Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy was a French actress, singer,
and activist. She was born Jacques Charles Dufresnoy in Paris in 1931. Using
the stage name Coccinelle (French for ladybug), she was a transgender showgirl working
at Chez Madame Arthur in 1953. She also performed regularly at Le Carrousel de Paris,
a club which also featured April Ashley and Marie-Pier Ysser, two other
prominent transgender performers.
She began to take hormones in 1952. In 1958, Dufresnoy
underwent a vaginoplasty performed by Dr. Georges Burou, the first French
person to undergo this operation. Upon her return to France, she became a media
sensation but would continue her work as a performer and actress working on six
films between 1959 and 1968. In 1963, she starred in the revue “Cherchez la
Femme” at the Paris Olympia.
In 1960, she married a sports journalist, Francis Bonnet. This
marriage set the legal precedent establishing transgender individual’s right to
marry in France. It also made her the first transgender woman to be officially
recognized by the French state according to her identified gender. She would
marry two more times: Mario Costa in 1963, a Paraguayan dancer, and Thierry
Wilson, a fellow transgender activist, in 1996.
In 1994, alongside Wilson, she launched the Association
Devenir Femme (To Become Woman), a foundation designed to provide emotional and
practical support for those seeking gender reassignment surgery. She also
established the Center for Aid, Research, and Information for Transsexuality
and Gender Identity. Jacqueline died as the result of a stroke in 2006.
There seems to be very little information about Dufresnoy’s
life, but this is perhaps a reflection of the time in which she lived and not
of her importance to the issue of transgender rights. She is an important
figure, and her contributions cannot be underestimated. I think the reason that
she is such a bad ass is because she lived authentically in her own truth.
For every story like hers, there are a lot more of
transgendered individuals who suffered in silence. We need to see these stories
as equal to our own cis-gendered experiences. There are many speaking out for
the rights of the transgender community to be able to live their lives like
everyone else. We have beautiful women like Laverne Cox who isn’t afraid to be
authentic and live her truth for all to see. I think that is the greatest
message that any woman can learn. Be who you are and not who society tells you
to be.
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