Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989), born George William Jorgensen Jr.,[4] was an American actress, singer, recording artist, and transgender activist. A trans woman, she was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery.
In 1944, Jorgensen was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II.[5] After she served as a military clerical worker, Jorgensen attended several schools, worked, and pursued a photography career.[6] During this time, she learned about sex reassignment surgery and traveled to Europe, where in Copenhagen, Denmark, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations beginning in 1952.[7]
Upon her return to the United States in the early 1950s, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people.
Her 1967 autobiography Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography sold almost 450,000 copies.[8] Throughout her career, she gave lectures at colleges at university[9] on the topics of transsexuality,[10] though she would later disassociate with the term "transsexual" and prefer the term transgender.[9]
Early life
Jorgensen was the second child of carpenter and contractor George William Jorgensen and his wife, Florence Davis Hansen. She was named George William, after her father, when she was born.[11] She was raised in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City, and baptized a Lutheran.[1] She described herself as a "frail, blond, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games".[12][13][14]
Returning to New York after military service, and increasingly concerned over, as one obituary later called it, a "lack of male physical development",[16] Jorgensen heard about sex reassignment surgery. She began taking estrogen in the form of ethinylestradiol. She started researching the surgery with the help of Joseph Angelo, the husband of a classmate at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School.[16] Jorgensen intended to go to Sweden, where the only doctors worldwide who performed the surgery were located. During a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, she met Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy associated with the Serum Institute.[5] Jorgensen stayed in Denmark and underwent hormone replacement therapy under Hamburger's direction. She chose the name Christine in honor of Hamburger.
Doctor Hamburger explained the gender hormone procedure, "The first sign was an increase in size of the mammary glands and then hair began to grow where the patient had a bald patch on the temple. Finally the whole body changed from a male to a female shape". More than a year after beginning hormone therapy, Jorgensen received her first surgery. Professor E. Dahl-Iverson of the Danish State Hospital was named as one of her surgeons, performing "one minor and 4 major operations on her successfully."[5] However, she never publicly explained her new anatomy or the surgery outcome but said, "Everyone is both sexes in varying degrees. I am more of a woman than a man... Of course I can never have children but this does not mean that I cannot have natural sexual intercourse – I am very much in the position right now of a woman who has a hysterectomy," in 1958.[17]
Her parents were from Denmark, so her trip for reassignment surgery was easy to disguise as a trip to visit family. She did not relay her plan for procedures on the trip to anyone due to her concern that she would not be supported.[17]
She obtained special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice Helga Pedersen to receive funding to undergo a series of operations in Denmark.[5] On September 24, 1951, surgeons at Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen performed an orchiectomy on Jorgensen.[18] In a letter to friends on October 8, 1951, she referred to how the surgery affected her:
As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America? Well, that person is no more and, as you can see, I'm in marvelous spirits.[18]
In November 1952, doctors at Copenhagen University Hospital performed a penectomy. In Jorgensen's words, "My second operation, as the previous one, was not such a major work of surgery as it may imply."[18] In 1952, she was quoted in Scope Magazine as saying,
I was one of those people . . . . It was not an easy task for me to face, but only for the happiness it brought me I should not have had the strength to go through these past two years. You see, I was afraid of a much more horrible illness of the mind.[5]
She returned to the United States and eventually obtained a vaginoplasty when the procedure became available. The vaginoplasty was performed under the direction of Dr. Angelo, with Harry Benjamin as a medical adviser.[16] Later, in the preface of Jorgensen's autobiography, Harry Benjamin gave her credit for the advancement of his studies. He wrote, "Indeed, Christine, without you, probably none of this would have happened; the grant, my publications, lectures, etc."[19] In a 1980s Hour Magazine interview with Gary Collins, Jorgensen described her family's acceptance:
My family were very understanding. They had a choice; I gave them only one choice. Either they were to accept me or there was a break. My family did not want to lose me, and I was very close with [my mother and father] until they died.[20]
Publicity
Jorgensen was publicly outed when her letter to her parents in New York leaked to the press. She had planned to keep her transition a secret but she was forcefully outed by the New York Daily News. Her letter stated, "Nature made a mistake which I have had corrected, and now I am your daughter."[17]
The New York Daily News ran a front-page story on December 1, 1952, under the headline "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty", announcing (incorrectly) that Jorgensen had become the recipient of the first "sex change."[21] In reality, German doctors had performed this type of surgery in the late 1920s and early 1930s; Dorchen Richter and Danish artist Lili Elbe, both patients of Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, were known recipients of such operations, however Elbe died after developing sepsis due to complications from an attempted uterus transplant.[22]
After her surgeries, Jorgensen originally stated that she wanted a quiet life of her design. However, upon returning to the United States, she could only earn a living by making public appearances.[23] Jorgensen was an instant celebrity when she returned to New York in February 1953. A large crowd of journalists met her as she came off her flight, and despite the Danish royal family being on the same flight, the audience largely ignored them in favor of Jorgensen.[24] Soon after her arrival, she launched a successful nightclub act and appeared on television, radio, and theatrical productions. The first five-part authorized account of her story was written by herself in a February 1953 issue of The American Weekly, titled "The Story of My Life." In 1967, she published her autobiography, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography, which sold almost 450,000 copies.[8]
In the wake of her transition, part of the media coverage debated her original gender identity, many claiming that she was never fully male, but rather intersex. At the time, a popular theory was that she was a "pseudohermaphrodite" with the internal anatomy of a female and the external anatomy of a male. Nothing that Jorgensen said explicitly supported this theory, but various professionals adopted it anyway. This theory was also used to downplay the importance of Jorgensen's transition, with doctors claiming that her surgeries were "far from a medical rarity... [with] similar cases in hospitals all over the U.S.". Others insisted that Jorgensen's pre-transition body was clearly male and the surgeries were not to mend a physical abnormality, but rather "align her gender with her physical sex." The overwhelming amount of coverage opened new discussions surrounding gender, sex, and transsexuals.[25]
The publicity following her transition and gender reassignment surgery became "a model for other transsexuals for decades. She was a tireless lecturer on the subject of transsexuality, pleading for understanding from a public that all too often wanted to see transsexuals as freaks or perverts... Ms Jorgensen's poise, charm, and wit won the hearts of millions."[10] However, over time the press was much less fascinated by her and started to scrutinize her much more harshly. Print media often asked her if she would pose nude in their publications.[23]
According to a 1985 publication, Jorgensen opposed the word "transsexual" due to the word "sex," in her opinion, only being relevant to sexual intercourse. She stated, "I am a transgender because gender refers to who you are as a human."[9]
Later life
Knox and Jorgensen after being denied a marriage license, April 1959
After her vaginoplasty, Jorgensen planned to marry labor union statistician John Traub, but the engagement was called off. In 1959 she announced her engagement to typist Howard J. Knox in Massapequa Park, New York, where her father built her a house after reassignment surgery. She and Knox settled down and joined a Lutheran church.[26] However, the couple was unable to obtain a marriage license because Jorgensen's birth certificate listed her as male. In a report about the broken engagement, The New York Times reported that Knox had lost his job in Washington, D.C. when his engagement to Jorgensen became known.[27][28]
After her parents died, Jorgensen moved to California in 1967. She left behind the ranch home built by her father in Massapequa and settled at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.[29] During this same year, Jorgensen published her autobiography, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography,[30] which chronicled her life experiences as a transgender woman and included her perspectives on some of her significant life events. In her autobiography, Jorgensen revealed her struggles with depression. She explained how her mental health deteriorated and contemplated suicide but did not act on it. She wrote, "The answer to the problem must not lie in sleeping pills and suicides that look like accidents, or in jail sentences, but rather in life and the freedom to live it."[6]
Jorgensen in 1975
During the 1970s and 1980s, Jorgensen toured university campuses and other venues to speak about her experiences. She was known for her directness and polished wit. She once demanded an apology from Vice President Spiro T. Agnew when he called Charles Goodell "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party." Agnew refused her request.[31]
Circa 1958, while she was performing at the Latin Quarter in New York, she saw the 1958 musical Flower Drum Song on Broadway. There, she saw Pat Suzuki perform "I Enjoy Being a Girl," which shortly became Jorgensen's "theme song."[33] Jorgensen included the song in her nightclub act, incorporating a quick-change into a Wonder Woman costume.[citation needed]Warner Communications, owners of the Wonder Woman character's copyright, demanded she stop using the character in 1981.[34] She did so, using instead a new character, Superwoman, who was marked by the inclusion of a large letter S on her cape; apparently DC Comics, which trademarked the character in 1947, was either unaware of, or unconcerned by this use.
Jorgensen continued her act, performing at Freddy's Supper Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan until at least 1982 when she performed twice in the Hollywood area: once at the Backlot Theatre, adjacent to the discothèque Studio One, and later at The Frog Pond restaurant. The performance was recorded and made available as an album on iTunes. In 1984, Jorgensen returned to Copenhagen to perform her show and was featured in Teit Ritzau's Danish transgender documentary film Paradiset er ikke til salg (Paradise Is Not for Sale). Jorgensen was the first and only known trans woman to perform at Oscar's Delmonico Restaurant in downtown New York, for which owners Oscar and Mario Tucci received criticism.[32]
Jorgensen's highly publicized transition helped bring to light gender identity and shaped a new culture of more inclusive ideas about the subject.[8] As a transgender spokesperson and public figure, she influenced other transgender people to change their sex and names on their birth certificates.[citation needed] Jorgensen saw herself as a founding member in what became known as the "sexual revolution."[8] In a 1988 Los Angeles Times interview, Jorgensen stated, "I am very proud now, looking back, that I was on that street corner 36 years ago when a movement started. It was the sexual revolution that was going to start with or without me. We may not have started it, but we gave it a good swift kick in the pants."[36]
In 2012, Jorgensen was inducted into Chicago's Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display celebrating LGBTQ history and people.[37]
Posters for the Ed Wood film Glen or Glenda (1953), also known as I Changed My Sex and I Led Two Lives, publicize the movie as being based on Jorgensen's life.[50] Originally producer George Weiss made her some offers to appear in the film, but she turned them down.[51] Jorgensen is mentioned in connection with Glen or Glenda in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994), but Jorgensen is not depicted as a character.
The Christine Jorgensen Story, a fictionalized biopic based on Jorgensen's memoir, premiered in 1970. John Hansen played Jorgensen as an adult, while Trent Lehman played her at age seven.
In Christine Jorgensen Reveals, a stage performance at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Jorgensen was portrayed by Bradford Louryk. To critical acclaim, Louryk dressed as Jorgensen and performed in a recorded interview with her during the 1950s. At the same time, a video of Rob Grace as comically inept interviewer Nipsey Russell played on a nearby black-and-white television set. The show went on to win Best Aspect of Production at the 2006 Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and it ran Off-Broadway at New World Stages in January 2006. The LP was reissued on CD by Repeat The Beat Records in 2005.
Transgender historian and critical theorist Susan Stryker directed and produced an experimental documentary about Jorgensen, titled Christine in the Cutting Room. In 2010 she also presented a lecture at Yale University titled "Christine in the Cutting Room: Christine Jorgensen's Transsexual Celebrity and Cinematic Embodiment".[54] Both works examine embodiment vis-à-vis cinema.
Journalist Claudia Kalb's 2016 book Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History's Great Personalities devotes a chapter to Jorgensen's story, using her as an example of gender dysphoria and the process of gender transition in the 20th century.
Books
Jorgensen, Christine (1967). Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography. New York, New York: Bantam Books. ISBN978-1-57344-100-1.
Xie Jianshun, Taiwanese intersex soldier who was often called "Chinese Christine"
Renee Richards, competed on the men's professional tennis circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female SRS, when she fought to compete as a woman in the 1976 US Open
Related Research Articles
The legal status of transgender people varies greatly around the world. Some countries have enacted laws protecting the rights of transgender individuals, but others have criminalized their gender identity or expression. In many cases, transgender individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, and other areas of life.
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender. The phrase is most often associated with transgender health care and intersex medical interventions, though many such treatments are also pursued by cisgender and non-intersex persons. It is also known as sex reassignment surgery (SRS), gender confirmation surgery (GCS), and several other names.
Harry Benjamin was a German-American endocrinologist and sexologist, widely known for his clinical work with transgender people.
Lili Ilse Elvenes, better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter, transgender woman, and one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery.
Gender-affirming surgery for male-to-female transgender women or transfeminine non-binary people describes a variety of surgical procedures that alter the body to provide physical traits more comfortable and affirming to an individual's gender identity and overall functioning.
The history and subculture surrounding transgender people in Singapore is substantial. As with LGBT rights in the country in general, transgender rights in Singapore have also evolved significantly over time, including various laws and public attitudes in regards to identity documents, as well as anti-discrimination measures used by or pertaining to transgender people, in the areas of employment, education, housing and social services, amongst others.
Transgender rights in Iran are limited, with a narrow degree of official recognition of transgender identities by the government, but with trans individuals facing very high levels of discrimination, from the law, the state, and from wider society.
The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of trans people, particularly trans women, and drag queens. The incident was one of the first LGBTQ-related riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.
Maryam Khatoonpour Molkara was an Iranian transgender rights activist, and she was widely recognized as a matriarch of the transgender community in Iran. Designated male at birth, she was later instrumental in obtaining a letter which acted as a fatwa enabling sex reassignment surgery to exist as part of a legal framework. Molkara became the first transgender person in Iran to legally undergo sex reassignment surgery with the permission of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Mak Nyah, alternatively spelled maknyah, is a Malay vernacular term for trans women in Malaysia. It arose in the late 1980s in order to distinguish trans women from other minorities.
Louis Graydon Sullivan was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay, and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts.
A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.
The Baptist Medical Center sex reassignment surgery controversy occurred in 1977 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. Surgeons at the Baptist Medical Center, a hospital owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, were prohibited from performing sex reassignment surgery.
This article addresses the history of transgender people in the United States from prior to Western contact until the present. There are a few historical accounts of transgender people that have been present in the land now known as the United States at least since the early 1600s. Before Western contact, some Native American tribes had third gender people whose social roles varied from tribe to tribe. People dressing and living differently from the gender roles typical of their sex assigned at birth and contributing to various aspects of American history and culture have been documented from the 17th century to the present day. In the 20th and 21st centuries, advances in gender-affirming surgery as well as transgender activism have influenced transgender life and the popular perception of transgender people in the United States.
Accounts of transgender people have been uncertainly identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide. The modern terms and meanings of transgender, gender, gender identity, and gender role only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.
Christian Hamburger was a Danish endocrinologist. He worked in Copenhagen and was the doctor responsible for Christine Jorgensen's sex reassignment, and she would choose her name in honor of him.
Rina Natan was the first known Israeli transgender woman.
Charlotte Frances McLeod, was the second American woman to travel to Denmark and undergo gender-affirming surgery. Before her transition, McLeod served in the army from 1948 to 1949. She was discharged from the Army for minor medical reasons.
The issue of transgender people and military service in South Korea is a complex topic, regarding gender identity and bodily autonomy. Currently, transgender women are excluded from the military of South Korea.
Bárbara "Soraya" Santiago Solla was a pioneer of the transgender community in Puerto Rico as well as the first person in Puerto Rico to change the gender designation on their birth certificate following gender reassignment surgery.
↑ Added, Latest (March 20, 1981). "Christine no Wonder Woman". Digital Transgender Archive. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
↑ Wilson, Scott (September 5, 2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3rded.). McFarland & Company, Inc. 2 (Kindle Locations 24299-24300). ISBN978-0-7864-5098-5.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
