Ovida Delect
Ovida Delect (24 April 1926 – 9 October 1996) was a French poet, Communist, politician and member of the French resistance during the Second World War. She was also a trans woman 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. Delect was born in Caen on 24 April 1926. Her birth name was Jean-Pierre Voidies. In the early 1940s, Ovida was a student at the Lycée Malherbe 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. [Translation: 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.]" 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 (PCF). She pretended she was a member of the National Popular Youth, a branch of the National Popular Rally, 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 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.
