GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

I first heard about Christine Jorgensen when I was about 5 years' old and was immediately intrigued at the possibilities. The second person EVER was Hedy Jo Star when I was 20..(see Link to Empire Strikes Back )

As you can guess, I had next-to-no TS role models growing up.

So, can you recall the first transsexual woman and how did it influence you?

Anneliese

Correction..I had two extra forward slashes in the URL..

try this for Sandy Stone's account:

Hedy Jo Star reference

THe first I'd ever HEARD about was a showgirl here named Austria Andrew. . .I was 17 and some friends came hom efrom the club with one of her promos showing it off. Then the first I ever actually MET was Calpernia, a lovely role model indeed.

Thanks for the HedyJo Star reference. I had forgotten about her.

Definitely Christine Jorgensen was the first TS person I had heard of. I cannot remember how old I was or the context of learning about her. As I have mentioned on a few occasions, Caroline Cossey was the first trans-woman I had ever met.

huggs,
Sarah

The first I had heard about was Caroline "Tula" Cossey, actually....I knew TS's existed back when I was about 7 or 8, but I had never heard of anyone specific until 1989 when Tula's second outing occurred (I was too young to know of her first outing. I tuned out anything related to James Bond back then *heh*)

The first one I personally met was just before transition on FurryMUCK. She had mentioned she was 'shopping for a vagina'. The incident made me realize that I *could* transition after all

it was a very young (early twenties) ordinary girl who I never heared of before - no VIP, starlet, showgirl or comparable. Just a ordinary one, portrayed in the newspaper (though IIRC it was some sort of yellow press) - some years ago.

Heard of Christine Jorgensen as a teenager, but never connected it with anything that could be real. Saw my first T-woman when I was 24, and it blew my mind.

From my website:
"Not long after returning to San Francisco I learned just how sheltered a life I'd led. I was doing electrical work in the Tenderloin district, a seedy neighborhood where drugs, crime and prostitution were rampant. One day I went into a bar to use the phone. I didn't know it was a transgender bar - never even imagined such places existed - until I noticed an otherwise beautiful woman with a five o'clock shadow. It fascinated me in a disturbing way that demanded I put it out of my mind immediately. But I never completely forgot that moment."

Less than two years later I went into that bar again . . . in a dress. A year after that my marriage was history, I was living down the block from that bar, on hormones and electrolysis, and finishing my second year of college. Oh, were those the days!

I was in my early twenties when I literaly "ran into her" at a club in Nurenburg Germany.(Army)
We actually hit it off quite well,and remained friends till I left the country
I still think of her alot,and wonder how she is.
But that meeting,and the long talks that followed really opened my eyes to my own soul.
But I was not ready to do anything about it at that time.
So here I am now,,,20 some years later wishing I had just stayed in Germany and started then...

The first I ever knew about the subject I got while watching a bad movie marathon on PBS and they showed "Glenn or Glenda." I was five. I discovered later that it was losely inspired (and when talking about Ed Wood "losely inspired" is still probably stretching the terms to their breaking point) by the story of Christine Jorgenson. I remember thinking that was kind of cool, and it must have always stayed at the back of my mind for quite a while for at 10 I pulled the name out of somewhere and did some research on her.

It was just a little after that I found out Caroline Cossey - Tula - was in my (at that time, before I'd seen "From Russia With Love") favorite James Bond movie, "For Your Eyes Only," and rewinding it over and over just for the brief, nano-second scene where she walks by the camera in her bathing suit. I remember thinking how cool it must be for her to be that beuatiful, and I dreamed I could be just like her someday.

I'm still dreaming. *shrug/sigh*


Sara Michelle