Christine jorgensen biography

(1926-1989)

Who Was Christine Jorgensen?

In the early 1950s, Christine Jorgensen became widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery and transitioning from male to female. She told her story to the press for a fee and later developed a nightclub act. Jorgensen retired to South California in the early 1970s and died of bladder and lung cancer in 1989.

Early Life

Jorgensen was born George William Jorgensen, Jr., on May 30, 1926, in the Bronx, New York. At an early age, Jorgensen became aware that she identified as female. She hated boys’ clothes and wondered why her clothes were so different from her older sister Dorothy’s pretty dresses, she wrote in American Weekly in 1953.

As a teenager, Jorgensen said that she felt “lost between the sexes.” She was more envious of girls than interested in them. Near the end of high school, Jorgensen found a diversion from her personal struggle — photography. Her father was an amateur photogr