How many were affected by story of Christine Jorgensen growing up or Jazz

[stephaniec]

I heard  about her from the TV when I was growing up when I was going through puberty. My older sister had also bought a paperback autobiography of hers, when I was a freshman in high school going through the hell of a wrong puberty. Knowing about her story made such a gigantic impact on my  brain especially finding out about her during the hell of puberty.

[Chloe]

Christine who? (Just kidding)

For me it was Nancy Hunt's "Mirror Image".

Found an old related topic  link here.

[stephaniec]

I go back a ways

[RobynD]

She was before my time for the most part, but i remember as a kid seeing some sort of documentary or news story  about her and thinking how pretty she was.

I really had very little understanding that there was even an option to medically change your gender characteristics much before my 20s. Sometime around then, i went to a library and read some material that truly shocked me. I remember crying that day too.

[Michelle_P]

I remember thinking that she must have been 'one of a kind', someone unique and specially suited for her treatment, that someone like me would never get.

I was a pretty mixed up kid, though.

[BeverlyAnn]

I didn't find out about her until I was in my teens.  My father had some men's magazine in the mid 1960's that had an update on what Christine had been doing over the years.  I saw the article listed on the cover and hid it so I could read it.  It was the first time I knew there was someone else in the world.  Then a few years later, there was the article in Playboy about Wendy Carlos.  I think that's when I actually realized I truly wasn't alone in the world.

[Stevie]

I didn't find out about her until I was in my teens.  My father had some men's magazine in the mid 1960's that had an update on what Christine had been doing over the years.  I saw the article listed on the cover and hid it so I could read it.  It was the first time I knew there was someone else in the world.  Then a few years later, there was the article in Playboy about Wendy Carlos.  I think that's when I actually realized I truly wasn't alone in the world.

I really loved Wendy Carlos's soundtrack for "A Clockwork Orange" She is technical innovator and brilliant composer.

[Ms Grace]

I can't remember when I first heard of her but it was a long time after I'd decided to try transition the first time around. And to be honest I still don't know much about her...

[stephaniec]

I'm pretty sure, no I'm absolutely sure my brain would of melted if I saw I am Jazz when I was in grade school.

[CarlyMcx]

I am kind of glad there was no Jazz Jennings when I was in grade school.  If I had seen her and begged my parents and doctors to let me transition, my parents would have said and done everything they could to stop me. 

I never knew about Christine Jorgenson growing up.  I lived with the idea that gender transition was science fiction until I was about 19 and I saw Dr. Renee Richards on the TV news.

Unfortunately my father was so far into the back of my head by then that I let my fears force me to live according to his script until he suffered a stroke in 2009.  And then it took five years of arguments with him inside my head for me to fully realize who I was and what I had to do.

[stephaniec]

that's one of the things that held me back. My father and thoughts of being the son

[DawnOday]

I heard  about her from the TV when I was growing up when I was going through puberty. My older sister had also bought a paperback autobiography of hers, when I was a freshman in high school going through the hell of a wrong puberty. Knowing about her story made such a gigantic impact on my  brain especially finding out about her during the hell of puberty.

When I was growing up we only had so many examples. Christine Jorgenson, Renee Richards and Tula Cossey. Christine taught me a man can become a woman. Renee taught me that transwomen can play sports, Tula taught me that I can be incredibly hot. 

[JoanneB]

This old fossil for sure can say seeing "The Christine Jorgenson Story" on the tele had a MAJOR affect on me. More so then my dad listen to Jazz when he came home drunk after doing OT on a Saturday.

What really hit me was after the airing on TV was a Public Service Announcement from the Eric Erickson Foundation. Though I was like 12 at the time I wrote (I did say fossil, pre-jurassic to be exact) away for info. A couple of weeks later when the hefty packet came it was like...... OMG!

It took another almost 50 years to REALLY act on it.

[alex82]

Neither. None.

Neither of those are my generation or my country anyway.

I had a neighbour who was trans, and I stayed away from her (apart from pleasantries if I saw her in the hall) for the same reason I turned off every television programme about transsexuals or with one in the show. Did not want to be confronted with my own reality.

And in terms of celebrities (Caitlyn Jenner being to me, just another member of a pointless, vacuous and wholly uninteresting family) and fly on the wall television shows, skewed through a producers eye, still don't really.

[stephaniec]

This old fossil for sure can say seeing "The Christine Jorgenson Story" on the tele had a MAJOR affect on me. More so then my dad listen to Jazz when he came home drunk after doing OT on a Saturday.

What really hit me was after the airing on TV was a Public Service Announcement from the Eric Erickson Foundation. Though I was like 12 at the time I wrote (I did say fossil, pre-jurassic to be exact) away for info. A couple of weeks later when the hefty packet came it was like...... OMG!

It took another almost 50 years to REALLY act on it.

that's pretty cool you did that

[alex82]

that's one of the things that held me back. My father and thoughts of being the son

I guess that's quite common Stephanie.

My father I don't think would've cared, to his credit. He was nuts admittedly, working class Londoner, loved a fight, slept with anything good looking in a skirt, but he wouldn't have cared.

My mother is slightly different - from an educated upper middle family rooted in the stage and entertainment business, with an openly gay brother, and friends she'd lost in the AIDS peak - so well primed you might say, but a real drama queen. Telling her was the most difficult thing I'd had to do, because she's in an excellent place after years of not being, and I didn't want to load this onto her newfound happiness.

[Laura_Squirrel]

I had no idea who Christine was until I had internet access at age 29. I heard about Jazz when 20/20 did the episode on trans kids a year or so later. (I think that's when it was, anyway). Neither had any effect in relation to my own transition and/or experiences as a transchick.

[Joelene9]

I go back a ways

Ditto. Christine Jorgensen came into town and was on a local TV talk show around 1964. My mom and us 4 kids were watching this show and my mom said that she was once a man and she was not a homosexual. Her descriptions matched what was I was feeling since I noticed the difference around age 5 or 6.

Joelene

[Avinia]

Well, I think the only reason I really am here is because of Jazz Jennings... So she had a pretty big impact on my life. although, 3-4 years later and I still haven't come out/transitioned(working on the first part), I really do kind of know now that being transgender is not just some weird mental illness. Since really all I had before discovering Jazz was whatever my the churches around me believed about the LGBTQ community, my parents never really commented on it much from what I remember.

I do recall, when I was around 12 years old, overhearing a show my mom was watching, which was about sex changes. I do still wonder why she was watching that, since it really doesn't fit how I always viewed my parents' opinions on the topic. Then again, it could have just been on and my mom just hadn't changed the channel(I was too busy playing Counter Strike to pay much attention).

[anjaq]

Sadly, I was too young for Christine Jorgenson and am too old for Jazz Jennings - so I did sadly not have much to go on as a teenager, but in my early 20ies a trans woman won the Eurovision Grand Prix Song contest and she was so beautiful and had such a great voice, she really did inspire me to get going, although at that point I already heard about transitioning being real and thiniking about it all the time.