WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #363 - Culture - Read: Maud Royer, "The Transphobic Lobby" (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 How can we decipher the transphobic offensive underway since the early

2020s? In this short essay, Maud Royer, a trans, lesbian, and feminist
activist and co-founder of the association Toutes des femmes, takes a
detailed look at the various transphobic networks, which she
mischievously calls the "transphobic lobby" in France. She thus analyzes
the attempt to establish a transphobic feminism. Discourse on the
"erasure of women" through the mere existence of trans people, the
invention of a conflict between trans women and lesbians, the
victimization of transphobic feminists... while these strategies have
worked in the United Kingdom and the United States, where "TERFs"
(trans-exclusionary radical feminists) now hold a prominent place in
public debate, particularly with the complicity of so-called left-wing
media outlets like the Guardian, they have remained a dead letter in
France in the face of resistance from the feminist movement.

On the other hand, it is through a very small conservative
psychoanalytic community, with psychologists sometimes classified as
left-wing, that transphobic discourse is taking root in France. These
include the Little Mermaid Observatory, claiming to represent caregivers
despite defending positions that are an ultra-minority in the scientific
field, and the "parents'" association Ypomoni, which claims to defend
the interests of children, who are allegedly encouraged to transition by
trans movements.

These moral panics are quickly relayed by conservative media. Thus,
Valeurs actuelles, but also L'Express, Marianne, and Charlie Hebdo are
quick to relay any anti-trans discourse, and in recent years,
transphobia has even become a component of far-right discourse. On the
ground, it is the former members of La Manif pour Tous, largely defeated
on the issue of equal access to marriage, who are converting to this new
cause, which they consider more accessible. Although without any
official religious justification, these activists nonetheless echo the
rhetoric developed by the Vatican on the dangers of "gender theory" and
the necessary binarity and complementarity between the sexes.

So how can we respond today to the rise of this transphobic lobby? For
the author, one of the keys lies in the power of the feminist movement,
a barrier against transphobia. Above all, it is essential to achieve
victories. More than holding a position, we must conquer new rights. To
this end, Maud Royer envisions a path to achieving free and unrestricted
civil status change. With no illusions about its revolutionary nature
("the patriarchy[...]will not suddenly be shaken," she writes), the
adoption of this measure would make life easier for trans people and, at
the same time, strengthen the feminist and bodily autonomy movements.
It's when our rights advance on gender and feminist issues that
conservatives weaken: "then we are useful to all those who fight for
their emancipation."

Agrippine (UCL Nantes)

Maud Royer, Le lobby transphobe, Textuel, 2024, 160 pages, 17.90 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Maud-Royer-Le-lobby-transphobe
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