By; Victoria Hincapie Gomez Date; February 7 of 2022
Christine Jorgensen was , one of the first transgender woman to undergo sex- reassignment surgery. She reopened a door from trans individuals that was previously closed by nazis in the Second World War.
In Germany of the 1930's there were a lot of advances when it comes to transgender people's external transformation. The sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and the doctor Kurt Warnekros were the pioneers for the sex reassignment surgery. Their first successful reassignment surgery was done in Berlin to Lili Elbe, which history was portrayed in both 'The Danish girl ' movie and book.
But all of this came to an end when the nazis destroyed all of the files documenting the research done mostly by the men previously mentioned.
After all of this the idea of someone being trans was completely vanished to the public , until Christine Jorgensen came to the picture. Jorgensen was a former army private originally from the Bronx in the U.S that in 1950 decided to fly to Denmark, Copenhagen in order to start her transition.
Once in Copenhagen , Jorgensen met up with a doctor that she discovered through intensive research prior to arriving . The doctor was called Christian Hamburger , and this was his first time performing a surgery of this scale. Which made Jorgensen his guinea pig.
Despite knowing that something might go wrong , Jorgensen decided to go through with her decision and after undergoing hormone replacement therapy and her sex change in 1952 , she decided to came back to the U.S.
During her stay in Denmark she was bombarded by journalists that knew about her surgery , therefore upon her arrival in 1953 she became the headline of news papers such as The New York Times; ''Bronx boy is now a girl''. At first she was a little apprehensive towards the press, but Jorgensen realized how she could take advantage of the attention she was receiving.
So, in 1954 Jorgensen started going on tour with her own nightclub act , in which she performed her original song. Even though things were turning alright career wise, in 1959 Jorgensen tried to marry a man called Howard Knox but was unable to do so due to the legislations of the time that prevented a trans person to change their birth certificates.
Jorgensen marked a start in the Trans movement in the U.S and in all America by putting out there her journey in a time that was much harder than now to be something outside the norm. Thanks to her trans activists in the 60's such as Virginia prince and Marsha P. Johnson and activists from that point on were able to make sure that trans people and more importantly the trans movement wouldn't disappeared out of the blue.
Looking at things in the bright side, even though there still an exponential amount of violence towards us globally , we life in world were is possible for things such as a trans black woman to win a Golden Globe( Mj Rodriguez) and trans people being able to be in positions of power like Sarah McBride.
All of these things that back then were thought to be impossible , have become possible or are in the process of. Christine Jorgensen was the perfect example of the impact one person can made and how important was and is to have referents in our lives.
If you would like to know more about Christine Jorgensen, down below you will find the link to the 1970 movie;The Christine Jorgensen Story.
Bibliography
America's first trans celebrity ; Christine Jorgensen
Lili Elbe. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Elbe
Stryker,S. Transgender history{ book}
Hope you enjoyed it!
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