A private school in Lyon, France, had its electricity sabotaged on Thursday as trans activists attempted to have a conference critical of gender ideology cancelled. The event was later swarmed by 300 trans activists, who gathered outside of the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP) in opposition to the appearance of feminist activist Marguerite Stern, co-author of the book “Transmania.”
The conference, titled Comment L’idéologie Transgenre Détruit des Vies? (How Transgender Ideology Destroys Lives), sought to discuss the harms of both medical transitioning and the aggression of trans activism. But even before the event was set to officially begin, the venue – a private school founded by right-wing Member of Parliament Marion Maréchal-Le Pen – was targeted for sabotage.
At approximately 4:00 AM on the day the conference was to take place, an explosion occurred and a fire broke out in a room housing an electrical meter adjacent to the venue. As firefighters worked to extinguish the flames, 200 police officers were dispatched to the scene. The officers were present throughout the evening’s event in order to secure the safety of attendees.
While police are still investigating the cause of the fire, security camera footage caught one unidentified individual setting off an explosive device. The explosion set fire to the electrical meter of the adjacent building, resulting in a power outage for some local residents. This occurred while trans activists had been vandalizing the front of the institute with threatening slogans.
Vandalism on the ISSEP building’s front read: “Dirty TERF,” an acronym which stands for ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’ and is often used as a pejorative to harass or threaten violence against women who oppose gender identity ideology.
“No transphobes,” and “TERFs out of our struggle” were also painted on the building’s entrance next to a symbol synonymous with trans activism.
Stern, formerly an active campaigner against femicide, decided to speak at ISSEP Thursday evening despite the damage to the institute and credible threats to her safety which were shared on social media. While the event took place, more trans activists gathered outside of the venue and complained of “transphobia” to local media.
“At the conference, I talked about how children are harmed by puberty blockers, and all the women who ‘transition’, especially the teenagers, and [detransitioners] who find that ‘transition’ destroyed their lives. But I also talked about the ‘TERFs’, the women who resist, because I believe that transgender ideology destroys their lives, too,” Stern told Reduxx.
“When we started the conference, we didn’t have electricity because the workers were still trying to turn the power back on. And this is not the first time a venue where I was scheduled to speak was vandalized. So what I was talking about was happening in front of our eyes,” Stern continued.
“I’m so upset about that fire and the impact on the people living there. Those people who set the fire just didn’t care about human lives,” she added. “They knew that children were sleeping in this building, and the fire could have been much worse if the firemen didn’t come to stop it. Can you imagine? Some children could have died.”
Stern is no stranger to controversy and has been targeted by trans activists for several years.
Last April, when Stern was set to speak at a symposium in Nantes intended to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan and Iranian women, the event had to be postponed in response to violent threats made against her and the venue.
Stern has previously been ousted from her own organization in direct response to her concerns about transgender ideology. Les Collages Contre les Féminicides, a direct action campaign she launched in 2019, involved the creation of murals calling attention to violence against women and girls. In 2022, trans activists destroyed one such mural created in remembrance of the infant victims of shaken baby syndrome by an organization sympathetic to Stern, L’Amazone.
On International Women’s Day in 2021, Stern was pelted with eggs by trans activists in a coordinated and premeditated assault. She, along with members of 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 soon found themselves swarmed and outnumbered by trans activists who called them “SWERFs,” meaning Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists, and shouted: “No feminism without whores.”
In May, Stern and another women’s rights advocate, Dora Moutot, had death threats chanted at them by a crowd of trans activists outside of Assas University where they had been invited to speak about the book they wrote together.
Demonstrators surrounded the entrance and shouted, “A TERF, a bullet, social justice,” at the two women as they were escorted by police. “They have no shame,” said Stern in footage depicting the scene. “How can they say that in front of police?” marveled Moutot.
Leading up to last night’s conference, Stern was mocked and threatened with violence on social media by trans activists, some of whom joked about hurling eggs at her for their own amusement.
A second protest organized by Jeune Garde, or the French arm of Antifa, which would have occurred at the entrance of ISSEP, was cancelled by order of the police. Stern explained that the police were aware that Jeune Garde protests are “always violent.”
Le Collectif Droit des Femmes 69 coordinated the protest with over a dozen various trans activist and so-called feminist organizations, among them: NousToutes Rhône, Solidaires Rhône, Ensemble ! 69, VIFFIL-SOS Femmes, PS du Rhône, Filactions, Les Ecologistes 69, SOS Homophobie, Jeune Garde, and le Planning Familial.
“As members of the Collectif Droits des Femmes 69, we cannot remain silent in the face of this conference,” the organization’s leaders announced in a press release. “Indeed, this event illustrates in every way what we are fighting: the crass transphobia of a part of the political and media class, increasingly uninhibited in France and elsewhere. Transphobes publicly spread their venom, legitimizing physical, psychological, institutional violence against our trans or non-binary siblings. The feminism we claim is inclusive, we stand up together and for everyone!”
Individual organizations also made public statements on social media vilifying Stern and calling on their supporters to denounce her.
“On Thursday, September 19, ISSEP, Marien Maréchal Lepen’s school, has invited Marguerite Stern to present her book ‘Transmania’. This book, which is nothing more than fiction that aims to demonize trans people and spread hatred, is not based on any scientific reality,” reads a statement produced by Solidaires Rhône. “In particular, it served as support for a transphobic bill aimed at banning the transitions of minors, in complicity with the extreme right.”
Since the publication of “Transmania” in April, which Stern co-authored with her colleague Dora Moutot, the two women’s rights activists have been denied speaking opportunities. For years, the two have faced ongoing threats of violence both online and via publicly posted signage, been publicly condemned by prominent politicians, and even had legal complaints made against them for “misgendering”.
Last year, one of the organizations involved in yesterday’s demonstration, SOS Homophobie, filed France’s first-ever “misgendering” discrimination suit against Moutot. The “Transmania” co-author was accused of “violently attacking” Nicolas ‘Marie’ Cau, mayor of the small town of Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, by calling him a man.
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