Christine Jorgenson

[IsabellaDelRio]

Christine Jorgenson

http://www.briannaaustin.com/photogalleries/divas/ChristineJorgenson/christine.html

[Jhellis978]

The original....

[Hugh Jarrod]

She really took a risk.

[geekmeat]

That site is a REAL public service to all transexuals and educational too.
This shows that it is possible to be more than an escort.
It also shows that SOME transexuals can look JUST AS GOOD as a genetic woman.
An amazing amazing site.

[kalina]

Brianna (the owner of that web site) is doing well, too. I hung out with her this past Saturday at East of Eighth before we went to Allanah's party... pics here...

http://www.transvamp.com/kalinapix/nyc/index.html

[geekmeat]

Very nice pictures kalina.
One thing I noticed is the HUGE diiference in attractiveness of various girls and the seemingly amount of time in transition.
Some girls pass as women and others look like men in drag.
Is it always like this at the places you go to?

[kalina]

Very nice pictures kalina.
One thing I noticed is the HUGE diiference in attractiveness of various girls and the seemingly amount of time in transition.
Some girls pass as women and others look like men in drag.
Is it always like this at the places you go to?

Always, but it also depends on where you go, too. I think some tgirls (full time or part time) will still look like men no matter how much plastic surgery they do or hormones they take. It's in their genetic makeup to look like men and I think some of them don't mind that because they work as men during the day.

The biggest detriment to a lot of tgirls' passability is height. Even if a tgirl looks really good, she'll have a problem looking real in everyday life if she's close to seven feet tall in heels.

[Ecstatic]

You're right there, Kalina. 5'6" or 5'7" is petite for a tgirl, usually (though there's always Kitty [forget her last name] who's 4'11" I think). I have a Thai friend who's beautiful, but instantly clocked in Thailand (not that it matters there, they are very well accepted in society) because she's very tall for a Thai girl, between 5'9" and 5'10".

[kalina]

You're right there, Kalina. 5'6" or 5'7" is petite for a tgirl, usually (though there's always Kitty [forget her last name] who's 4'11" I think). I have a Thai friend who's beautiful, but instantly clocked in Thailand (not that it matters there, they are very well accepted in society) because she's very tall for a Thai girl, between 5'9" and 5'10".

Same with Chinese girls, too. My mother was 5'1 and I'm 5'7.5 which is juuuust under the tall mark for your average girl... but if I were 5'4, that would've really made life easier. :D

[Ecstatic]

Talk about Christine Jorgensen: this Sunday I'm going to see Christine Jorgensen Reveals at the Offensive Theater in Boston. It's a production starring Bradford Louryk where he lip synchs Jorgensen's stunning, epoch-marking 1958 interview with Nipsey Russell, which was running off-Broadway and is now in Beantown. Critics have praised it, both for its content (a compelling and very intelligent account of being America's first famous post-op transsexual) and its performance (full-on 50s stage-siren drag (Jorgensen's caberet attire) and the captivating precision of the lip-synching). I'll let you know what I think after seeing it, but I look forward to it. Transamerica...Christine Jorgensen Reveals...progress is being made (albeit Jorgensen was at least 50 years ahead of her time).

[Sonia]

Legendary, Icon If it wasn't for this woman's courage, most of us would not have the lives we have. God Bless Christine Jorgensen. I have much respect for that women.

nice pics kalina i've noticd your looking much softer now,looking good girl

[kalina]

nice pics kalina i've noticd your looking much softer now,looking good girl

Thanks babe, I gained some weight from ~ 3 years of hormones, from 126 to around 134. I don't look gaunt like I did before.

[Ecstatic]

The play was outstanding, both conceptually and as performance. I assume you all know Christine Jorgensen was America's first famous post-op transsexual, having had her genital reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952. She was extremely intelligent, articulate, and knowledgable about gender issues, and 50 years ahead of her time. She very openly discussed how difficult her life was prior to her transformation and how it opened up for her afterwards; what it was like to go through the transformation (which was so rare at that point in history); her friendship with several famous people (including Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Durante); her caberet act; being banned in Boston (which got a strong response from the Boston audience); but most importantly about gender bias and being true to yourself.

After the performance, the Offensive Theatre (Boston's gay, lesbian, bi and transgender theatre company) had a dialogue with a transgendered woman, another woman (I honestly didn't catch whether she was trans- or cis-sexual, and I couldn't tell), and Bradford Louryk (the actor who played Christine). The transsexual woman commented that what astounds her the most about Christine is that there has been little improvement to her politics since 1957. I found that to be very true, as Christine very clearly articulated the viewpoint that gender is a social construct, and that all people are transgendered in the sense that we all partake of a combination of male and female attributes. In fact, she said that no one can be more than 80% male or 80% female (obviously not in terms of sexual reproductive organs, but in terms of one's whole being). When asked if she considered herself a woman, she replied that that was really a complicated question, talked about the mix of male/female gender attributes in all people, and concluded by saying that she definitely feels much more woman than she does man.

My wife (a staunch supported of GLBT rights though purely hetero in her own orientation) and I left early into the discussion; it was unplanned and we hadn't anticipated being out very late--she needs to get to bed by 7:00 every work night because she rises at 3:30 every morning--and we wanted to have early dinner at Montien, an excellent Thai restaurant in Boston's Theatre District, but I did share that I have several transgendered friends, including several from Thailand. I said that I definitely agreed that Christine had so clearly articulated gender issues 50 years ago and that society is only now finally catching up, citing the recent Felicity Huffman movie, Transamerica, and the continually improving portrayal of transsexual women on tv shows such as Nip/Tuck and Grey's Anatomy, and that while Thailand (thanks to its Buddhist culture) remains the model for the rest of the world, the West is improving all the time.

As for the performance: it was stunning. Louryk captured every nuance of Christine's mannerisms, and his lip synching was so perfect that you could have sworn he was speaking the role. He even had every little movement coordinated with spurious sounds on the recording, such as fingernails across fabric which was heard distinctly at a couple of points, when he pretended to flick something off his skirt, or the sound of a squeaking chair as he shifted his sitting position. It was just him on the stage with a black-and-white, early 50's style (round screen) TV, which featured Rob Grace lip synching Nipsey Russell's voice (interesting in itself, as Russell was black and Grace is white).