Book. “Going unnoticed. » If it may seem simple and banal, this desire that sometimes grips Marie Cau is no longer so for her. In Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes (North), what counts is first and foremost its competence on subjects as diverse as agriculture or fiber optics. But beyond the borders of the village of which she has been mayor since June 2020, her election has made her a symbol: the first openly transgender person elected in the Republic.
autobiographical story, Madam Mayor appears after months of media controversy over transidentity, fueled by debates in which the main stakeholders were often absent. It is therefore a precious testimony, which allows us to finally hear, in length, one of these voices.
With this book, Marie Cau “don’t try to convince anyone”, she confides from the first pages, she simply intends to testify, to say the complexity of trans routes, the violence, the trials, the doubts, the shame. But also the joy and relief that comes with the transition.
She thus recounts her childhood in perpetual discrepancy with the masculinity expected of her, then a first family life, apparently so ordinary. These years, she spends them in reality “in the hell of[’une] mental confusion » who imprisons him. Until the moment when, at 39, she began to realize that this “duality” that she feels is legitimate, that she shares it with others, that she can name it and experience it: she is a transgender woman.
Isolation and precariousness
In response to the transphobic discourse which today presents transidentity as a ” trend “, Marie Cau’s story also recounts the virtual impossibility of thinking of oneself as trans when she was young, in the 1970s and 1980s. The idea is no longer quite as taboo thirty years later, when she begins her transition, but her journey remains strewn with trials and she must confront the judgments and pathologizing gazes of society. Beyond her personal case, she also recalls that trans people are always more affected by discrimination, isolation and precariousness, with the consequence, in particular, of a particularly high suicide rate.
The story of his transition is also one of liberation, of the euphoria of finally feeling in his place: “I started to live fully, to be happy at 50. » In this happiness that Marie Cau describes, there are her children, her ” reason for living “and it is undoubtedly for “preserve them only [sa] transition was so slow”. And there is Nathalie, his partner: “His support and accompaniment are nothing but love. »
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