"EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY"
The life of trans woman Christine Jorgensen
Chris Wild
1951
As you can see, 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. - Christine Jorgensen
When Christine Jorgensen was born on May 30, 1926 in the Bronx, New York, she was George William Jorgensen, Jr. Assigned male at birth, she was aware from a very early age that she did not feel male.While not the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery, nor the first American transgender, Christine was undoubtedly the first person to become widely known for having sex reassignment surgery.
I am still the same old “Brud,” but Nature made a mistake, which I have had corrected, and I am now your daughter. - HAND-DELIVERED LETTER SENT BY JORGENSEN TO HER PARENTS
After graduation she (then George) was drafted into the U.S. army, and following her service, began to research gender reassignment. She took female hormones and in 1951 traveled to Denmark to undergo gender reassignment surgery, a procedure not then available legally in the U.S. Later she had reconstructive surgery in the U.S.Naming herself after her surgeon, Dr. Christian Hamburger, her story broke after her second operation in Denmark. She returned to the U.S. a celebrity in 1955, aged 29. She was greeted at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport by several admirers and curious people and the press. From that moment on she was subject to intrusive press attention.
Christine agreed to an offer from Hearst's American Weekly magazine for exclusive rights to her story. American Weekly oversaw her return to New York from Denmark. (Denmark's royal family, on the same flight, were ignored by the waiting press.) Christine was paid $20,000 for her story's rights. Other press agencies followed her story as well, though some of the reporting was overtly salacious. Christine regularly received offers to appear naked.She eventually wrote "The Story of My Life" for the February 1953 edition of American Weekly; the story "Her first Easter bonnet" appeared on the front page of Newsday on Easter weekend, 1953.
Christine made her living as an entertainer, actress and nightclub singer. She performed "I Enjoy Being a Girl" and wore a Wonder Woman costume, at Freddy's Supper Club on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She even recorded a number of songs, and also toured university campuses talking about her experiences.Christine published her biography Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography in 1967. Three years later it was filmed as The Christine Jorgensen Story.She retired to California in the early 1980s, and was diagnosed with cancer in 1987. Christine died in 1989, aged 62. The year she died, Christine Jorgensen said she gave the sexual revolution "a good swift kick in the pants."
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. - Christine Jorgensen, 1967