American activist and performer Christine Jorgensen was BOTD in 1926. Born in New York City to a working-class family, she was assigned male at birth, and identified as female from early childhood. Drafted into the US Army during World War Two, she returned to New York after her military discharge, studying photography and working as a dental assistant. In 1950, she travelled to Europe to undertake two years of hormone treatment and gender reassignment surgery under the supervision of sexologist Harry Benjamin, adopting the name Christine in honour of her surgeon Dr Christian Hamburger. In 1952, she was publicly outed by the New York Daily News, who leaked a letter to her parents describing her surgery. She returned to the United States in 1953 as a national celebrity, undertaking a series of public lectures, television interviews and successful nightclub appearances. A five-part authorised account of her story was published later that year in The American Weekly, furthering her public profile (and inspiring the filmmaker Ed Wood to write, direct and star in Glen or Glenda, a zero-budget feature about a male transvestite who steals his girlfriend’s angora sweaters). A witty and entertaining public speaker, Jorgensen used her celebrity to advocate for acceptance and legal recognition of trans people. Unusually for the time, her parents were publicly supportive of her transition, building her a house in upstate New York. In 1959, Jorgensen announced her engagement to Howard Knox, but was refused a marriage licence as her birth certificate defined her as male. Their engagement was subsequently called off, and she remained single for the rest of her life. In 1967, after her parents’ death, Jorgensen moved to Los Angeles, living at the Chateau Marmont. Her memoir Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography, released later that year, became an national bestseller. She continued performing her nightclub act, adopting I Enjoy Being a Girl from the musical Flower Drum Song as her signature song. She also undertook a series of speaking tours at university campuses to discuss her experiences. In 1970, her memoir was adapted into the heavily fictionalised biopic The Christine Jorgensen Story, starring John Hansen as the adult Jorgensen. Though well-reviewed, Jorgensen disliked the film and unsuccessfully sought a restraining order to prevent the producers from exploiting it as a B-movie. Jorgensen continued performing into the 1980s, appearing in the Danish documentary Paradiset er ikke til salg (Paradise Is Not for Sale) in 1984. She died of cancer in 1989, aged 62. Now considered a pioneer of the trans community, she was inducted into the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor in New York City in 2019.