I Enjoy Being a Girl!

This edition of The Daily Shirt is dedicated to reportage on things of a sexual nature, at times obliquely defined. We observe the 1832 birthday of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer who — ahem — erected his eponymous Tower. Continuing our tumble with international phallic symbols of architecture today in 2001 a newly upright Torre di Pisa reopens in Italy, after being closed for ten years.

Christine Jorgensen is the first person to undergo a sex-change operation (gender reassignment) on this day in 1952. Born 1926 as George William Jorgensen, Jr. in New York City, Jorgensen endures an unhappy childhood and after much research has the history-making surgery done in Copenhagen. She chooses the name Christine to honor the Danish surgeon who performs the operation and supervises her hormone therapy, Dr. Christian Hamburger. Previously a noted photographer, Miss Jorgensen finds herself an instant celebrity post-op and, among other things, tours university campuses during the 1970s and 1980s to talk about her experiences. Years later she parlays her natural abilities as a performer into a nightclub act, singing several songs, including I Enjoy Being a Girl and is also an active spokesperson for transsexual and transgender people.

On this day in 1973 Charlie Rich's song The Most Beautiful Girl climbs to the top of the pop-singles charts and the American Psychiatric Association declares that homosexuality is not a mental illness. In a somewhat related aside today is Underdog Day. On this date in 1939 nylon yarn is commercially manufactured for the first time in Seaford, Delaware and today in 1995 Playboy Magazine goes back on sale in Ireland after a 36-year ban. I don't know precisely where this fits in but I know it goes somewhere — today in 1969 the San Francisco Fire Department replaces leather helmets with ones made of plastic.

Perhaps Christine Jorgensen would have flaunted this shirt — the complete I'm not a Boy assortment is here — from the New & Soon-to-Be Parents department of the expansive CafePress.com American Angst shop. Adult humor on board hither and thither.



And no boudoir would be complete without this Brunette Babe Throw Pillow, beautifully displaying a saucy men's magazine cover from bygone days — the bevy of Brunette Babes here — from the Vintage Babes section of the World War 2 Christmas Gifts zone in CafePress.com's overflowing SagArt shop. Some spicy items here as well for adults of all ages.

[To purchase items click on the photographs or colored text links.]