Literature

Christine Jorgensen was a revolution personified.
As a kid, George Jorgensen, Jr., was uncomfortable being around many people. He was a loner. Even as a child he felt that he was different from others. This feeling caused him to withdraw himself from the kids his age, who would always call him a sissy. He would rather read when all the other kids would play.

I remember that I anticipated school with a great deal of excitement, for my great ambition at that year was to learn to read. (Jorgensen, 1967)

George had only one friend, Carl who was also of Danish descent. George was able to identify himself with Carl and they fast became friends. Back then, George loved joining plays with Carl. Acting was one of the first things George felt comfortable doing.

Play-acting was fun and I could hide my shyness behind the faade of someone else, in a shining world of fantasy. (Jorgensen, 1967)

This shows how George was uncomfortable with the real world and that he would rather hide in a suffocating mask with a long rubber tail as Mickey Mouse than face the whole world as himself.
He projected an image of submission, but deep inside George was rebelling. He was once out on a boys summer camp, where there were rules and punishment for any deviation. George hated being told what to do. He hated conforming.

Camp Sharparoon was a typical vacation camp, operated in what seemed to me then a far too militant manner. The days schedule was posted each morning on a bulletin board, and although I was too young to read the notice in detail, I was sure in advance that I wasnt going to like the orders of the day. (Jorgensen, 1967)

Young George was very close to his grandmother. She was the only person who sincerely cared for and comforted George. She shielded George from the criticisms and rejection that he experienced at a very young age.

Georges sister, Dolly, was among the first to notice Georges queer tendencies. He described Georges mannerisms as girlish. As she was a young girl then, she too had doubts about her brother. In college she researched the effects of environment on a childs growth and development. Perhaps, she too was looking for answers. Georges parents were kind and loving, but they figured that something was different with their son.

In his autobiography, George describes his early years as overwhelmed with feelings of loneliness and seclusion. In a way he needed and enjoyed being alone. His narration was characterized by feelings of withdrawal from others company and happiness for being alone. He felt unaccepted which made him hide his true self more.

This feeling of rejections were further fuelled during his growing years. As an adolescent, he tried to drown his sad emotions by frequenting social gatherings. But as much as he tried to belong, he would often find himself alone in long walks along the beach. He would lie on the sand and look at the stars as if he wanted to be somewhere else.

 George developed a love for photography. Perhaps he loved how photographs capture precious moments and stops time. It encapsulates memories. Cameras, they say, see things that are not divulged to the human eye. Photographs, they say, do not lie. George captured in his photographs little truths around him as he had hidden and denied the truth about his sexuality even to himself.

That time George was in love with Tom, a friend from high school. He tried to deny it but his feelings were those more than friendship. George was upset when Tom was shipped to the South Pacific. But he thought that, like Tom, his feelings would just go away to a far place.

I remembered a passage from Daphne du Mauriers novel, Rebecca, which had so impressed me that I jotted it down in a small ruled notebook, that is still in my possession. If only there were an invention that bottled up a memory, like a scent. And it never faded and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked and it would be like living the moment all over again. (Jorgensen, 1967)

George studied photography and dreamed to work in Hollywood. But his dreams did not come that easy. After the war, he was recruited to the army, not as a soldier, but as an army clerk. His main task was to separate the veterans from the services and returning them to civilian life. Every day, George sorted files, separating which names to release and which ones to retain.  But what he failed to sort was his own self. George kept asking, what is feminine and what is masculine Where do I stand His feelings of confusion and distraught did not leave him since childhood, yet it grew as each day passed. The more he tried to conceal his feelings the more it tried to escape.

He was discharged from the service after 14 months of service. It was time to face the real world again. Back at home, he found himself two confidants, Helen and June. Both came from Europe, where people are more open to issues of gender and homosexuality. It took a lot deal of courage for George to open up. But again, George was left alone as June married and Helen returned home.

Feeling defeated once more, George decided to go back to New York, but met his Aunt Augusta. He found out a family secret that helped him with his decisions later on.

As I look back on the following days with Augusta, I realized how important they were to me, for I was learning that others had burden or problem they weighed on their life, too, and that their solutions lay solely within. (Jorgensen, 1967)

Back home, George caught up with a high school friend, Jim. That encounter reinforced his feelings towards the same sex. For a time, the dinner with Jim recurred to his thoughts over and over again. This frightened George as he thought that he might be headed for a heartbreak.

More and more, his desire to deal with his own sexuality grew. He came across readings about how different men and women are, chemically. He found out that genders are not so different after all except for some atoms found in the hormones. That was the time he played with the idea of taking female hormones.

He first bought prescription medicine and took the pills without any doctors advice. His continued use made him feel weird, but good so he continued doing so. He observed different changes in his body, that validated his thoughts about hormones.  He was on his quest to find a cure.

 He sought professional help and met with doctors. He went to Copenhagen to start the treatment and offered himself as guinea pig 0001. The quest was hard but each day, George felt closer and closer to being himself. His hormone treatment was continued under the supervision of Dr. Hamburger.
He wrote to families and friends, each letter different from the previous one. Georges tone became more enthusiastic, more excited. He was now filled with spirit and certainty.

He started undergoing operations. After the plastic surgery on his ears he said, Miraculously, the complex I had for years, disappeared overnight.  His appearance started to change. But changes were not only physical. George was transformed.

In a letter he wrote to his family, George said
I have changed, changed very much, as my photos will show, but I want you to know that I am extremely happy person and that the real me, not the physical me, has not changed. I am still the same old Brud. But nature made a mistake, which I had corrected, and I am now your daughter. (Jorgensen, 1967)

The letter was signed, Christine. His familys reply, We love you more than ever.
No one knew how but Christines sex change was leaked to the press. He was the headline of every newspaper. He thought that his life would begin to crash from there. The world would look down on him and scorn him as what he had done may be perceived as a sin to mankind and a sin to the Lord. He was not prepared for the worst.

Much to his surprise, the devastation he expected was the total opposite. Reporters were coming for an interview and stints were offered to him in nightclubs, theatres and even Hollywood. That moment was the first time Christine felt accepted.  

Christine was known to the world as the first to undergo sex reassignment. But more than that, Christine was a symbol of freedom. Christines quest was a fight for who she truly is.  It was a fight of courage. It was a battle won.