The Danish Girl

Plots: A love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda’s marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili’s groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer. Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda are a happily married couple. Both are artists, Einar preferring landscapes and she portraits. One day Einar poses for a portrait of Gerda’s while wearing a dress. This is initially done as a lark, as is the later attendance at a party dressed as a woman. However, Einar soon discovers that she is in fact a woman and over time prefers being Lili. At first she and Gerda try to have her situation “cured” but this leads nowhere (other than to many doctors trying to have Lili locked up as a pervert and/or lunatic). Her voyage of self-discovery will ultimately lead to her undergoing the first ever sex-change operation. Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Happily married artists Einar and Gerda Wegener come under strain when Gerda playfully asks her husband to fill in for one of her female models. Suddenly, as Einar reluctantly poses for her wearing an elegant dress, the intimate experience triggers a subtle transformation inside the perplexed painter. Convinced he is Lili, a woman trapped in a man’s body, Einar boldly accepts his true self and starts living as a woman. But, to everyone’s surprise, the radical change is not an ephemeral caprice. After all, Einar is determined to live his new life to the fullest. Despite facing prejudice, discrimination, social dictations, and public outcry, Einar plucks up the courage to fight for the right to be different and undergoes a highly experimental sex reassignment surgery. The trailblazing decision made Lili a notable transgender pioneer.