Michèle Causse

Michèle Causse (29 July 1936 – 29 July 2010) was a French activist, author, and self-described radical lesbian.

Early life
Causse was born in the Martel region of Lot in France. She later taught in Tunisia, and then lived for ten years in Rome, where she studied Chinese. After that she moved to Martinique and then to the United States before emigrating to Canada.

Theory
Canadian academic Clive Thompson has referred to Causse as a "writer of radical lesbian texts." In her works, she is critical of heterosexuality, stating that "as long as a woman wishes to please a man, she is inauthentic... She does not have the integrity, the un-corruptibility that comes with not wishing to please."

Causse was also critical of both the Women's Movement and of the concept of a homosexual movement, stating, "I am not a feminist, I am not a homosexual, I am a radical lesbian." She believed that "the women's movement is sustained by lesbians in every country; it is a lesbian movement, profoundly lesbian." She was also critical of the influence of patriarchy on lesbians, claiming that lesbians were "phallicized" in the 1980s by the male homosexual movement.

Translations
Causse translated between the French, English and Italian languages and was fluent in all three languages. Her translations of works included texts by Herman Melville, Gertrude Stein, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Djuna Barnes, Jane Bowles, Willa Cather, Mary Daly, Ignazio Silone and Alice Munro.

Last years and death
In her last years, she lived in the southwest of France. Causse chose to end her life on her 74th birthday, in association with Dignitas, an assisted suicide group in Switzerland.

Although Causse had no terminal illness, she had several severe diseases. Her euthanasia was filmed and then shown on Swiss TV.

Multimedia

 * La narrée navrée, lecture, Centenaire de Violette Leduc, video, Arras, 2007
 * Une écrivain en terres occupées, film de Michel Garcia-Luna, DVD 47mn20, Ed. Lunaprod, 2005
 * Corps de paroles, film of Suzanne Vertue and Dianne Heffernan, 37mn, Video-elles, Montreal, 1989
 * A la lettre, cassette, Ed. Anne-Marie Alonzo, Montréal

Articles

 * Nomen est omen, post-face in "Défigures du soi", (inédit)
 * Claude Cahun ou la mutante héroïque, Pour une anthologie des créatrices lesbiennes dans la Résistance, a cura di Paola Guazzo, Bagdam Espace Lesbien, avril 2008
 * La narrée navrée, Centenaire de Violette Leduc, Revue Trésors à prendre, dir. Elisabeth Seys, 2007
 * Inside Deep throat, commentary on the film Deep Throat, in collaboration with Katy Barasc, Sysiphe, 2006
 * Pourquoi les gays ne peuvent-ils pas être les alliés objectifs des lesbiennes ?, Les Pénélopes, 2002, Bagdam Espace Lesbien, 2006
 * Noir dessein (lettre à Nicolas Hulot), Bagdam Espace Lesbien, 2006
 * Le genre comme espace de contention, Université de Beyrouth, 2005
 * A propos de Lynndie England : Tragédie de la mimesis ou comment muer l'objet en sujet répréhensible, in collaboration with Katy Barasc, Sysiphe, 2004
 * Qui a peur de Valerie Solanas ?, Bagdam Espace Edition, Toulouse, 2004, pages 19–35
 * Hommage à Monique Wittig, Tribute to Monique Wittig. Extrait du chapitre "La grande Pérégrine" in Voyages de la Grande Naine en Androssie (Ed. Trois, Montréal, 1993), numéro spécial, Labrys-études féministes, Brasilia-Montréal-Paris, septembre 2003
 * Sur le voile, Sisyphe, 2003
 * Une politique textuelle inédite : l'alphalecte in Lesbianisme et féminisme. Histoires politiques, Ed. L'harmattan, 2002
 * L'universite : Alma mater ou père indigne ?, 2e Colloque international d'études lesbiennes: La grande dissidence et le grand effroi, Actes du colloque Espace lesbien n° 2, Bagdam Espace Edition, Toulouse, 2001