Christine Jorgensen
1951
1952
1953

Christine Jorgensen was a former GI named George who in 1952 underwent a sex change in Denmark. Daily News reporter Ben White heard about the Christine's operations from a friend who worked in the Rigs hospital in Copenhagen. He published the story on the front page Dec. 1, 1952, with "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty" in 72-point type. The caption under the photo before and after read "George Jorgensen, Jr., son of a Bronx carpenter, served in the Army for two years and was given an 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 article did not disclose the true nature of the sex change, involving only castration and electrolysis and hormones. When Christine returned to the U.S. Feb. 12, 1953, the New York Times reported "Miss Jorgensen Returns from Copenhagen: Ex-GI Back 'Happy to be Home' " as it would report any soldier returning home from duty in the Korean War. Her new identity did not conflict with the old identity, and did not challenge the female gender stereotypes of beauty, innocence, vulnerability. According to David Harley Serlin, "It was as if, by way of her conversion from agile manhood to fragile womanhood, Jorgensen stood symbolically for the vulnerable American male body besieged by a foreign power." The Daily News discovered a boyfriend, Air Force Staff Sergeant Bill Calhoun, who met Christine in Denmark on a weekend pass from England in 1952. The press covered her every move. When she passed her test for a driver's license Feb. 26, 1953, Newsday wrote "She, then he, had once been employed as a chauffeur. But her license had expired and so, said one wag, had the sex of the owner." However, on April 20, 1953, Time magazine ran an article that revealed that "Christine Jorgensen was no girl at all, only an altered male." She had kept secret the fact that she had no vagina or female sex organs, although such operations became possible after 1954. After being"outed' by this article, her notoriety in the press declined, and she no longer was the most written-about person in America.

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revised 4/1/06 by Schoenherr | Cold War Policies