@famousobits: In 1944, Christine Jorgensen was drafted into the United States Army. She served as a clerical worker, was discharged, and quietly went back to civilian life in the Bronx. Then she went to Denmark. She had learned about sex reassignment surgery and traveled to Copenhagen in 1950, where she began a series of procedures and hormone treatments that took nearly two years. She chose her first name in honor of the surgeon who treated her. She had planned to keep it private. Someone told the press. On December 1, 1952, the New York Daily News ran her story on the front page. The headline: “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.” Within days she was one of the most talked-about people in America. She didn’t hide from it. She lectured at colleges, toured as a cabaret singer, gave hundreds of interviews, and published her autobiography in 1967. It sold nearly 450,000 copies. Christine Jorgensen died on May 3, 1989, of bladder and lung cancer. Dr. Harry Benjamin, whose research became the foundation of transgender medicine, credited her directly. Without Christine, he wrote, none of it would have happened. #christinejorgensen #History #onthisday #lgbthistory #TikTokLearningCampaign

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Sunday 03 May 2026 19:48:25 GMT