Some reports indicate that she already had rudimentary ovaries in her abdomen and may have had Klinefelter syndrome. It is speculated that Elbe was intersex, although that has been disputed. Facts about her wife Gerda Gottlieb's life suggest that the 1882 date is correct because they married while at college in 1904, when Elbe would have been just eighteen if the 1886 date were correct. Her birth year is sometimes cited as 1886 by a book about her in which some facts have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved. It is generally believed that Elbe was born in 1882, in Vejle, Denmark, the child of Ane Marie Thomsen and spice merchant Mogens Wilhelm Wegener, according to the registry at St. A film inspired by her life, The Danish Girl, was released in 2015. The UK and US versions of her semi-autobiographical narrative were published posthumously in 1933 under the title Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex. She was the first known recipient of a uterus transplant in attempt to achieve pregnancy, but died due to the subsequent complications. After transitioning in 1930, she changed her legal name to Lili Ilse Elvenes, stopped painting, and later adopted the surname Elbe. She was a painter under her birth name Einar Wegener.

Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter, trans woman, and among the early recipients of gender-affirming surgery (sex reassignment surgery).

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff