[3] After transitioning in 1930, she changed her legal name to Lili Ilse Elvenes, stopped painting,[4] and later adopted the surname Elbe.

[5][6][7][8] 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.

[11][12][13] 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. Nicolai Church.

They travelled throughout Italy and France before settling in Paris in 1912, where Elbe could live more openly as a woman by posing as Gottlieb's sister-in-law.

[26] Elbe started dressing in women's clothes after she found she enjoyed the stockings and heels she wore to fill in for Gottlieb's model, actress Anna Larssen [da], who, on one occasion, had been late for a sitting.

[30] Prior to commencing any surgical procedures, Elbe's psychological health was evaluated by German sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, through a series of tests.

[30][32] All of Lili Elbe's medical documents were ruined as a consequence of the Allied bombing raids that destroyed the clinic and its archives.

A Danish court annulled the couple's marriage in October 1930,[35] and Elbe was able to have her sex and name legally changed, even receiving a passport as Lili Ilse Elvenes.

[36] The name "Lili Elbe" was first used in print in a Danish newspaper article written by Copenhagen journalist Louise "Loulou" Lassen for Politiken in February 1931.

[33][37] Elbe returned to Dresden and began a relationship with French art dealer Claude Lejeune, whom she wanted to marry and with whom she wished to have children.

[8][40][7] This made her one of the earliest transgender women to undergo a vaginoplasty surgery, a few weeks after Erwin Gohrbandt performed the experimental procedure on Dora Richter.

This ultimately caused an infection, which led to her death from cardiac arrest on 13 September 1931 in Dresden, Germany, three months after the surgery.

[31] Fra Mand til Kvinde was published by her German friend and editor under the name of Neils Hoyer following Elbe's death.

[9][10] Man into Woman: An authentic Record of a Change of Sex brought attention to new medical interventions as the story of Lili Elbe was circulated through American publications.