego as ‘Lili’. Just to experiment a bit and

have fun they venture out to the Artists Ball where Einar dresses up as Lili and they tell

others in attendance that she was Einar’s cousin.

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The couple then moves to Paris. Greta tracks down Einar’s childhood friend, now

who had become an art dealer. Einar stopped painting altogether whereas Greta started to

gain popularity in France. Einar started going to peep shoes to learn how move, behave like a

woman. Einar kept on struggling with his identity, he became more and more melancholic

with himself. He wanted to be Lili all the time he did not want to Einar any more. Because of

this identity crisis he even tries to commit suicide. Greta and her brother Carlisle take Einar

to see many doctors, all of the doctors misdiagnose him. They either want to declare him

schizophrenic or want to perform lobotomy on him. They meet Professor Bolk and they

discover that there is only one option left for Lili that is to live her life to the fullest. Professor

Bolk had developed method in which a man changed into a woman by conducting a surgery.

After the surgery it is discovered that Einar was born with a pair of ovaries which

were underdeveloped which also made him a female biologically. Lili returns to Copenhagen

with Greta after the surgery. Even after the divorce they continue to live together. Lili decides

to back to Dresden to have the ovarian transplant and lets Greta know about her decision.

Greta refuses to accompany her as she feels that the procedure is too risky. Only Carlisle is

the one who accompanies Lili to Dresden. While performing the surgery there are serious

complications, hence Lili gets infected. It is revealed that she will not live long. Carlisle takes

Lili for a walk on the side of Elbe, a river in Dresden which is Lili’s last walk.

Lili’s struggle of gender identity and the trauma face by her are represented in this

novel. The subject of LGBT was a very sensitive in the time in which Lili was going through

a transition phase. To be a part of the LGBT community was considered to be a sin. Doctors

had even considered them to be mentally unstable or schizophrenic. Gender identity is still an

issue in today’s age, where the relevant people are still fighting for their rights in the society.
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Lili as a person was born with underdeveloped ovaries which biologically made him a

woman, this can be considered to be main reason that he and his wife both were confused.

She only realizes that she is a woman when she was made to pose as a model wearing a dress

and a pair of stockings for Greta, from that moment on her struggle to turn into a complete

women started.

Jhon William Money a psychologist and sexologist was the one to fist discover the

idea of gender identity. Judith Butler Later in her book ‘Gender Trouble’ explained gender

identity as a theory “whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is socially

constructed hence, gender is neither the casual result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex.”

(Butler,9) Gender does not restrict itself to biological factor but also depends on how an

individual is seen by public and how the individual wants to appear in public.

“I need a pair of legs to finish her portrait,Or I’ll never get it done. And then I thought to

myself, yours’s might do.” (4)

It all started with the above lines when Greta made Einar wear the model’s dress and

stockings. During the process Einar goes through many thoughts in his head. At first he was

hesitant to dress up as a women. He requests Greta to keep this a secret as the word dress

itself makes him guilty. He feels that he doing something wrong- some kind of sin or

something embarrassing. Einar was a great painter it is evident that people are judged on their

gender and orientation, being a reputed painter he did not want lose his reputation. The stage

where following conversations take place are very important:‘I’ve been thinking about her,’

Einar said. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Little Lili.’‘Then why don’t we see her again?” (18).

From then on Einar starts dressing up as Lili often. What started as a fun game had

turned into something that Greta never imagined, the game had turned her husband into a
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woman. She however realizes that she was one who started the game. Even after realizing

what she has done she uses Lili as her model for her paintings which made her famous

instantly.

Einar dresses up as Lili for the ball. Everyone believes her to be a women and Greta

introduces her as Einar’s cousin. Lili is also approached by a man named Henrik. Later in the

novel they both fall in love with each other. Einar once discloses to Greta about Hans. His

close childhood friend whom he once tried to kiss, this is enough to say that Einar had

qualities of a girl from a very young age. Greta found Einar to be a timid, tiny man before

marriage. He was a professor but his physique made him look like a young boy, younger that

Greta. Throughout Einar did not possess masculine qualities.

Einar finally confessed to Greta that he completely wants to change into Lili and erase

Einar forever and bring Lili to life. For Greta this meant that she would loose her husband

forever, even after knowing this she supports him. She supresses her feelings because she

loves Einar so much that she cannot afford to lose him so they move to Paris so that Einar

could have a private life and live as Lili. Greta visits few of the famous doctors to know their

opinion on gender change without informing Einar or Lili. The concept of a person thinking

that they are outside the physical gender that is assigned to them was something that was

considered as insanity in the early 1900’s. As expected, the doctor says, “It’s about sanity,

wouldn’t you agree with me, Mrs. Wegener? …I trust you’ll agree with me that we should do

whatever it takes to get this demon out of him” (99).

Greta’s brother Carlisle takes charge of Lili and provides her with everything to turn

her into a complete woman. It is then that they meet doctor Bolk who is ready to his first ever

gender reassignment surgery. Lili would have to undergo three phases of operation, in which
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the last phase might put her life at risk. Greta supports her throughout the two phases of the

operations but does not support for the last one because she cannot bare to see her suffer. So,

it is Carlisle who accompanies for the last phase. The last phase was a uterus transplant which

would create a possibility of Lili getting pregnant as she always wanted to be a mother.

The doctor reveals that the uterus has been infected during the transplant and that Lili

woold die soon. Carlisle does not reveal this to her and takes her to Elbe, the river where she

got her name from. She always wanted to go by the river. She is taken there by a wheel chair

which became her last and final visit as she die.

The transformation from Einar to Lili can be seen as the most difficult as Einar did

not have to undergo physical transformation but had to also undergo mental trauma of not

being able to identify his gender. This transformation has encouraged the LGBTQ

community. The author himself realised his life’s worth only after knowing the character of

Lili Elbe. It is not the physical transformation from man to woman that makes Lilli a

historical character, it is the realisation of her ‘identity’.

Reference:

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge Classics, 2006.Pdf.

https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf.

22August 2022.

Ebershoff, David. The Danish Girl. New York: Penguin Group, 2000. Pdf.

https://archive.org/details/cam-scanner-08-26-2020-22.06.52/page/46/mode/2up. 22 August

2022.
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Wikipedia contributors. " David Ebershoff." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,

The Free Encyclopedia, 22 August 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ebershoff.