#christine jorgensen

George W. Jorgensen, Jr., son of a Bronx carpenter, served in the Army for two years and was given honorable discharge in 1946. Now George is no more. After six operations, Jorgensen’s sex has been changed and today she is a striking woman, working as a photographer in Denmark. Parents were informed of the big change in a letter Christine (that’s her new name) sent to them recently.

- the text following “A World of a Difference”

On December 1st of 1962, The New York Daily News published a front-page feature on Christine Jorgensen, the first person in the United States to have undergone a sex-change involving both hormone therapy and surgery. Christine achieved celebrity status overnight and was greeted by curiosity, fascination, and respect. 

An incomplete account of Christine’s life that doesn’t do it justice:

During her time in the US military in the late 1940s, Christine came across an article about a Danish doctor (Christian Hamburger) who was experimenting with gender therapy by testing hormones on animals. With Danish-born parents, Jorgensen found an excuse to make her way to Copenhagen without telling anyone about her real intentions.

Finally, after more than a year on experimental hormone therapy, Christine underwent sex reassignment surgery. 

In 1952, Christine returned to New York and received surprisingly warm welcomes. In the midst of theatre and film contracts, calls from Hollywood, and glamorous parties, Christine was even named Woman of the Year by the Scandinavian Society in New York. Furthermore, Christine spent the 1950s and 1960s touring the country with a nightclub act. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Jorgensen was that she ultimately seized control over the news of her sex reassignment surgery. When the story broke out her transition was first presented as something salacious and scandalous. Christine turned it into an opportunity to educate the public through lecturing on trans topics, publishing stories, as well as an autobiography. Althoughshe didn’t know it at the time, Jorgensen was a predecessor to the human rights movement that is currently surfacing.

Before she died of lung and bladder cancer in 1989, Christine made one last trip to Denmark to reunite with the same Danish doctors who helped with her transition and so famously said: “ We didn’t start the sexual revolution but I think we gave it a good kick in the pants!“ 

(When the 60s are more tolerant and accepting than yourself you know you are doing something wrong @ transphobes)

READ MORE about Christine Jorgensen at her website (x).

Sources: The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, & Musical Theater by Claude J. Summers, and (x), (x), (x).