Transbecoming: Reading Relational Movement in David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl

Abstract

<p>This article examines adaptation of Lili Elbe’s life story in David Ebershoff’s biofiction novel <em>The Danish Girl</em> (2000). Elbe was a Danish artist who was one of the first individuals to undergo gender-affirming surgery in 1930. Developing an analysis of relational movement, the article traces the way in which Ebershoff’s novel narrates a transition story—a story of a person changing their expression and presentation of gender. This article’s analysis of relational movement focuses on how the narrative of this novel moves the reader through engaging moments. The article argues that these engaging moments allow a nuanced way of understanding transition. By highlighting the centrality of the embodied experience, the relational movement helps the reader to imagine and feel the process of transition and the embodied experience of gender more intensively. This movement is an integral part of a story of transition, which ultimately involves sense-making across a historical period during which stories of trans identification became conceivable and mutated to allow for a wider discourse and changing understanding of gender.<br></p>