Christine Jorgensen Quotes

How strange it seemed to me that the whole answer might lie in the particular combination of atoms contained in those tiny, aspirin-like tablets. As recently as a few years before, science had split some of those atoms and unleashed a giant force. There in my hand lay another series of atoms, which in their way might set off another explosion--one I hoped would not be a destructive force but would help to make me a whole person.

The U.S. media’s shallow lens dates back to 1952, when Christine Jorgensen became the media’s first “sex change” darling, breaking barriers and setting the tone for how our stories are told. These stories, though vital to culture change and our own sense of recognition, rarely report on the barriers that make it nearly impossible for trans women, specifically those of color and those from low-income communities, to lead thriving lives. They’re tried-and-true transition stories tailored to the cis gaze. What I want people to realize is that “transitioning” is not the end of the journey. Yes, it’s an integral part of revealing who we are to ourselves and the world, but there’s much life afterward. These stories earn us visibility but fail at reporting on what our lives are like beyond our bodies, hormones, surgeries, birth names, and before-and-after photos.

The story belonged to Christine Jorgensen, the first sex-change celebrity.

I'd had many offers from various enterprises, everything from hat designers to burlesque houses, from beauty salons to carnival midways. I was perfectly aware that they didn't want to hire me for my abilities, but for the notoriety surrounding my name.

Mine was a single, highly individual case and the doctors had proceeded along the lines they felt would be most beneficial to me alone, with my full knowledge, approval, and consent. Beyond that, I had no advice for anyone...help for others could only come from the acceptance and enlightenment of the public and the medical profession.

It was a common practice for news writers to make public proclamations as to what I was, or was not. It seemed to me that the selection of sex determination should lie with the individual in an effort to live freely, so long as it was to no one else's disadvantage.

The exposé type of magazine plays infinite variations on a single, very old theme--SEX. Almost every well-known figure in the literary, theatrical, and political world, at one time or another, has been the target of a salacious blast. By innuendo and the use of unrelated facts, fictions, and photographs, the subject's character is drawn and quartered. Murder, rape, mayhem, adultery, sadism, and masochism run rampant through the pages. No corruption or debauchery is considered too extreme, so long as it meets the publications' high levels of obscenity. If a saint could come to life, he would not be immune to the slaughter.

The New York Enquirer, a journalistic monstrosity that specializes in epic squalor. Incredibly, this monument to obscenity continues to appear on newsstands week after week.

The most frustrating and difficult part of such an accusation is that the writer has a column at his disposal, and the victim has no such platform from which to retaliate. One can only sit back in anger, and let the scandalmongers play the same old insistent tune on their pornograph.

Unfortunately, this type of character defamation often follows the victim doggedly, and on occasion, has done irreparable damage. If retractions are printed, which is rare in the offending newspapers, they are seldom noted by the reader. I think it can be compared adequately to taking a bag full of feathers to a high hill and throwing them into the wind--retrieving all of them would be an impossible job.

I'd remained the subject of a TV boycott by the executives in the industry, though why they felt I was to be shrouded from the general public is still unclear. No doubt they felt that all sexual realities (other than exaggerated bust lines), should remain concealed, though they seem to have had no such hesitation about showing violence, murder, dope addiction, and infidelity on the home screens.

Almost invariably when my name was mentioned, it carried the added phrase, "an ex-GI." There seemed to be something fascinating about the fact that I'd been in the army, and I wonder now if that paradox wasn't a large contributing factor in the mountains of publicity that followed.

My greatest desire was to step over the boundaries of notoriety, into the world of legitimate theater, and I hoped to make the transition on the strength of a satisfying and acceptable performance; not by a constant reference to my past personal life.

Never at any time have I regarded myself as a crusader or a rebel fighting for a cause. Except on a few occasions, and those only when my personal freedoms were threatened, I've never been very good at carrying banners into battle. From the beginning, my only thought was to seek a way of life I felt had been my rightful destiny. In essence, it was a search for dignity and the right to live life in freedom and happiness. It was a mold that could hold true for me alone and for no other, and the fact that I solved a particular and highly personal problem, for me, was the only thing of importance.

Through the years, I've encountered about every attitude and response known to the human emotional spectrum. Some people thought me a courageous pioneer, others regarded me as disgusting and immoral; some of the clergy considered that I had committed an ungodly act. Why these reactions to me should be so explosively pro and con, only God or the Devil knows, and I suspect they are both puzzled.

Many times, I've been accused of living a masquerade as a female, but if I have not already made it clear I will state again that, in my view, the real masquerade would have been to continue in my former state. That, to me, would have been living the lie.

I think I'm basically one and the same person I was in the earlier part of my life--perhaps calmer, more accepting and certainly happier.

The unusual, especially in sexual anomalies, is what the public wants to read with breakfast coffee.

Like Janus, the press has presented two faces: one detrimental and one advantageous.

To me, there is very little sex in toilets.

Can you realize what success for me will mean to literally thousands of people? For I am not alone in this affliction. It may mean new hope and life to so many people. I think we (the doctors and I) are fighting this the right way--make the body fit the soul, rather than vice versa. For me, it is the heart, the look in the eyes, tone of voice, and the way one thinks that makes the real person.

I think the future of life lies in the hands of the biochemists, when there won't be any cures, but rather preventives.

Mine is an unusual case, although the condition is not so rare as the average person would think. It is more a problem of social taboos and the desire not to speak of the subject, because it deals with the great "hush-hush," namely, Sex.

I remember [Dr. Kinsey] personally as a shy, quiet man and a gracious host, but in his work he was a supreme egoist, and left me with the impression that he believed his books on sexual behavior were the definitive ones, and there was not much left to be said on the subject. Perhaps his professional conceit was warranted, for above all, he was a dedicated research scientist, and I was happy to have made even a small contribution to his studies.

I now admit, with something of an apology, that I made my first appearance at the Copa Club in August of 1953 with the secret opinion that I was doing something slightly disreputable. I think I expected every member of the audience to be drunk, and that all chorus girls led scarlet lives. But I soon learned that life upon the wicked stage wasn't so wicked after all. I found that most entertainers were pretty average, hardworking citizens, and many of them simply went home to a husband or wife and children. They were often civic-minded, voted in elections, observed traffic laws, helped old ladies across the street, went to church, and gave innumerable benefit performances for no pay. The public only heard about the prodigals who were in the minority, as the virtues of the others simply weren't very interesting. Today, it makes me laugh to think that I was such a great moralist, and often branded as a questionable commodity myself, that I was so abundantly guilty of being a prude.

It was difficult for me to see the relationship between public morals and public toilets, as to me those facilities had been more a matter of convenience than of sex.

I've often wondered why there should be some people who want everything about me to be false or masculine, or what my critics would say if I suddenly appeared with close-cropped hair, no makeup and in men's clothing. I strongly suspect that, too, would leave them unsatisfied.

Comedians used Christine jokes with abandon, frequently when I was present, as even my name was good for a surefire laugh. Many of the stories were very unappetizing, and almost always dealt with the more lewd and phonographic aspects of sex. Probably it's because I was the subject of the commentary, but I've never quite understood why it reached such levels of popularity, though I admit that the sources showed phenomenal imagination.

Almost everybody I met had a Christine Jorgensen "joke.

With all the evils of publicity and its causes for distress, I also realized no matter how unwilling a subject, the opportunities that it offered ultimately could only be counted on the credit side. I knew that if the sudden notoriety had catapulted me into a lucrative career and exciting new experiences, then I must use it in my life as a force for good. I hoped in the future that I would receive no more mention than my accomplishments or abilities deserved.

In spite of every precaution to preserve my privacy, some details of my surgery did leak out in the press...it was an extremely personal and intimate procedure in my medical history, I had no wish to share its details with the rest of the world, any more than a complete hysterectomy would be advertised by another woman.

It is interesting to note that the response to me in Swedish press held no ridicule or personal animosity. The Swedes indicated their affection and acceptance of me on the basis that I was a human being first and, second, a scientific marvel instead of an oddity. It was probably the first time that the press had not taken it upon itself to decide what I was--a circumstance that had prevailed from the time the first story broke.

Apparently, I was going to have to get used to the idea of being stared at and inspected. People were going to be interested and inquisitive, I decided, and I would just have to accept it as logical, if I was going to function in the world at all.

The Post articles consistently referred to me as "he," "Jorgensen," or "the Bronx man," as though I were some anthropological missing link.

I was never an absolute male and I shall never be an absolute female. But whatever the value of percentages in the scale of sex determinants, there are no absolutes; even the most masculine or feminine person approximates only eighty percent of the possible total. There is no one hundred percent Adam or Eve.

I remember times when I lived in a crucible of troubled phantoms, and faltered in the long, painful struggle for identity. But for me there was always a glimmering promise that lay ahead; with the help of God, a promise that has been fulfilled. I found the oldest gift of heaven--to be myself.

I would not have died had I not had this treatment. I’d have gone on existing, but I would hardly have gone on living.

You have lost a son, but gained somebody new.

Nature made a mistake which I have had corrected and I am your daughter.

We didn't start the sexual revolution but I think we gave it a good kick in the pants!

I don't need anyone's opinion. I've got my own.

Without faith I'd have stopped existing long ago. But I don't believe God would want me to go on being unhappy, unable to present the best part of myself to the world, when there is the possibility of developing into a whole person.

God gives us many chances in this world and I don't believe they're confined to a choice between good and evil, or what people think is right and wrong. Anyway, I believe my choice now is right, because if a change is possible, I will be given a chance to lead a life of greater meaning and dignity. And I think God would probably approve of that!

I didn't want to continue in my present state if there was even the remotest possibility of finding further help, no matter where in the world I would have to go to find it.

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. Yes, in considering the possibilities of removing and transplanting, perhaps science is reaching beyond the acceptance of current medical practice, but does that justify refusing to do it? Where would the world be without the Pasteurs and Ehrlichs to reach out and do the impossible?

I don't believe that I could stop loving someone without retaining some sort of fondness for him. He was, by then, a part of my past, but I know he will always own that small part of me which I gave to him and which he did not know existed.

I think as I look at the foamy white clouds How wonderful it would be to live among them And to have their protecting films as shelter To float along through eternity, Never to have the stress and turmoil of the earth disrupt my life. Always to be detached from the earth's pulling forces Just to be alone with the elements. The elements--the one thing human minds can't control Always moving as they like.

The lost soul whose heart reaches out to grasp love While his arms were forced through precedent to hang lifeless Whose very soul cries out to a love that cannot be returned Where can a substitute, a partial relief be found? How can a futureless life go on? Yet, it does. Year after year, the body lives, while the soul dies.

When the First Lady is a he--and the President is me It's a switch--it's a twist--it's a change Still these things would shock most people But I don't really know why, For the world is full of changes--who knows this more than I!

Never once, in all those acres of newsprint, had I been asked about my faiths and beliefs, both of which had played important roles in my life. What I slept in, apparently, was considered more important than what I believed in.

I have never been such a real person as I am today.

Through the doctor's eyes, I see myself as a chemical reaction, and as you know, chemical formulas are definite and lead to definite conclusions.

Contentment and happiness are contagious, I think.

It seems unfortunate to me, when millions of dollars are allocated to medical research and the relief of human suffering, that little or nothing is earmarked for help of victims of sex abnormalities. It is frequently considered more appropriate to strengthen the arm of the law against the people who don't fit into acceptable patterns of sexual normalcy, whatever the "norm" may be. In the face of abnormality, sometimes it's considered clever to ridicule or condemn. However, it's encouraging to note that within the past few years, the subject of deviation has not been so carefully avoided by legislative groups or medical practice, and society in general has been even further enlightened, I think, through occasional channels of mass communications media.

It was all so unreal, like the moment of receiving a mortal blow, and I closed my eyes hoping I could shut out the nightmare. In the first shock-waves, the world seemed to disintegrate around me with sickening finality. I know at first I felt fear for the safety of my family and horror at the disclosure of an intimate and highly personal event in my life, but the initial shock of it was replaced by a towering rage. I was livid with anger and I don't hesitate to admit it. To me, that message was a symbol of a brutal and cruel betrayal. A lifetime of agonizing unhappiness, two years of medical treatment and two surgical operations had been telescoped into a couple of succinct lines on a telegraph form, and I knew without being told that it would go far beyond that hospital room.

I realize, of course, that selling newspapers is a business, and that gathering news and presenting it truthfully must be a difficult and competitive task. However, in a story of a highly controversial nature, some newsmen are prone to alter facts and present them in an exciting, provocative way to a panting public, without always following the unvarnished truth.

It seems to me now a shocking commentary on the press of our time that I pushed the hydrogen-bomb tests on Eniwetok right off the front pages. A tragic war was still raging in Korea, George VI had died and Britain had a new queen, sophisticated guided missiles were going off in New Mexico, Jonas Salk was working on a vaccine for infantile paralysis...Christine Jorgensen was on page one.

I was to suffer considerably from the wide acceptance of the dictionary's limited definition of the word, "transvestite." Perhaps my discomfort was not without some reason, for since then, a number of medical authorities have posed the question of whether or not it is advisable to apply new terms to cases such as mine.

I stepped out of the doorway, onto the top step, and met a scene of such chaos and utter madness that I've never been able to recall it all clearly. I had trouble remembering the details of the bedlam the next day, let alone years later.

I thought for a moment that I had entered Dante's inferno, as flashbulbs exploded from all directions and newsreel cameras whirred. A crowd of three hundred shoving reporters, newsreel and still photographers had converged, all jockeying for position and camera angles. I learned later it was the largest assemblage of press representatives in the history of the airport.

The past was yesterday, and yesterday had ended last night.

Some months later, I was told by Ben White, the Daily News reporter who had written the original scoop in December of 1952, that the Jorgensen story had lain on his desk for a week before he decided to use it. Apparently, at that time, a lurid sex scandal involving the trial of a wealthy playboy had run its course, the public was beginning to lose interest, and the Daily News was looking for another "sensation" to take its place, in order to boost its circulation. In a sense then, my notoriety was a matter of chance.

As I remember, the only newspaper that reported my return with any degree of conservatism was the New York Times, which carried a brief column containing a few pertinent facts and lived up to its motto: "All the news that's fit to print.

Unable to reach me and gather the real facts, rival newspapers proceeded to enlarge on the slightest item to keep the Jorgensen story moving before the public. If I sneezed, it was duly reported as an event.

When that raffish assortment arrived at the New York airport, a reporter discovered that one of the shipping cartons was clearly imprinted with the words "Petal Soft Toilet Tissue," and he proceeded to publish my guilty secret. It's obvious now, I think, that I've always traveled in the grand manner.