Ovida Delect (24 April 1926 – 9 October 1996) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, politician and member of the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. She was also a

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

and wrote a two volume autobiography about her life, in which she identified similarities between her own experience and that of Christine Jorgensen. Delect starred in a documentary, which brought the experiences of trans women into the wider canon of women in French film.

Biography

Early life

Delect was born in

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000, Her birth name was Jean-Pierre Voidies. In the early 1940s, Ovida was a student at the

Lycée Malherbe The Lycée Malherbe is a secondary school in Caen, France. History Since its foundation, Caen has always been an important cultural centre. The University of Caen Normandy, University of Caen was founded in 1432. Early 19th century, the Abbaye-au ...

and lived in rue Laumonnier in Caen. According to Victoria Thérame, who stated in the preface to Delect's work ''La vocation d’être femme, itinéraire d’une transsexuelle vécue,'' that: "Ça commence par une gamine qui a un corps de gamin et l’audace d’un héros. Ça continue par un garçon de seize ans qui sait qu’il est une fille, laquelle a des convictions fortes et la liberté en tête. ranslation: It starts with a kid who has a kid's body and the audacity of a hero. It continues with a sixteen year old boy who knows he is a girl, who has strong convictions and freedom in mind.

Resistance and imprisonment

2015_10_05_Neuengamme_westl_Klinkergebäude_IMG_3588

Whilst at Lycée Malherbe, Delect established a small resistance group with a number of other students: Roger Câtel, Bernard Duval, Bernard Boulot, Claude Lunois and Jean-Paul Mérouze. The group was attached to the National Front, a movement created by the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...

(PCF). She pretended she was a member of the National Popular Youth, a branch of the

National Popular Rally The National Popular Rally (french: Rassemblement national populaire, ''RNP'', 1941–1944) was a French political party and one of the main collaborationist parties under the Vichy regime of World War II. Created in February 1941 by former mem ...

, presenting herself as a supporter of collaboration with the Germans. She managed to steal important files and create major disturbances in the ranks of this organization by disseminating fake news items and false information. These actions led to her being arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

on 23 February 1944, together with several of her comrades. She was tortured for at least ten days at 44 rue des Jacobins, before being deported to Germany. Under torture, she did not denounce her comrades. She was deported to and imprisoned at the

Neuengamme Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

concentration camp.

Life after war

After the war, Delect returned to her studies and obtained her second baccalaureate in 1946. She began to publish her resistance poems in local journals. She won th
Paul Valéry Prize
in 1946 and one of her works was read at the

Maison de la Mutualité The Maison de la Mutualité (often shortened to la Mutualité) is a conference center at 24 Rue Saint-Victor, 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. The closest métro station is Maubert-Mutualité. It is the headquarters of the federation of no ...

. She left Caen to study in Paris, where she formed a circle of poets. She met

Paul Eluard Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, who read ''Poème des temps nouvelles'' at the Mutualité.Ovida Delect, ''La prise de robe : Itinéraire d'une transsexualité vécue'', Paris, L'Harmattan, 1996, p. 232 To survive in the Paris, she workeed at what she described as “small jobs” in her biography. She passed the entrance exam to the

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

and became a literature teacher.Ovida Delect, ''La prise de robe : Itinéraire d'une transsexualité vécue'', Paris, L'Harmattan, 1996, p.253. During the summer of 1952 in Hyères, she met her future wife Huguette, a kindergarten teacher from Sarthe. While she did not yet go by the name Ovida publicly, she confided her identity to her friends and wife and she publicly discussed her poetic and humanist aspirations. Both she and Huguette worked as teachers. They had a son together, Jean-Noel. In 1953, Ovida read about the transition of Christine Jorgensen in the press and was reportedly shocked by the similarity between their lives. At the beginning of the 1960s, Delect, under her birth name Jean-Pierre Voidies, became mayor of Freneuse, a town of 2,800 inhabitants of

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

. At the end of the 1960s, Delect wrote ''La Demoiselle de Kerk,'' a poetic prose novel that tells the story of a young girl under the occupation in Caen. She commented that the work was “a transposed autobiography."

Later life and social transition

At the age of 55, Ovida retired, she made a social transition and chose the pen name she has been using since 1975, Olivia Ovida Delect. She continued to live with Huguette Voidies, her wife, and their son in Saint Pierre Alizay. Delect decided at the age of 60 to participate in the filming of a documentary directed by

Françoise Romand Françoise Romand, born in Marseilles, is a French filmmaker. Filmed in 1985, Romand's ''Mix-Up ou Méli-Mélo'' attained success in the United States after it was discovered by Vincent Canby of the New York Times. Journalist Jonathan Rosenbaum, ...

, called ''Appelez-moi Madame.'' The film was broadcast in 1986. At the end of the 1980s, historian Christine Bard met Delect, who had come to th
Maison des Femmes
in Paris to read her poems. In her book, ''Ce que soulève la jupe: identités, transgressions, résistances,'' Bard discussed how “with Ovida Delect ��the skirt is resisting in all senses of the word, because it was resistant all the time: like a “failed girl” in the face ... of her parents, Catholic conservatives, then as a high school student facing the occupier ��deported to the Neuengamme camp where she survived for a year thanks to the feminine universe she maintained in her imagination". Delect died on 9 October 1996.

Legacy

On 19 June 2019 La place Ovida-Delect was inaugurated in Paris in the 4th arrondissement, the square is at the intersection of rue des Blancs Manteaux and

rue des Archives The Rue des Archives is a street in The Marais at the border of 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris, France. Location and access The street is located in Le Marais district of central Paris. It is served by the metro stations ''Hôtel de Vil ...

. The inauguration was timed to coincide with the 41st year of Paris' Pride March and the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris.

Reception

Delect's life is also recognised as important in the struggle trans women have faced for assimilation into French society. She was a prolific writer, producing multiple volumes of poetry throughout her life, as well as two volumes of autobiography. Delect's appearance in the documentary ''Appelez-moi Madame'' has been recognised as a notable point in the history of women in French cinema. However not all reviews were positive, including a transphobic review by Armond White which cast doubt on Delect's identity and described her poetry as "bad".

Selected works

* ''Contes et poèmes pour mon petit garçon'' (Éditions du Pavillon, 1969). *''La prise de robe: itinéraire d'une transsexualité vécue'' (Self-published, 1982). *''Il y en a que j'aime tant'' (FeniXX réédition numérique, 1988). *''Les chevaux de frise couraient sur l'hippodrome'' (Editions L'Harmattan, 1994).

Filmography

* 1986: ''Appelez-moi Madame'' by

, 52 minutes.

Notes

References

External links

* Ovida Delect in
Appelez-moi Madame
' (excerpt) {{DEFAULTSORT:Delect, Ovida 1926 births 1996 deaths French poets Resistance members Writers from Caen Transgender writers Transgender women Nazi concentration camp survivors Politicians from Caen