In one of my recent posts about Jim Queen I quoted one of the creators' of the movie on how the queer people of Paris are somehow still very "divided" into strict communities, with little internal feuds still very present, opposing the "melting-pot of queerness" ideal we tend to have today. On that note, I want to share something I heard when I watched this documentary of which I can only offer you the trailer:
In English "Bambi: A French woman". Of its original title "Bambi: A New Woman". A simple word changes a lot. It is a very true documentary. Essentially more than an hour of interview with Bambi, where she tells us her life from beginning until now - her first love and betrayals in Algeria, her career in clubs harassed by the police, her life as an ordinary school teacher in a small town - , and the way the world changed and evolved around her, with historical documentation punctuating the biography.
You likely never heard of "Bambi", the woman. Today people advertise her and her interviews with terms such as "a pioneer of trans-identity" or "one of the first transgender people". Myself I was informed of her existence with these specific terms: "the first transsexual person of France". I specifically select "trans-sexual" because that was the way transgender people were referred back then, it was the historical terminology, and it plays a key role in what I want to share.
There is this one thing Bambi tells the viewer, and it is about how the cross-dressers she performed among, lived with, coexisted with, did not understand at all, and even rejected, the fact she wanted to be a woman. It was the deep fracture that would emerge around her and the other first public transgenders of France - the divide of the transvestites versus the transsexuals. "Les hormonés" as the transvestites deragoratorily called trans-sexuals. Because the transvestites of the time were people who only and solely dressed as women for the stage, for performance, for the night-time, for clubs and parties. In fact it was one of their arguments: "We dress as women because it is our job. We do this to work and entertain, to perform. We do art, we do show-business, but this is not a life-choice nor our real identity". They were men who by day and in their daily life existed as men, heterosexual or homosexual.
And to have who they thought was one of them try her hardest to become, by day as by night, in body to match the soul, a woman, was something they deeply, deeply disliked. They tried telling Bambi that she was a sick person, that if she continued like this she would die horribly. They tried to scare her by pointing out how she would become a criminal in the eyes of the law, and never be able to have a normal life or to travel in any other country. And they obviously had the conclusion "You will never truly look like a woman. You'll never manage to be a woman. You just can't, so give up this madness".
It is one of these old historical pieces that we tend to forget or ignore, but that truly echoes in both positive and negative ways with what is going on today, and what people are discovering (or re-discovering) today.
And what is even more striking is how this sharing of memories by Bambi, this specific sharing, is then followed by an old recorded speech - of which you can hear an extract in the trailer above. An absolute vile and very violent speech describing, with a mix of pity and horror, the "sick, broken, perverted people" that either "mock in a puerile way the natural beauty of women", or that corrupt into a nightmare "the dream that is feminity" - before saying these lonely, unstable, miserable souls are in dire of need, of medical help, of social help, because left alone with their weaknesses and disorders they end up "trying to defy the laws of Nature and the principles of Creation", and become abominations the speech-maker does not even want to name.
I am not even exaggerating, I am quoting the literal words spoken there.
Anyway, I probably ruined your mood for today, but Bambi was still there for this documentary, telling us how she got through it, how she got through everything, how the world evolved, how she survived, and how she earned the fame and recognition she has today. That's the type of testimony we need more than ever.