Toni Ebel

Toni Ebel
Born(1881-11-10)November 10, 1881
Berlin
DiedJune 9, 1961(1961-06-09) (aged 79)
Berlin
Occupationpainter

Toni Ebel (born 10 November 1881 in Berlin; died 9 June 1961 in Berlin) was a German painter, housekeeping staff of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and one of the first trans women who received a sex reassignment surgery, possibly before Lili Elbe.[1]

Life and work

Toni Ebel was the oldest of eleven children of an evangelical family.[1] After graduating from high school, Ebel apprenticed as a decorator and businessman. With her first paycheck, she bought a wig and a dress, which were discovered and burnt by her parents. Around 1901 she fell in love with a man, which caused arguments with her family, so she left home for Munich, where she studied painting. She also traveled around Germany, Austria, and Italy. In Venice, Ebel met an elderly American man, who became her patron and partner for a few years. In 1908, Ebel returned to Berlin and lived as a man, married a woman named Olga, and had a son. Ebel did not feel comfortable playing the role of a man and husband, and tried four times to commit suicide. Around this period she, under her deadname, gained a good reputation in the artistic circles of Käthe Kollwitz. In 1916 she was drafted into the army, fighting in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in Champagne. She was discharged to the reserves after suffering a mental breakdown.[1] In 1925, Ebel became, temporarily, a member of the USPD. She later described herself as having been "always a proletarian painter".[1]

After Olga fell ill and died in 1928, Toni, who lived and worked as a painter first in Berlin-Steglitz, then in Wedding, decided to transition. Around this time, she met Charlotte Charlaque, who was also transitioning. She made a formal application for a legal name change to Annie in 1929, which was rejected. Her name change to Toni was accepted in 1930. With the support of Magnus Hirschfeld, Toni underwent five sex reassignment surgeries conducted by Erwin Gohrbandt, Felix Abraham [de] and Ludwig Levy-Lenz. She was among the fisrt individuals to have undergone sexual reassignment surgery.[2] According to the surgeons, the first operation for both Toni and Charlotte took place "between 6 January 1929 and 14 November 1930", and according to Ragnar Ahlstedt, Toni was the third patient to have received that procedure ever.[1] In 1931, Felix Abraham published a paper giving the details of the vaginoplasty operations on Ebel and Dora Richter in Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik.[3]

In 1933, footage of Toni, Charlotte and Dora Richter (all anonymously/uncredited) was used as a documentary segment in an Austrian movie Mysterium des Geschlechtes (Mystery of Sex) about contemporary sexology.[1] The same year, Toni and Charlotte hosted Swede Ragnar Ahlstedt [d], who wrote about them in the book Män, som blivit kvinnor (Men, who became women), but they did not mention Dora to him.[1] When the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was attacked in 1933, a collection of Ebel's drawings and paintings was destroyed.

In 1933, Toni Ebel converted to Judaism, the faith of her Jewish partner Charlotte Charlaque. Both lived in modest circumstances in a sublet at Nollendorfstrasse 24 in Berlin-Schöneberg. Toni Ebel received a small pension and earned some additional income from the sale of pictures. They were repeatedly harassed by their neighbors, and in 1942, they were forced to separate. After a warning from her half-sister, Toni fled to Czechoslovakia with Charlotte in 1934. Until 1935, they lived in the Karlovy Vary (Rybáře), where Ebel painted pictures for guests of the spa. They then moved to Prague, and in 1937, to Brno, where they kept in touch with Karl Giese up until his suicide.[1] Ebel lived in Prague under the name Antonia Ebelova and worked as a painter. In 1942 Charlotte Charlaque was arrested by the Aliens Police. Charlotte later managed to come to the USA.[2]

After the end of the war, Toni Ebel lived in East Germany, where she received a small pension as a victim of the "racial prejudice" of National Socialism, and continued to work as a painter. She mainly created landscape pictures and portraits, and received attention in East Germany from the 1950s on. She was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of East Germany and was represented at the German art exhibitions in Dresden in 1953, 1958/1959, and 1962/1963. Her gender was not questioned, even with many noticing her "low voice".[1]

Selected works

  • Selbstporträt (Oil painting; exhibited at the Fourth German Art Exhibition in 1958/1959)[4]
  • Fallobst (Oil painting; exhibited at the Fourth German Art Exhibition in 1958/1959)[5]
  • Arbeiterveteran (Oil painting; exhibited at the Fifth German Art Exhibition in 1962/1963)[6]
  • Bildnis meiner Schwester (Oil painting; exhibited at the Fifth German Art Exhibition in 1962/1963)[7]
  • Wissen ist Macht (Oil painting; exhibited at the Fourth German Art Exhibition in 1958/1959)[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wolfert, Raimund (2021). Charlotte Charlaque : Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, "Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade" (in German) (1. Auflage ed.). Leipzig. ISBN 978-3-95565-475-7. OCLC 1286534661.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ a b Wolfert, Raimund (2015). ""Sage, Toni, denkt man so bei euch drüben?" Auf den Spuren von Curt Scharlach alias Charlotte Charlaque (1892 -?) und Toni Ebel (1881-1961)". Lesbengeschichte (in German). Retrieved 2021-06-05.
  3. ^ Abraham, Felix (1997). "Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites". The International Journal of Transgenderism. Archived from the original on 2007-05-02.
  4. ^ "Selbstporträt". Deutsche Fotothek.
  5. ^ "Fallobst". Deutsche Fotothek. 1959.
  6. ^ "Arbeiterveteran". Deutsche Fotothek. 1962.
  7. ^ "Bildnis meiner Schwester". Deutsche Fotothek. 1962.
  8. ^ "Wissen ist Macht". Deutsche Fotothek. 1959.