You’ve probably seen the trailers or caught the latest Netflix season of Monster. There’s this jarring, surreal scene where Ed Gein—the "Butcher of Plainfield"—is trying to talk to Christine Jorgensen. One is a pioneer of trans history, a literal war veteran who became a global sweetheart. The other is a grave robber who made "furniture" out of human skin. It feels like a fever dream. Honestly, seeing them linked together in 2026 pop culture is enough to make anyone do a double-take.
But here is the thing. Did they actually know each other? Not even close.
The connection between Christine Jorgensen and Ed Gein is a weird mix of 1950s media frenzy, psychological theory, and some very creative writing by modern TV producers. To understand why people keep bringing them up in the same breath, you have to look at the exact moment the American psyche fractured under the weight of "the new" and "the horrific."
The "Blonde Beauty" and the "Plainfield Ghoul"
In December 1952, Christine Jorgensen landed on the front page of the New York Daily News. The headline "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty" was a bombshell. She was poised, she was articulate, and she was suddenly the most famous woman in the world. People were fascinated by the "miracle" of science that allowed a former soldier to live as her true self.
Fast forward just five years to 1957. Police walk onto a dilapidated farm in Wisconsin looking for a missing store clerk named Bernice Worden. What they found was a nightmare that would eventually inspire Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs. Ed Gein hadn't just killed people; he had exhumed corpses to create a "woman suit" so he could, in his own disturbed way, become his dead mother.
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Because these two stories happened so close together, the public and the "experts" of the day started doing some very messy math. They saw a woman who used surgery to align her body with her soul, and they saw a killer who used skin to mask his madness. They lumped them into the same bucket of "gender deviance."
It was a total disaster for public understanding.
Did Ed Gein actually obsess over Christine Jorgensen?
In the Netflix series, Gein is shown as being fascinated by Jorgensen, even trying to contact her via ham radio. It’s a great dramatic device, but historically? It’s thin ice.
Some older reports from the 1950s and a few "true crime" books from the 80s claim that investigators found newspaper clippings of Christine Jorgensen in Gein’s house. There were also rumors of books about "sex change" operations on his shelves. However, many modern historians, like those featured in the Autostraddle deep dives, point out a massive flaw: Jorgensen’s famous memoir wasn't even published until 1967. Gein was caught in '57.
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Most of the "evidence" of his obsession comes from a 1950s psychiatric culture that was desperate to categorize Gein’s behavior. Doctors at the time, like Dr. Edward Kelleher, labeled Gein a "frustrated transsexual." This wasn't based on Gein's own identity—Gein never said he was a woman—but on the doctors' limited understanding of why a man would want to wear female skin. By linking him to Jorgensen, they were basically trying to use the only "trans" context they had to explain a serial killer's psychosis.
Why the distinction matters today
The reason people are still talking about Christine Jorgensen and Ed Gein is that the media is still trying to fix the mistake it made 70 years ago. In the Monster series, there’s a fictionalized conversation where Jorgensen’s character tells Gein point-blank: "I am not like you."
She uses the term gynephilic—someone attracted to the female form to a point of obsession—to describe him, contrasting it with her own identity. While "gynephilic" is a bit of a clinical mouthful, the point the writers were making is vital.
- Christine Jorgensen was about identity and self-actualization.
- Ed Gein was about trauma, psychosis, and a literal attempt to resurrect his mother through necrophilia.
The 1950s press didn't know the difference. They saw two people "changing" their gender and assumed it was the same thing. This created a lasting, harmful trope in cinema: the "transgender serial killer." Think Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. That character is a direct descendant of the messy way the media handled the Jorgensen and Gein era.
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The Real Legacy of Christine Jorgensen
While Gein became a footnote in the annals of horror, Jorgensen became a legitimate advocate. She spent the rest of her life—until her death in 1989—giving lectures and interviews. She was incredibly savvy. She knew that if she didn't tell her own story, people would keep comparing her to "monsters" like Gein.
She once said, "I am very proud now, looking back, that I was on that street corner 20 years ago when it first started." She wasn't talking about crime; she was talking about the start of a movement for visibility.
What to take away from this weird historical overlap
If you're researching this because of a show or a history project, keep these facts in your back pocket:
- Chronology is key: Jorgensen's fame peaked in 1953; Gein's crimes were revealed in 1957. The overlap was purely a product of a specific decade's news cycle.
- No direct contact: There is zero proof they ever spoke, wrote to each other, or that Gein was a "fan" in any modern sense of the word.
- Media Bias: The "connection" was largely manufactured by 1950s psychiatrists and sensationalist tabloids who didn't have the vocabulary to distinguish between gender identity and violent paraphilia.
To really get the full picture, you should look into the original 1952 New York Daily News archives for Jorgensen's arrival. Compare that tone to the 1957 reports on the Plainfield search. You'll see two completely different Americas—one that was ready for a "blonde beauty" and one that was terrified of what was hiding in the woods of Wisconsin.
Next time you see them linked in a "True Crime" TikTok or a TV drama, remember that it's usually a narrative choice to highlight the "freakishness" of the 1950s, not a reflection of a real-life relationship. Jorgensen was a trailblazer; Gein was a tragedy. Keeping them separate is the only way to respect the actual history.