Lorena Capelli
Lorena Capelli (b, 1945 – d, 1976) was a cabaret performer from Brazil who developed her career in Spain. Her life inspired the film El transexual, in which she was portrayed by Ágata Lys.[1]
Life and career
[edit]Lorena was born in 1945[2] in Rio de Janeiro, daughter of a member of the Brazilian diplomatic corps.[1]
During her childhood she suffered abuse and humiliation from her father due to her gender identity,[2] and from a young age she identified as a woman, living openly as a trans woman, stating that God had simply made a mistake by assigning her male organs.[3] Because of this, she underwent her first gender reassignment surgery in 1971, which was unsuccessful and caused her pain due to the narrowness of her new genitalia.[2]
By the early 1970s, she was already working in cabarets in Germany, France (Le Carrousel de Paris), and Italy.[1][4] In 1975, after performing in various nightclubs including Mario's in Barcelona, she headlined the erotic-musical show at Teatro Victoria in Barcelona. A year later she began performing regularly at the Michele Night Club cabaret in Madrid.[1][4] During this period she was interviewed in several national magazines, such as Papillón and Lib .[1]
In 1976, she died prematurely on the operating table during a surgical intervention intended to perfect the results of the previous gender reassignment surgery she had undergone years earlier. The cause of death was peritonitis.[3]
News of her death was covered by numerous national media outlets, and in 1977 her life was brought to the screen in the film El transexual, where she was portrayed by Ágata Lys.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f Vegas, Valeria (2020). Libérate: la cultura LGTBQ que abrió camino en España (1 ed.). Dos Bigotes. pp. 131–133. ISBN 978-84-121428-8-4. OCLC 1229083120.
- ^ a b c "The LGTBIQ+ collective and its endless struggle against a closet called dictatorship". Cristianos Gays. 2023-06-13. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
- ^ a b "Lorena Capelli was anything but ordinary". Público. 2022-05-27. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
- ^ a b Pierrot (2006). "Trans Memories". Carlaantonelli.com. Retrieved 18 June 2025.