Christine Jorgensen did not set out to be a trailblazer, a role model, or a cultural icon. She set out to live authentically in her real gender, which was not assigned to her at birth. While she was not the first to undergo a “sex change” surgery, as it was called at the time, in 1952, the notoriety she received when she returned to New York from Denmark virtually forced her and her journey center stage. She embraced the opportunity, becoming an outspoken supporter of transgender issues and inspiring many others to embrace their authentic selves. She is honored on the LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument.
As it happens, Jorgensen was also a nightclub performer in New York, where she became quite a sensation. That part of her career is the basis for “The Christine Jorgensen Show,” a new musical now running at Here Arts Center.
Set in 1953, the show tells the story of the professional relationship between Jorgensen and the largely forgotten entertainer and pianist Myles Bell. Jesse James Keitel plays Jorgensen. Keitel’s booming career has included starring as a major character on the ABC series “Big Sky” and as a villain on “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” among many other appearances. As an advocate, she received the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award in 2022.
In an interview with Gay City News, Keitel said the role is “nothing like I’ve ever gotten to do before.”
“I play a very buttoned up, conservative woman in the 1950s who has to sing and dance in a nightclub,” Keitel said. “It’s quite different from anything I’ve done on TV.”
While Keitel acknowledges the importance of Jorgensen’s legacy, she adds that it was only a part of who she was.
“The funny thing is that so much of Christine’s fame was centered on her transition,” Keitel said. “That’s so reductive and it erases so much of the richness that was her life, including the fact that she had a wildly successful nightclub act.”
Keitel added: “At one point in time she was banned from the city of Boston. She wasn’t allowed to perform her show there because it was considered obscene, but it wasn’t obscene. It was just because she existed as a trans woman. In many ways, I feel like she paved the way for people like me. She became a socialite, and she went everywhere and met everyone, and she was a businesswoman who made a lot of money.”
The show is personal for Keitel as well.
“If someone looks at me, and the deepest they see is that I’m a trans woman, there’s a lot that they’re not seeing, and that’s the story we’re telling with ‘The Christine Jorgensen Show.’ There’s a lot more behind the headline.”
Keitel stresses that what is often forgotten today is how progressive Jorgensen was at the time, including around issues of gender. As Keitel says, “Jorgensen said that everyone was both sexes to some degree, and she said that she was more a woman than a man, and she helped so open so many hearts to queerness.”
Keitel has been called “groundbreaking” for many of her roles and for raising the visibility of trans actors in mainstream entertainment. However, as with perceptions of Jorgensen, she doesn’t feel the label goes far enough.
“It was like such a dream to get to be a ‘Star Trek’ villain,” she said. “I have complicated feelings about being labeled ‘groundbreaking’ or the first of, or the first this, because, you know, anytime you take a community, like trans people who’ve historically been shut out of spaces and you start giving them opportunities, they’re going to be groundbreaking. I think it’s great, and I’m honored if I am the first to do anything. But that’s not where the work ends. I would much rather someone applaud me for the quality of my work and not because I’m the first to do it.”
Jorgensen remains an icon to many, and what Keitel says connects her to Jorgensen in part is that they are both trans, but beyond that, Jorgensen was scared to perform in public at times, and Keitel feels the same. She notes that there is so much more going on than just her gender.
“But if me getting a job opens the door for the next person, that’s just great,” she said. “Someone has to be first, and I feel like there are giants who came before me. I’m walking in the footsteps of people with careers far greater than mine who paved the way — Christine Jorgensen being one of them.”
The show is about much more, too, and the hope is that audiences will look beyond gender and see the humanity of Jorgensen’s character. It’s a hope Keitel has for the entire trans community as well.
The Christine Jorgensen Show | Here Arts Center | 145 6th Avenue | Tues-Fri 7 p.m.; Sat, Sun 4 p.m.; Weds 2 p.m.; other date vary through November 17 | $39.50-$135.50 | Ovationtix.com
