In the media, transphobic discourse has become the norm

If you have turned on your television or opened a newspaper in recent months, from the plateau of 

by Léa Salamé to the stands of

or

going through Karine Le Marchand's program on M6, there is a subject that comes up tirelessly: that of transidentity.

In recent months, and since the controversy surrounding a Family Planning poster showing a pregnant man, the existence of trans people and their rights have become a media subject like any other: on television sets, on the radio, in the newspapers or online, transidentity is approached from its most sensationalist angle, sometimes relaying certain arguments worthy of conspiracy theories, such as that of the existence of a pseudo “trans lobby” financed by billionaires.

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Journalist Dora Moutot refuses the identity of a woman to France's first transgender mayor

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- What an era!

(@QuelleEpoqueOff) October 15, 2022

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This emergence of a media discourse around trans people has taken place through the transphobic words of personalities such as the activist Marguerite Stern or the influencer and creator of the @Tasjoui account, Dora Moutot.

The latter had been invited last October by Léa Salamé on the set of

facing Marie Cau, the first trans woman elected mayor in France.

Many extracts had shocked on social networks.

“Dora Moutot who goes to Salamé, it gives a rather bitter feeling.

We see the work we manage to do, the awareness, we try to find allies, and for all that, with certain media, we are only a subject of society.

They don't see the people behind it,” sighs Agathe, a member of the feminist collective Tous des Femmes, which brings together trans and cisgender women in the fight against violence.

Psychiatrists, anti-trans radical feminists (or TERFS, for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), doctors, conservative activists… Transphobic speech is exploding in the media, without the people concerned being invited to express themselves on the issue.

Transphobic discourse in the media is not new

For Karine Espiniera, media sociologist, “the trans question has been approached differently for forty years, often in clumsiness and ignorance of the subject”.

She sees a significant evolution at the end of the 2000s, when LGBTQ + associations or trans people are becoming more professional, particularly in the field of health or the claim of rights such as the facilitation of change of civil status for people who are transitioning: "the media have begun to take stock of the demands, the vocabulary and the questions have evolved".

But for three years, the rise of conservative and reactionary speeches in the United Kingdom and the United States is also felt in France.

“The fear of transitions, the focus on detransitions,

anti-abortion laws in the United States… We think a lot about what happened around Family Planning, but it's not new.

There are many Anglo-Saxon moral panics happening in France too,” explains Rita, who is part of XY Media, which aims to spread the voice of trans people, by themselves and for themselves.

"Trans people are a vulnerable social group, whose media coverage is very recent: the conservatives fed the most at that time," she adds.

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The forums, the bills, the alliances with the TERFs: the collective @ToutesDesFemmes deciphers how the rights seize on transphobia to create moral panics and attack the rights of trans people.https://t.co/5Fuuc75OLU pic .twitter.com/M1SpKI84ZI

— XY Media (@xymediafr) June 1, 2022

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If transphobic speeches in the media are not new, its figureheads, like Dora Moutot, are not new.

“Marguerite Stern or Dora Moutot, they have been saying the same thing for three years,” insists Agathe from Tous des Femmes.

She notably evokes the controversies in 2020 around the documentary "Little Girl" by Sébastien Lifshitz, extracts from which were recovered by the far right online;

or even the Little Mermaid Observatory, a Franco-Belgian lobby that wants to ban any medical transition for minors.

“All this discourse comes after those of the Manif pour Tous and anti-“gender theories” at school.

It is one of the many avatars of this reactionary galaxy which is renewing itself and which is finding new angles of attack to advance their ideas,” adds the activist from Tous des Femmes.

Especially since, as Karine Espiniera explains, "the people who carry these messages have access to a lot of media which offer them forums without taking the measure of what has been said".

One thinks in particular of the platform of Marguerite Stern and Dora Moutot, published in Marianne on August 22, challenging Elisabeth Borne: “Feminists, we are worried about what is becoming of Family Planning” could we read there.

The multiplication of transphobic productions carried by arguments and a reactionary vocabulary

Beyond the stands and sets, transphobia is spreading on social networks, notably through the proliferation of "independent documentaries", most of which use the image of trans people without their consent and surf on certain conspiracy theories promoted by the extreme right: one thinks in particular of "Mauvais genre - une épidémonde mondial" on Dragon Bleu TV, directed by Sophie Robert, or even "Trans: la confusion des genres" by the youtuber Amélie Menu, broadcast on the new media close to Omerta Russia.

Some transidentity experts, including Karine Espiniera, have also explained that they have been trapped by Amélie Menu, as Stop on Images explains.

“These are people who focus on our lives and who are unable to hear anything.

These are the same conspiratorial mechanisms where they think they have the truth and who invent a vision of the world,” explains Agathe of Tous des Femmes.

According to her, “this production of documentaries would not exist if there were no other networks to support it: all the newspapers which publish these forums provide resources and visibility on these subjects”.

From Marianne to Figaro Vox via Valeurs Actuelles, transphobic speech is uninhibited.

“The issue of minors has been the gateway for the anti-trans movement”@EspineiraKarine, media sociologist, LEGS Nanterre https://t.co/3BAdmMGU3N pic.twitter.com/AfQkok08sP

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Among the arguments mobilized by the anti-trans movements, we find the idea of ​​“great replacement with a transphobic sauce, with the fear that women will be erased” quotes Agathe.

This is particularly the one mobilized by Dora Moutot and Marguerite Stern, who aim to exclude trans women from feminist movements, evoking an essentialist and biologizing vision.

But above all, the argument that comes up tirelessly is that of child protection, as during the period of the Manif pour Tous or the ABCD of equality carried by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem under the five-year term of Francois Hollande.

“The arguments around children are easy to use for misinformation, and have been the entrance to create moral panic.

On the issue of puberty blockers, for example, false information has been disseminated,

without verification” lists Karine Espiniera.

Excerpts from the documentary "Little Girl" by Sébastien Lifshitz have thus been taken out of context and used to prove a mutilation of children via gender transitions, and this from childhood.

Karine Espiniera also denounces the use of a whole vocabulary from reactionary spheres, such as the expressions “trans lobby” or “transactivism”.

“All this vocabulary is dramatic, it is not questioned.

We talk about “trans lobby” or “rapid dysphoria”, but what are the sources?

she adds.

Especially since by making their way in the media space, these ideas put people in danger outside the small screen.

Excerpts from the documentary "Little Girl" by Sébastien Lifshitz have thus been taken out of context and used to prove a mutilation of children via gender transitions, and this from childhood.

Karine Espiniera also denounces the use of a whole vocabulary from reactionary spheres, such as the expressions “trans lobby” or “transactivism”.

“All this vocabulary is dramatic, it is not questioned.

We talk about “trans lobby” or “rapid dysphoria”, but what are the sources?

she adds.

Especially since by making their way in the media space, these ideas put people in danger outside the small screen.

Excerpts from the documentary "Little Girl" by Sébastien Lifshitz have thus been taken out of context and used to prove a mutilation of children via gender transitions, and this from childhood.

Karine Espiniera also denounces the use of a whole vocabulary from reactionary spheres, such as the expressions “trans lobby” or “transactivism”.

“All this vocabulary is dramatic, it is not questioned.

We talk about “trans lobby” or “rapid dysphoria”, but what are the sources?

she adds.

Especially since by making their way in the media space, these ideas put people in danger outside the small screen.

Karine Espiniera also denounces the use of a whole vocabulary from reactionary spheres, such as the expressions “trans lobby” or “transactivism”.

“All this vocabulary is dramatic, it is not questioned.

We talk about “trans lobby” or “rapid dysphoria”, but what are the sources?

she adds.

Especially since by making their way in the media space, these ideas put people in danger outside the small screen.

Karine Espiniera also denounces the use of a whole vocabulary from reactionary spheres, such as the expressions “trans lobby” or “transactivism”.

“All this vocabulary is dramatic, it is not questioned.

We talk about “trans lobby” or “rapid dysphoria”, but what are the sources?

she adds.

Especially since by making their way in the media space, these ideas put people in danger outside the small screen.

A “misunderstanding of trans lives” that kills

But then, why doesn't the media invite more trans people to talk about the issues that concern them?

For Rita, of XY Media, there are several reasons: “already, a question of class: when you are trans, it is sometimes more complicated to speak.

In addition, there is a very sexualizing aspect and an unhealthy curiosity towards trans people.

Finally, quite simply, there is transphobia which dehumanizes the people concerned, as if trans people were separate entities, the existence of which would be in dispute”.

For Karine Espiniera, there would be a fear on the part of the media of the word of the concerned.

“It would be less credible than that of someone from the outside.

We go beyond medical or legal issues: when we talk about political issues,

we have the impression that the voice of those concerned is necessarily militant” she develops.

But above all, "we are not invited" adds the sociologist of the media, or else the invitation is made in opposition to openly transphobic people.

“There is a real misunderstanding of trans lives,” adds Agathe from Tous des Femmes.

However, many associations such as the Association of LGBTI Journalists (AJL) have been warning about this media treatment for several years, even providing resources to inform without discrimination.

Especially since these transphobic words relayed in the media have real consequences on the lives of the people concerned.

“Personally, by dint of being described as a form of constant threat, it plays a lot on anxiety.

There is a whole range of transphobic acts, from embarrassment to verbal or physical abuse.

This leads us to block ourselves in what we would have the right to have and to expect from life” testifies Agathe.

But these remarks can also play a major role in the accompaniment of the youngest trans people by their families.

"It panics the parents, it hits on self-esteem, it prevents good support for children" recalls Karine Espiniera.

The trans community, more precarious and isolated, is then more exposed to the risk of suicide.

Last November 20, as every year, the "Day of Remembrance Trans" commemorated the victims of transphobia: according to the report of the Trans Murder Monitoring, between October 2021 and October 2022, at least 327 trans people were killed in the world, number surely underestimated.

These commemorations took place the day after the shooting in Colorado Springs, which killed five people and injured a dozen others.

Among the victims, a trans woman, Kelly Loving;

and a 28-year-old trans man, Daniel Aston.

At a time when transphobic remarks are legion on our screens or on social networks, trans people are dying of LGBTphobia and transphobia.

And this information is rarely discussed on television news.

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