Lili Elbe, a transgender woman who lived in Denmark at the turn of the last century, is considered one of the first people to have undergone sex reassignment surgery when she went through a series of operations in Germany beginning in 1930. Elbe, born Einar Wegener, was a successful artist before the surgery, but stopped painting following her transition. She died three months after her final surgery in 1931.
In The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), Eddie Redmayne plays Elbe in a follow-up to his Oscar-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. The film hits theaters on Nov. 27, and you can watch the trailer above.