Digging Up Trans Dinosaur Bones

Christine Jorgensen: The first sex change not paid for with taxpayer dollars

Jun 04, 2024

I admire Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989), but the ephemeral and editorial remains of her life don’t leave the same wildly inspiring impression that she made during her years of trailblazing trans infamy. When an off-Broadway show called The Christine Jorgensen Show opened in February 2024 and closed in the first two weeks, it might’ve been a sign that along with gay pride fatigue, people are really getting burnt out on the topic of artificial vagina. Or maybe it’s because the Ramada Inn crowd doesn’t go out anymore, but I would bet that contemporary audiences just aren’t interested in sitting through a mid-century trans melodrama. They would need a Frankenstein Disco version of her life—with costumes by Dior and a special children’s matinee that would include full frontal male and female nudity, and splatter-protectant raincoats for people in the first rows. Nobody knows what to do with gentility and etiquette anymore. These are things that meant so much to Christine Jorgensen. She was first, and I’ll say it, she was a lady.

From The Deprogrammer’s Other Cinema Spectacular. Check out the amazing index below for full film list!

First in line for a new vagina.
THE CHRISTINE JORGENSEN STORY

I’ve avoided writing about The Christine Jorgensen Story until now, partly because you don’t really want to bash the old trannie too much, after all, she was first. Unfortunately the film presentation of her life is way less interesting than what I imagine the real Christine Jorgensen’s life to have been.

Christine’s pre-op, childhood development and awkward sexuality of young adulthood is supposed to convey the difficulties she went through, but they come off as common and trifling. Anyone who’s felt like an outsider, gay or otherwise knows the feelings that are meant to be conjured by Christine’s problems. You don’t even need to be a transsexual to understand most of the soapy emotions that Christine goes through.

When Christine finally starts growing her hair out and receiving estrogen injections, the morphing growth of her breasts are shown ripening right on her chest through a cheap digital effect that makes you want the exam to be over and for her to put her clothes back on.

How will she? and can she? ever consummate a relationship with a man are questions we’re supposed to ask ourselves as she struggles with femininity, but there’s no mystique and no sex appeal to make us care if she succeeds.

The unlikely love story that miraculously develops between her and a journalist so soon into her recovery is a bit baffling and awkward. It leaves questions, but none to do with sex.

What really matters is how she is going to be presented to the public. How does a newly famous woman with the best vagina that money can buy dress? Who does she wear? The Danish craftsmanship and innovation of Christine’s vaginoplasty has already determined that her look be elegant and expensive and that is how she presents herself. The person that’s been created by the operation is now float-ready with greater potential for stardom.

Apparently there was more to Christine than being a woman trapped in the body of a man, there was a performance artist trapped in there too. In her biography she complains about the difficulties of establishing a show business career leaving me to wonder why people think they’re worthy of the stage once they make their genitals or sexual kinks a topic of public discussion. Last time I checked, that was called a freak show. Which brings to mind John Wayne Bobbitt, another guy who got his dick cut off, only his procedure was done by his jealous wife, Lorena. It’s an ironic amusement that Christine Jorgensen’s show business career was about as bright as Bobbitt’s who went on to make a porn movie called Uncut.

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