Hermaphrodite: Christine Jorgensen

Jorgensen was born George William Jorgensen, Jr., the second child of George William Jorgensen Sr., a carpenter and contractor, and his wife, the former Florence Davis Hansen. Jorgensen grew up in the Bronx and later described herself as having been a "frail, tow-headed, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games". Jorgensen graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1945 and shortly thereafter was drafted into the Army. After she was discharged from the Army, Jorgensen attended Mohawk College in Utica, New York, the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School in New York City, New York. He briefly worked for Pathé News.

When she returned to New York after her military service, increasingly concerned over (as one obituary called it) her "lack of male physical development", Jorgensen heard about the possibility of sex reassignment surgery, and began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own. She researched the subject with the help of Dr. Joseph Angelo, a husband of one of Jorgensen's classmates at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School.[3] She intended to go to Sweden, where she had found the only doctors in the world performing this type of surgery at the time. At a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, however, Jorgensen met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. She ended up staying in Denmark, and under Dr. Hamburger's direction, was allowed to begin hormone replacement therapy, eventually undergoing a series of surgeries.

During this first round of surgeries in Copenhagen, Jorgensen was castrated. According to an obituary, "With special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice, Jorgensen had her testicles removed first and her still-undeveloped penis a year later. Though technically a eunuch, Jorgensen received large doses of hormones, which led to changes in her body contours and fat distribution, and, with help from the American ambassador, had her passport changed to identify her as female and began life as a woman." Several years later Jorgensen obtained a vaginoplasty, when the procedure became available in the U.S., under the direction of Dr. Angelo and a medical advisor Harry Benjamin.

Jorgensen chose the name Christine in honor of Dr. Hamburger. She became a spokesperson for transsexual and transgender people.


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The entire gender reassignment process is extremely expensive. Costs vary depending on where patients have the surgery, if they choose to have additional elective surgeries and if they are covered by health insurance. Male to female gender reassignment surgery costs roughly $37,000 while female to male surgery costs about $77,000. Choosing surgery outside of the United States sometimes means cheaper associated costs -- facilities in Thailand often charge less than $10,000.

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