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A TRANSSEXUAL PIONEER IS REMEMBERED

By Kristanna Tho'Mas
New York

It was 1952 when George Jorgensen went to Sweden to undergo sex
reassignment for a year. Christine Jorgensen came back to the U.S.
a woman and was thrown into the limelight of media inquiry.

On April 8 the Lesbian and Gay Community Center in New York
celebrated the 40th anniversary of her return at an event attended
by 200 transsexual and other transgendered sisters and brothers,
bisexuals, lesbians, gays and supporters. It honored the day when
Christine Jorgensen opened the door for the right of people to be
transsexual.

The ceremony opened with a videotape of Jorgensen stepping off the
plane from Sweden where she had undergone her sex-reassignment
surgery.

>From the time the media first splashed her face on the front pages
of the major newspapers in this country, Christine Jorgensen became
a beacon to many looking for a way out of their oppression. But the
hardships she endured were reflected in how her life became
material for innumerable standup comics for 10 long years.

Speakers at the anniversary meeting acknowledged the total
isolation Jorgensen had to face at that time because there was no
community of transgendered and transsexual people to lean on for
support. Many of the older transsexuals recalled the moment, the
place and the emotions they had when they first heard of a man who
became a woman.

Everyone who spoke at the meeting felt that times have changed
since those days. They are not alone; there is a community of
people just like themselves.

Christine Jorgensen was and is a light in a long dark tunnel. She
gave those suffering a reason to keep on living. Christine
Jorgensen inspired the hope of fulfilling their dream.

"When I was in high school, everyone wanted to be various things,"
said a female-to-male transsexual, "from banker to lawyer to
millionaire or whatever, but I was the only one to really get to
see my dream come true. I became the sex that I really should have
been."

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted 
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; via e-mail: nyxfer!ww@speedway.net)



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