French entertainer and activist Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, better known by her stage name Coccinelle, was BOTD in 1931. Born in Paris, she was assigned male at birth, but identified as female from early childhood, with the support of her family. She began performing as “Coccinelle” (French for “ladybug”) in the early 1950s, becoming a fixture of transgender cabaret venues Chez Madame Arthur and Le Carrousel de Paris and mentoring trans performers including April Ashley. In 1958, she travelled to Morocco to undergo gender reassignment surgery with pioneering French surgeon Georges Burou. On her return to Paris, her transition was widely reported in the press, making her one of the world’s first openly-trans public figures. The following year, she successfully petitioned the French civil courts to have her gender confirmed as female. During the 1960s, performed a popular cabaret show, Cherchez la femme, at the Olympia in Paris, appeared in the films Europa di notte (Europe By Night) and Los Viciosos (The Vicious Ones) and released three singles. During the 1970s, she toured extensively through Europe, the Americas and Australia, setting in Berlin in 1978 where she headlined the cabaret show Chez Nous. Returning to France in the 1980s, she worked extensively as an activist on behalf of trans people, appearing on TV talk shows and publishing a memoir Coccinelle par Coccinelle. In 1989, she made a triumphant return to cabaret at the Casino de Paris. After retiring from live performance in the 1990s, she co-founded the organisation Denevir Femme (To Become Woman) to provide support for trans people pursuing gender reassignment surgery. Married three times, she died in 2006, aged 75.