The Most Talked-About Woman in the World: Christine Jorgensen (1926–1989) | LGBTQ+ History Sleep Story

Drift off to sleep learning about Christine Jorgensen, the shy Bronx photographer who became, overnight and without her consent, the most famous transgender woman in the world, and who spent the next thirty-six years refusing to be ashamed of it.Christine Jorgensen was born in the Bronx on May 30, 1926, to a Danish-American family, served about a year as an army clerk at the end of the Second World War, and trained as a photographer in a darkroom her father built for her. In her early twenties she researched endocrinology herself in medical libraries, obtained estrogen, and tracked down the Danish endocrinologist Christian Hamburger, sailing for Copenhagen in 1950 and taking her own research with him. Hamburger treated her without charge; the first surgery took place in September 1951, with permission from the Danish Ministry of Justice, and a second the following autumn. She chose the name Christine in his honour. In June 1952 she wrote to her parents that the real her had not changed, that nature had made a mistake which had now been corrected, and that she was now their daughter, and her family accepted her. Then, on December 1, 1952, while she was still recovering in Copenhagen, someone leaked the story and the New York Daily News ran it on the front page: "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," with photographs taken from her family's letters. Three hundred reporters met her plane at Idlewild Airport on February 13, 1953. She responded by selling her own story on her own terms, building a Las Vegas nightclub act that reportedly paid $12,000 a week, and taking audience questions about her life at the end of every show. She published her autobiography in 1967, lectured on campuses into the 1980s, preferred the word "transgender" decades before it entered common use, and died in California on May 3, 1989. Harry Benjamin wrote that without her, the field of transgender medicine might never have advanced as it did.This story is told twice: first at a natural, comfortable pace, then again more slowly with longer pauses to guide you gently into sleep. Let the safelight glow red. Let the snow go past the window. Let the picture come up slowly in the dark.🌙 Perfect for: transgender history, Christine Jorgensen, 1950s America, LGBTQ+ history bedtime stories, trans pioneers, sleep meditation, insomnia relief, calm narration☕ Restful Rainbow is made independently. If you'd like to help keep it going, you can support the show here: https://restful-rainbow.captivate.fm/support💜 If this channel helps you rest, subscribe, and tell me in the comments which piece of queer history you'd like told as a bedtime story next.Related episodes:A Journey Through Transgender HistoryThe Corner of Turk and Taylor: The Compton's Cafeteria RiotMagnus HirschfeldThe Unfolding Story of Elliot Page"I thank you all for coming, but I think it's too much." — Christine Jorgensen, Idlewild Airport, 1953#ChristineJorgensen #TransgenderHistory #TransHistory #LGBTQHistory #QueerHistory #SleepStory #BedtimeStory #1950s #Copenhagen #Bronx #SleepMeditation #CalmNarration #TransPioneers #WomensHistory #HistoryPodcast #InsomniaRelief #RestfulRainbow #TransVisibility #LGBTQ #TransRights