1950's Science and Technology | Sex Change

Not Cut Out for the Army.

In 1952 Americans were shocked by the news that George Jorgensen, a twentysix-year-old private in the U.S. Army Service Command at Fort Dix, New Jersey, had an operation to change his sex. Jorgensen was unhappy as a man and wanted to change his body to that of a woman. He went to Denmark for the surgery to make the transformation.

A Quiet History.

Jorgensen's was not the first sex-change operation. In a highly publicized case, a woman in Great Britain was converted to a man by similar means in order to be able to inherit a title and land available only to a man. In fact, Jorgensen might not have been even the first American to have undergone a sex-change procedure. His notoriety was based on the fact that his case was publicized.

The Transformation.

At the Rigs Hospital in Copenhagen, Jorgensen was subjected to slow changes in his hormone levels as surgical procedures were...