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The following quotation is from the novel, The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff: it appears in the notes at the back, entitled a conversation with David Ebershoff.
How did writing this book affect your views on the choices of the transgendered?
'Writing the novel gave me a new understanding of courage. And seventy years after Lili Elbe made her historically courageous decision, it still requires nearly super-human courage to decide to proceed with a sex change. This is changing, gradually, slowly. It requires a faith that you can turn your world on its head and yet still emerge with a sense of yourself intact. How many of us are strong enough to something like that?'
I think I like Mr Ebershoff, and I'm looking forward to reading his novel which I've just acquired. It's a fictionalised account of the relationship between the first post operative transsexual of the modern age, Einar Wegener who became Lili Elbe, and his wife (Gerda)Greta.
Angharad.
Comments
Re: The Danish Girl
I enjoyed reading ‘The Danish girl’ and would recommend it to you all. I also remembered that there was talk of a film being made. A check of IMDB has a page for the movie being released next year:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810819/
Whether it happens or not depends on the vagaries of the movie business, but fingers crossed it will.
Love
Anne G
I Just Finished reading it Myself
The author says, "This is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the case of Einar Wegener and his wife". He goes on to say that, "I have changed so many elements of Einar Wegener's story that the characters in these pages are entirely fictional". He did use information from an earlier book Man into Woman that is a compilation of Lili Elbe's (Wegener's female name) diaries and correspondence to obtain factual detail of Lili's evolution.
It's a good read (but quite sad). It is different from many books that I've read in that there are a number of flashbacks that are more remembrances or impressions of past events with what really happened (in the past) often not being explained fully for several chapters. In the book, the state of medical science at the time was scary bad compared to today (people will likely say the same thing about today in another 80 years). The wife Greta is an incredible and memorable character.
Quoted items are from the Author's Note page The Danish Girl, David Ebershoff
Lots of T pretraining
From my own experience with the whole SRS thing, I would say that now days, things are pretty good.
One thing that I see as vital for the candidate for SRS, is just lots of training that is not happening now. I doubt if the problems I had were due to being a Bimbo; though I take on the role at times with relish.
SRS 101, on second thought, this will take too long. Maybe I should just sit down and write an instructional Thesis. I'd have to assume the roll of a crusty old grandma; it may be too much for me.
However, post op hygene is big. You have to change the direction of hygienic cleansing. Absolute adherence to Dilation protocols is another one. Once you heal up, it hurts like hell to make it bigger; if you can. Also, one should think long and hard about the size of the Kitty you want. Mine looks like I was almost cut in two, and I must say that many GG's are much more petite there.
Gwendolyn