Christine Jorgensen Quotes

“How strange it seemed to me that the whole answer might lie in the particular combination of atoms contained in those tiny, aspirin-like tablets. As recently as a few years before, science had split some of those atoms and unleashed a giant force. There in my hand lay another series of atoms, which in their way might set off another explosion--one I hoped would not be a destructive force but would help to make me a whole person.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I don't need anyone's opinion. I've got my own.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Nature made a mistake which I have had corrected and I am your daughter.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I remember times when I lived in a crucible of troubled phantoms, and faltered in the long, painful struggle for identity. But for me there was always a glimmering promise that lay ahead; with the help of God, a promise that has been fulfilled. I found the oldest gift of heaven--to be myself.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Like Janus, the press has presented two faces: one detrimental and one advantageous.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The unusual, especially in sexual anomalies, is what the public wants to read with breakfast coffee.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I think I'm basically one and the same person I was in the earlier part of my life--perhaps calmer, more accepting and certainly happier.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Many times, I've been accused of living a masquerade as a female, but if I have not already made it clear I will state again that, in my view, the real masquerade would have been to continue in my former state. That, to me, would have been living the lie.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Through the years, I've encountered about every attitude and response known to the human emotional spectrum. Some people thought me a courageous pioneer, others regarded me as disgusting and immoral; some of the clergy considered that I had committed an ungodly act. Why these reactions to me should be so explosively pro and con, only God or the Devil knows, and I suspect they are both puzzled.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Never at any time have I regarded myself as a crusader or a rebel fighting for a cause. Except on a few occasions, and those only when my personal freedoms were threatened, I've never been very good at carrying banners into battle. From the beginning, my only thought was to seek a way of life I felt had been my rightful destiny. In essence, it was a search for dignity and the right to live life in freedom and happiness. It was a mold that could hold true for me alone and for no other, and the fact that I solved a particular and highly personal problem, for me, was the only thing of importance.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“My greatest desire was to step over the boundaries of notoriety, into the world of legitimate theater, and I hoped to make the transition on the strength of a satisfying and acceptable performance; not by a constant reference to my past personal life.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Almost invariably when my name was mentioned, it carried the added phrase, "an ex-GI." There seemed to be something fascinating about the fact that I'd been in the army, and I wonder now if that paradox wasn't a large contributing factor in the mountains of publicity that followed.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I'd remained the subject of a TV boycott by the executives in the industry, though why they felt I was to be shrouded from the general public is still unclear. No doubt they felt that all sexual realities (other than exaggerated bust lines), should remain concealed, though they seem to have had no such hesitation about showing violence, murder, dope addiction, and infidelity on the home screens.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Unfortunately, this type of character defamation often follows the victim doggedly, and on occasion, has done irreparable damage. If retractions are printed, which is rare in the offending newspapers, they are seldom noted by the reader. I think it can be compared adequately to taking a bag full of feathers to a high hill and throwing them into the wind--retrieving all of them would be an impossible job.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The most frustrating and difficult part of such an accusation is that the writer has a column at his disposal, and the victim has no such platform from which to retaliate. One can only sit back in anger, and let the scandalmongers play the same old insistent tune on their pornograph.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The New York Enquirer, a journalistic monstrosity that specializes in epic squalor. Incredibly, this monument to obscenity continues to appear on newsstands week after week.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The exposé type of magazine plays infinite variations on a single, very old theme--SEX. Almost every well-known figure in the literary, theatrical, and political world, at one time or another, has been the target of a salacious blast. By innuendo and the use of unrelated facts, fictions, and photographs, the subject's character is drawn and quartered. Murder, rape, mayhem, adultery, sadism, and masochism run rampant through the pages. No corruption or debauchery is considered too extreme, so long as it meets the publications' high levels of obscenity.

If a saint could come to life, he would not be immune to the slaughter.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“It is interesting to note that the response to me in Swedish press held no ridicule or personal animosity. The Swedes indicated their affection and acceptance of me on the basis that I was a human being first and, second, a scientific marvel instead of an oddity. It was probably the first time that the press had not taken it upon itself to decide what I was--a circumstance that had prevailed from the time the first story broke.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“In spite of every precaution to preserve my privacy, some details of my surgery did leak out in the press...it was an extremely personal and intimate procedure in my medical history, I had no wish to share its details with the rest of the world, any more than a complete hysterectomy would be advertised by another woman.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“With all the evils of publicity and its causes for distress, I also realized no matter how unwilling a subject, the opportunities that it offered ultimately could only be counted on the credit side. I knew that if the sudden notoriety had catapulted me into a lucrative career and exciting new experiences, then I must use it in my life as a force for good. I hoped in the future that I would receive no more mention than my accomplishments or abilities deserved.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Almost everybody I met had a Christine Jorgensen "joke.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Comedians used Christine jokes with abandon, frequently when I was present, as even my name was good for a surefire laugh. Many of the stories were very unappetizing, and almost always dealt with the more lewd and phonographic aspects of sex. Probably it's because I was the subject of the commentary, but I've never quite understood why it reached such levels of popularity, though I admit that the sources showed phenomenal imagination.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I've often wondered why there should be some people who want everything about me to be false or masculine, or what my critics would say if I suddenly appeared with close-cropped hair, no makeup and in men's clothing. I strongly suspect that, too, would leave them unsatisfied.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“It was difficult for me to see the relationship between public morals and public toilets, as to me those facilities had been more a matter of convenience than of sex.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I now admit, with something of an apology, that I made my first appearance at the Copa Club in August of 1953 with the secret opinion that I was doing something slightly disreputable. I think I expected every member of the audience to be drunk, and that all chorus girls led scarlet lives. But I soon learned that life upon the wicked stage wasn't so wicked after all. I found that most entertainers were pretty average, hardworking citizens, and many of them simply went home to a husband or wife and children. They were often civic-minded, voted in elections, observed traffic laws, helped old ladies across the street, went to church, and gave innumerable benefit performances for no pay. The public only heard about the prodigals who were in the minority, as the virtues of the others simply weren't very interesting.

Today, it makes me laugh to think that I was such a great moralist, and often branded as a questionable commodity myself, that I was so abundantly guilty of being a prude.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I remember [Dr. Kinsey] personally as a shy, quiet man and a gracious host, but in his work he was a supreme egoist, and left me with the impression that he believed his books on sexual behavior were the definitive ones, and there was not much left to be said on the subject. Perhaps his professional conceit was warranted, for above all, he was a dedicated research scientist, and I was happy to have made even a small contribution to his studies.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“It was a common practice for news writers to make public proclamations as to what I was, or was not. It seemed to me that the selection of sex determination should lie with the individual in an effort to live freely, so long as it was to no one else's disadvantage.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I was never an absolute male and I shall never be an absolute female. But whatever the value of percentages in the scale of sex determinants, there are no absolutes; even the most masculine or feminine person approximates only eighty percent of the possible total. There is no one hundred percent Adam or Eve.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Mine was a single, highly individual case and the doctors had proceeded along the lines they felt would be most beneficial to me alone, with my full knowledge, approval, and consent. Beyond that, I had no advice for anyone...help for others could only come from the acceptance and enlightenment of the public and the medical profession.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The Post articles consistently referred to me as "he," "Jorgensen," or "the Bronx man," as though I were some anthropological missing link.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography