FRANCE: Female-Only Lesbian Groups Barred From Pride Month Events Over “Transphobia”

A female-only lesbian advocacy group in France was excluded from their local Pride parade on the basis that they did not allow the membership of trans-identified males. Femmes Entre Elles was labeled “transphobic” for restricting its advocacy to issues faced by women.

Femmes Entre Elles, which translates to “Women Among Themselves,” is a single-sex association for lesbian and bisexual women that has operated for over 30 years. It has been involved in campaigns to support women’s sex-based rights and the rights of lesbian women.

But on May 27, the group was informed via email that they were not welcome to participate in the annual Pride march in Rennes, which was held on June 17. Leading local LGBT center Iskis explained that the decision was made because Femmes Entre Elles did not welcome the membership of men who claim to be women.

“We regret to announce that we have decided not to accept your participation as an association in the Associative Village and the Procession of the Pride March 2023,” read the e-mail.

“This decision follows your position vis-à-vis trans women, in particular through an article of your statutes: ‘the association is open to any woman, born female, wishing to take part,’ as well as remarks made to associative volunteers during the Pride March last year.”

Iskis asserted that Femmes Entre Elles‘ policy limiting membership to “any woman born female” is in “direct contradiction” with their own “ethical charter of participation” in Pride events. Reduxx reached out to Iskis requesting further comment on their decision, but did not receive a reply.

Representatives of Femmes Entre Elles officially complained about their exclusion on the basis of the association’s statutes asserting that membership is limited to “women born female” to the elected representative of Rennes, Ariane Cousin, who acts as an “anti-discrimination officer” for the town.

In response, Cousin told Femmes Entre Elles that she agreed with Iskis’ decision and referred to the women as “TERFs” in her reply.

“I understand and agree with the reaction of Iskis. The TERFy behaviour manifested by the association Femmes Entre Elles has no place in the Pride parade, which is above all inclusive,” Cousin asserted.

But Femmes Entre Elles was not the only woman-only group which found itself excommunicated from its local LGBT community for holding pro-woman views. Another women-only group in Marseilles has been prevented from participating in Pride on an ongoing basis since 2021.

Centre Évolutif Lilith (CEL) has been ostracized by the wider LGBTQIA community in their area despite having participated in the very first Pride event held in Marseille in 1994. But after the associated modified its statues to restrict memberships to females-only, they came under fire by trans activists in the area.

According to a press release by CEL issued in June of 2021, the group had first begun to limit membership in response to a series of violent attacks from trans activists against the lesbian feminist community.

“The association is open to any woman born of the biological sex of female. This decision was made after learning of the existence of several acts of aggression and harassment suffered by lesbian associations from groups trans activists,” the 2021 press release read.

“Until then the CEL had not faced any aggression. In March 2021, the CEL was excluded from the PRIDE Marseille steering committee. The reasons given are our change of statutes excluding trans women and our abolitionist positions and against surrogacy.”

Noémie Pillas, the coordinator of the LGBTQIA+ Marseille Center and co-president of PRIDE Marseille Organization specifically highlighted the group’s anti-surrogacy position as a reason why they were being ousted from Pride events. Pillas also mentioned the lesbian association’s female-only policy, which she labeled exclusionary.

“We have also been able to observe the many openly transphobic publications of your Facebook page. Thus, it seems complex to us to work calmly together in view of our differences,” Pillas said.

Representatives for CEL responded in a communication sent on April 14 affirming they were a “non-mixed lesbian feminist association,” and outlined the reasons for their updated policy.

“Currently and for some time, it is lesbians and women who are in danger with the arrival of ‘queer’ ideology and the actions of ‘trans activists.’ Once again, it is women and lesbians who are insulted, abused, attacked. This year, during the demonstrations of March 8, the international day to defend women’s rights, several incidents took place: feminists were attacked because they are against the commodification of the female body.”

On International Women’s Day 2021, women’s rights activist Marguerite Stern was pelted with eggs by trans activists in a coordinated and premeditated assault. She, along with members of two feminist groups, L’Amazone and the Collective for the Abolition of Pornography and Prostitution (CAPP), had gathered to hold a demonstration at the Place de la République in Paris.

The women, many of whom were survivors of the sex trade, soon found themselves swarmed and outnumbered by trans activists who called them “SWERFs,” for Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and shouted “no feminism without whores.”

At the base of the monument located at the center of the Place de la République, trans activists spray painted a menacing message: “Save a trans person, kill a TERF.”

CEL pointed to these examples and more as a reason why they should be allowed to limit their scope of interest and membership.

A month after they were informed that organizers were questioning their participation in Pride, CEL received a press release from Rainbowshlag, a group that claims to be part of the “queer trans” community. In an email that was sent to several other affiliated organizations, Rainbowshlag called for their full exclusion not only from Pride, but from both the feminist and LGBT community.

In their email, Rainbowshlag accused CEL members of being “whorephobic, transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, and therefore violent and not representative of the diversity of the LGBTQI+ community, since it opposes trans people and sex workers.”

The email, dated May 16, was sent and addressed to the Department for the Fight Against Discrimination (la Maison Départementale de Lutte contre les Discriminations – MLD), a leading LGBT group in Marseilles that receives government funding, as well as several other feminist groups.

On May 29, a member of CEL shared an article criticizing gender identity ideology, but soon thought better of doing so and deleted the post. However, it had already been seen by their critics and prompted a flood of condemnation.

A second communication from Rainbowshlag was widely shared through an email list on May 31 following that instance, calling for a “strong stance” against CEL, and for the LGBT and feminist network to “denounce the violence of the article published” to their Facebook page. The message was again sent to the government body, MLD.

In total, 39 collectives and organizations signed on to the denunciation, including STRASS, (Syndicat du TRAvail Sexuel), a group which campaigns for the full decriminalization of the sex industry. As a result, members of CEL were called into Town Hall to explain themselves and relay details of the controversy.

A spokeswoman for CEL, Chantal Girard, recently spoke with Reduxx with the assistance of Audrey Aard, a French correspondent who writes about current events related to women’s rights. Girard confirmed that the group’s funding, which had previously been provided through the MLD, was pulled last year in direct response to the accusations of “transphobia.”

Girard explained that at the beginning of 2023, CEL reached out to the elected representative for women’s rights, Nathalie Tessier, requesting assistance and funding.

“She shares our feminist views against sexual and reproductive exploitation and spoke at the City Council on our behalf. So the City Council suggested that they could help us in some other way, to give us a building, a place to organize. That was in January of this year, we made an official request and since then we have received nothing,” Girard said.

“Since the 90s, our relationship with gay men has always been intense, but at least we could talk, argue and still organize together. Today, Pride has nothing to do with homosexuality. It’s about capitalism: surrogacy and prostitution, male paraphilias.

This is morally very difficult to live with. We had never had the experience of being called fascists before! When I think of everything we’ve done since the ’90s against the far right! We were at the origin of the first Pride in 1994. We organized it with lesbians and gays. There were a few hundred of us and we wore Venetian masks for fear of being recognized. We also protested to allow gay marriage, we were on all fronts and in all the battles.”

“Since last year, when we lost our funding, we have not been idle. We have regrouped with feminist and women’s rights organizations such as the CIAMS, WDI France, the Collectif 13 Droits des femmes, the Front Féministe and we recently created a brand new lesbian inter-association : Agora Lesbiennes feminists.”

Tensions have escalated in recent years in France, with several documented instances of abolitionist women and lesbians being assaulted by trans activists.

In April, a symposium in Nantes intended to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan and Iranian women was cancelled after trans activists threatened to violently ambush the event because of the presence of a gender critical speaker, Marguerite Stern, who speaks out against femicide and male violence.

In February, another prominent advocate for women’s rights was informed that she is being taken to criminal court over accusations of “misgendering” two transgender public figures. Dora Moutot, a best-selling author and co-founder of Femelliste alongside Stern, is facing a legal complaint alleging insults on the basis of gender identity.

Earlier this month, Reduxx reported on the closure of a lesbian bar that has operated in Rennes, France for nearly a decade. La Part des Anges was forced to shut down following a disturbing swell of vandalism and death threats by trans activists following a public denunciation. The bar’s owner had been defending lesbian women from sexual harassment on the part of men who claim a transgender status.

Originally written for and published by Reduxx, with special thanks to Audrey Aard.