On This Day: Trans woman outed on front page, becomes celebrity - Dec. 1, 1952
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Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen (1926–1989) 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 1945, Jorgensen was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. After she served as a military clerical worker, Jorgensen attended several schools, worked, and pursued a photography career. 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.
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. Throughout her career, she gave lectures at colleges at university on the topics of transsexuality, though she would later disassociate with the term "transsexual" and prefer the term transgender. She also wrote a Scandinavian cookbook.
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.
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." In reality, German doctors had performed this type of surgery in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
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. 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. 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.
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." However, over time the press was much less fascinated by her and started to scrutinize her much more harshly.
Gender transition
Returning to New York after military service, and increasingly concerned over, as one obituary later called it, a "lack of male physical development", Jorgensen heard about sex reassignment surgery. She started researching the surgery with the help of Joseph Angelo, the husband of a classmate. 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. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark and underwent hormone replacement therapy under Hamburger's direction. She chose the name Christine in honor of Hamburger.
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.
She obtained special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice to undergo a series of operations in Denmark. On September 24, 1951, surgeons at Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen performed an orchiectomy on Jorgensen.
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Later life
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. 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.
After her parents died, Jorgensen moved to California in 1967. During this same year, Jorgensen published her autobiography. 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."
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.
Jorgensen also worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer and recorded several songs.
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."
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.
Legacy
Jorgensen's highly publicized transition helped bring to light gender identity and shaped a new culture of more inclusive ideas about the subject. As a transgender spokesperson and public figure, she influenced other transgender people to change their sex and names on their birth certificates. Jorgensen saw herself as a founding member in what became known as the "sexual revolution." 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."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen
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