The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [180]
Three THE BOMBSHELL
Looked into a sea effaces This account of Christine Jorgensen’s life is a summary based on her memoir Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiogra phy, published in 1967, and reprinted by Cleis Press in 2000. I also spoke with a few people who had known Jorgensen at various points throughout her life, most notably Joanna Clark (Sister Mary Elizabeth), an early trans- activist who was Jorgensen’s friend and neighbor in Southern California. The first person to serve in the United States armed forces as both a man and a woman; founder of AEGIS, the first and most comprehensive source of AIDS information on the Internet; and author of one of the early legal texts for transpeople—Clark truly deserves to be the subject of a book in her own right.
Dolly and I were surrounded Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen, 5. 63 Grandma was always my champion Ibid., 16.
A little boy wore trousers Ibid., 8.
“‘Mom,’ I asked, ‘why didn’t God’make us alike?”’ Ibid., 9.
After World War Two, there was the creation of this really ngid gender system Author interview with Stryker.
Mrs. Jorgensen, do you think this is anything for a red-bloodedboy Jorgensen, 14-15. 64 Instead of assimilating into a group Ibid., 20.
I triedto findsome solace in books Ibid., 25.
time when I would have an important place behind the cameras Ibid. 65 I wondered if’my new associates wouldnotice Ibid., 28.
I wanted to be accepted by the army for two reasons Ibid., 30.
couldn’t help comparing myself with the boys inmy group Ibid., 31.
During the months in the service Ibid., 33.
I awaited a miracle to release me Ibid., 35.
Christine Jorgensen lived with my mother and father Author’s personal communication, Peggy Stockton McClelland, June 7, 2001.
His hips were wide like a woman’s Paul de Kruif, The Male Hormone (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945), 94. for purely scientific purposes Ibid.
The boy’s thyroid gland began to grow Ibid., 95.
In five days he had four hot flashes Ibid.
They crowed. They battled. They chased hens enthusiastically Ibid., 54. 70 symptoms of underdevelopment or even retrogression passed away Ibid., 52.
the female implanted with the male gland will always be a male Ibid., 56.
He came to America quite by happenstance Author interview with Christine Wheeler, New York City, February 11, 2002.
I was greatly impressed with his sex changes Erwin J. Haeberle, “The Transatlantic Commuter: An Interview with Harry Benjamin,” Sexualmedivin 14 no. 1 (1985). Retrieved from http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/REMINI.HTM, 9/10/2001.
Every year during the 1920s Benjamin, “Reminiscences.”
Benjamin felt that Steinach was a genius Author interview with Wheeler. See also Chandak Sengoopta, “Tales from the Vienna Labs: The Eugen Steinach—Harry Benjamin Correspondence,” Favourite Edition, Newsletter of the Friends of the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine 2 (Spring 2000).
Freud admitted that he, too, had undergone the Steinach operation Benjamin, “Reminiscences.” As did the poet William Butler Yeats and scores of other men who “had recourse to the operation in the belief that it would ‘rejuvenate’ them physically and mentally.” Sengoopta, “Tales,” 1. “Benjamin was diligent beyond belief in spreading his master’s word but soon held back because of Steinach’s wrath and unfair imputations.”
Broadly speaking, the Steinach Operation strengthens the endocrine system Harry Benjamin in the introduction to Paul Kammerer, Rejuvenation and the Prolongation of Human Efficiency: Experiences with the Steinach Operation on Man and AnimaL (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923).
This study group, which beganmeeting in 1916 Charles Ihlenfeld, in “Memorial for Harry Benjamin,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17, no. 1 (February 1988): 3.
Harry believed that the urine of young men Leah Cahan Schaefer in “Memorial,” 13.
Still determined to find some cure or satisfactory compromise Jorgensen, Christine