Christine Jorgensen

Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) was the first person in the USA known to go through sex reassignment surgery. She was operated at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen in 1951-52, and is often considered the first to successfully complete this type of surgery. Similar procedures had been performed in Germany as early as the 1930s, but Jorgensen was likely the first to also receive female hormones. The case received a lot of publicity in Norway. Christine Jorgensen and "Christine Jorgensen-surgeries" were frequently mentioned in Norwegian media in the early 1950s, especially in stories about homosexuality and sexuality/sex in general. Newspaper articles (which are available in Kim Friele's archive) from the period show that Jorgensen was both viewed as a role model and was subject to satire.