La mort de Coccinelle

[Eve]

From today’s Telegraph, home of the best obits:

Jacqueline-Charlotte Dufresnoy, who died on October 9 aged 75, was born Jacques-Charles Dufresnoy, but became celebrated as the French transsexual singer, entertainer and Marilyn Monroe lookalike, Coccinelle. Coccinelle was the first Frenchman to have a sex-change operation [note: this is not true] and went on to found an association to help others who felt they had been born with the wrong sexual identity . . . By his own account, he became aware that there was something amiss at the age of four; as soon as he was able, he dyed his brown hair platinum blond and took to wearing women’s clothing. One of his favourite outfits, a red and black polka-dot dress, earned him the nickname Coccinelle (French for ladybird).

Coccinelle made his debut in 1953 as a “showgirl” at Chez Madame Arthur, a Parisian cabaret specialising in drag acts . . . In 1958 he heard about Dr Georges Burou, a gynaecologist in Morocco who was known as a pioneer of vaginoplasty, or “gender reassignment surgery”. He went to Casablanca and had the operation done . . . After her operation the French modified the law to enable the details on birth certificates to be amended following a change of sex, and she duly changed her name to Jacqueline-Charlotte — “née femme” . . . She also worked extensively as an activist on behalf of transsexuals, founding the organisation Devenir Femme, and helping to establish a centre for research into gender identity.