Dora Moutot is a feminist who has dedicated much of her life to fighting for women’s rights and has built a following on social media. Like other feminists, Moutot does not view transgender women the same as biological women. She has now joined others who are facing criminal charges for expressing those views. Transgender advocates have demanded that she be punished for her views in France.
Moutot recounted how transgender activists demanded that she be more “inclusive” in how she referred to “women.” She refused, and explained that “being a woman is a biological fact and that I didn’t think saying so should be controversial.” She was immediately denounced as a “transphobe and a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), a term I’d never even heard before.”
What followed was all too familiar. A cancel campaign led to her brand partnerships being canceled.In 2022, she was invited on a French TV program to discuss transgender issues with Marie Cau, France’s first transgender mayor. On the program, she was asked if she thought Cau was a woman. Moutot responded, Cau “is a man, a transfeminine man.”
That was all it took. Transgender advocates had their case and filed charges for “public insult,” which is a crime in France with a maximum punishment of one year in prison and a fine of up to €45,000 for insults committed against a person because of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Free speech has long been in a free fall in France. Many disagree with Moutot and they are accorded free speech to denounce her views. However, Moutot is not extended the same protection based on the content of her views.
These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar. At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism.
In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”
This is a nation that still echoes the cry of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”). However, in today’s France, “liberté” is no longer valued. Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of “equity” and “fraternity.”
In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss the decline of free speech in France and other nations. As we face our own growing anti-free speech movement, citizens need to take a long look at countries like France to see what awaits us down this path. Europe went down this slippery slope of censorship decades ago, and the desire to silence others has now become an insatiable appetite.
As in this case, activists spend more time silencing opposing views than responding to them. For transgender activists, it is intolerable for feminists like Moutot to hold contrary views. Instead of addressing her viewpoints in public, they want her declared a criminal. Censorship then becomes an insatiable appetite for groups to silence their own critics.
Moutot describes the Orwellian take on free speech in France today:
“The judge did not impose the course, but in May, I was found guilty of ‘public insult’ and fined €4,754. The judge found that though my statements were made in the context of a debate, they constituted an “abuse of freedom of expression warranting the imposition of a criminal penalty commensurate with the harm thus caused to the values protected by our democratic society.” In other words, the judge concluded my intent had been to cause harm.”
It is chilling to think of a judge willingly participating in such censorship, but this is now standard in the country. In the meantime, transgender activists are not done with Moutot, whose very existence appears to outrage them:
“In June, just weeks after my conviction, another LGBT organization filed six more complaints against me and my colleague Marguerite Stern. These new charges target specific statements we made on social media and on our feminist blog and YouTube channel Femelliste. They include our opinion that ‘men’ were ‘demanding access to our spaces’ and the question: ‘On what grounds should trans women’s fear of being mocked in men’s toilets take precedence over women’s fear of being raped?'”
This speech would be entirely protected in the United States. However, the case is a chilling cautionary tale for Americans fighting a resurgent anti-free speech movement. This is the slippery slope of censorship that awaits us if we abandon our defining commitment to free speech. After the removal of much of the censorship system established during the Biden Administration, American censors did not take jobs at Starbucks. They continue to peddle their expertise in regulating and silencing the speech of others.
It is a dire future. Just ask Dora Moutot.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
I don’t have anything left to say about the modern left; they are 21st century fascists. Period. It is a sickness.
Does Karl Rove vote for fascists?
@Anonymous
Karl Rove is a dinosaur. Get into the 21st century. I don’t care who he votes for. I care who I vote for.
What????
Have you not heard about Bo French? He probably doesn’t feature much on Fox News… But the racist and antisemite is about to hold a powerful elected office in Texas. Rove is voting Democrat.
In liberal land, the exception proves the rule.
I am neither a repoublican nor a neo con – why would I care about Karl Rove ?
Professor Turley likes to depict a “decline” in speech rights without ever actually depicting how speech was less censored previously. This is because, in France, disfavored political speech, particularly around feminism, was still censored.
Turley uses an American First American lens – which is fine if the goal is comparative – but there isn’t a “decline” within France, as he likes to depict. France just has a different approach to speech. I don’t agree with it, but I am not French.
Moutot’s traditional brand of feminism was censored in the 1960s because it was not popular, too. France used public decency laws as the statutory rationale, but the objective was the same – curtail the rights of ’60s feminists to pass our abortion pamphlets and women’s rights.
To describe France’s censorship as a decline is to be ignorant of French history. Do better, Professor Turley.
I infer something completely different than you from the gist of what is being said by the professor, to wit:
“Free speech has long been in a free fall in France. Many disagree with Moutot and they are accorded free speech to denounce her views. However, Moutot is not extended the same protection based on the content of her views.”
The hypocrisy that the professor highlights goes back to the formative 1789 Declaration of Human and Civic Rights, now incorporated by reference into the French Constitution, and under which the “free communication of ideas and of opinions” as “one of the most precious rights of man.” (No, I did not know this fact prior to today.)
Although France never expressed an “absolute right” under law, Turley points to an increasingly-manifesting selective development and application of French law to achieve a sieve-ing or filtering of messages such that certain political or social ideologies or opinions prevail over others.
Perhaps the professor’s post would have been more solidified if he had given examples of the permitted speech on the opposite side of Moutot (“denouncing her views”) vis-a-vis what was said by Moutot. Although a quick perusal online did not reveal any of this to me, I did find some reference to what Moutot was up against, here:
https://thebridgehead.ca/2024/06/27/the-french-journalist-taking-on-the-transgender-movement-an-interview-with-dora-moutot/
“Turley points to an increasingly-manifesting selective development and application of French law to achieve a sieve-ing or filtering of messages such that certain political or social ideologies or opinions prevail over others.”
He makes this conclusion without showing how it has “increasingly-manifest[ed].” One cannot conclude that a change has occurred without providing a reference point for the way it once was.
And any scholar of French history clearly understands that there never has been free speech for disfavored, minority views. The state has consistently prioritized public order, national unity, and the authority of the Republic over absolute individual speech.
And your suggestion about examples of permitted speech on the opposite side of Moutot entirely misses the point. Permitting majoritarian views of speech does not show any sort of change regarding French concepts of free speech. As I mentioned previously, the throughline has always been support for majoritarian speech over minority viewpoints. This is called l’universalisme républicain.
Under the French model, the state recognizes only the abstract, unified “Le Peuple” as a collective whole, rather than individual minority groups, subcultures, or communities. Jacobins demanded strict assimilation and conformity to a single national identity, aggressively flattening minority differences.
Legally, this was traditionally enforced through l’order public, a broad constitutional justification that allows the state to restrict any speech or behavior, including minority political (and often religious) expression. This is the same justification for banning hijabs, etc.
Again, at a basic level, any essay that argues a CHANGE has occurred is drivel without documenting the before and after. There is no rational basis for failing this basic problem, hence my response to Professor Turley.
Wanna play pseudo-French with me?
https://www.lalibre.be/international/2023/03/29/une-francaise-devant-la-justice-pour-avoir-insulte-emmanuel-macron-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux-JX6DF2EFC5CIVJHHQIWI62QHBY/
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/11/macron-has-declared-war-on-free-speech/
“One cannot conclude that a change has occurred without providing a reference point for the way it once was.” ” . . . is drivel without documenting the before and after.”
The only “drivel” here is your petulant demand that instead of a blog post, JT write (just for you) a 10,000-word essay.
ditto, -even funnier because the commenter himself failed to document reflective or authoritative reference points, instead offering… “And any scholar of French history clearly understands that there never has been free speech for disfavored, minority views.”
Nah, this isn’t AI. If you must know, I actually took a comparative law and religion course at Harvard back in 2011 – Comparative Law and Religion, where I did write a paper comparing French laicete to Turkish laiklik (both concepts of secularism).
That’s where the interest in French freedom of speech and expression first piqued.
And you didn’t respond to anything I said substantively – instead attacking me.
Moreover, you don’t need a degree to understand that an argument that X has CHANGED requires at least a showing that it moved from A to B. You can’t just write about B. No need for a 10K word essay. That’s just something anyone in middle school English should understand.
said the pot to the kettle.
besides, taking a three hour student course in Comparative Law and Religion hardly makes you an expert on the SUBSTANCE of today;s topic. I have four books with my name on the cover, two making it in the top three on Amazon best sellers. Does that mean that I am an expert on selling books? No need to reply with another essay.
“Nah, this isn’t AI.”
Who said it was AI? Not ANY of the three comments above, from Sam, Lin, and Anonymous.
Meant to respond to lin. Look below
Your AI-generated response is appreciated, but not agreed to.
Perhaps you should reflect on the reality that not just France, but much of UK/Europe, Australia and several other countries are rethinking their broader freedoms from the past. I personally equate this with the rise in immigration, especially illegal immigration, where assimilation has been replaced with resistance and sometimes terroristic actions (thinking of Charlie Hebdo)
You will be and are discredited, therefore, in attempting to conflate past French history with contemporary threats and restrictions. Here’s a few examples for you:
Zemmour v. France, No. 63539/19, 20 Dec. 2022
CNEWS v. France (dec.), No. 60131/21, 7 Nov. 2023
CNEWS v. France (dec.), 52837/22, 19 Dec. 2024).
I would also suggest that you take a look at this book and consider its observations: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53896/future-free-speech
addendum: Your first paragraph quotes ME- my own opinion/conclusion—Not Turley’s
Yet your very next paragraph continues with, “He makes this conclusion without showing…”
You sound an awful lot like X, but I’ll give you the benefit of unsurety (is that a word, ha ha?)
Thanks for your thoughts.
(p.s. paternally, I am of English/French heritage and ancestry.)
p.p.s. I like the way you glossed over the opening of MY own sentence/acknowledgement, “Although France never expressed an ‘absolute right’ under law,” in attempting to inform me of the same…. very X-ie.
I didn’t gloss over it – I didn’t respond to it because (a) I agree that there is no absolute right under the law; and (b) you said it without it connecting to any point that you were trying to make. No government has an absolute right under the law to freedom of speech – not in America, France, or anywhere else. It was just a non-sequitur.
Apologies for not responding to your non-sequitir?
omg. that is not a non sequitur —Not a word you are even familiar with to even spell it correctly!. ha ha ha
Did you pick that word up on this blog, X? ha ha ha
just keep diggin’ in deeper, we can provide the shovels.
X says, “No government has an absolute right under the law to freedom of speech.”
WTH is X talking about? Who said that?
See how he changes the game when he is losing?
Charlie Hebdo is a terrible example to use that only proves my point – the publication was explicitly born out of an act of French government censorship in 1970. Its predecessor, Hara-Kiri Hebdo published a provocative cover about Charles de Gaulle, which compared his death to a nightclub fire that killed 146 people. The government banned the magazine from being sold to minors or displayed publicly. To circumvent the ban, the editorial team immediately launched a new publication under the name Charlie Hebdo. Charlie was a nod to de Gaulle.
Your citations are to not even to a French court – it is the European Court of Human Rights. International law, not a French domestic court.
I quoted you, yes. Because I responding to your defense of Turley. That is how conversations work. Both your quote and Turley’s article are aligned in your opinion. What is your issue with this?
omg. give it up.
In the first case, CNEWS was convicted for saying “Immigration, Islam, and Islamism, they’re all the same subject,” and recommending “radical measures” against immigration,
The second case, CNEWS was convicted for referring to some immigrants as “thieves,” “rapists,” “murderers,” and “invaders.”
Gawd, what a clown you are. You cannot even touch Lin’s response with correlative, substantive response.
Here, let me educate you
https://eclj.org/free-speech/echr/la-cedh-se-penche-sur-la-fermeture-de-c8
^ X is afraid to sign in as X when replying to Lin..
X-
From your goddess, AI:
“On January 7, 2015, the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, were attacked in Paris. This tragic event resulted in the deaths of 12 individuals and injuries to 11 others. The attackers were two French-born Algerian brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, who claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Wow long post arguing that France has not become MORE represive that it has ALWAYS been repressive.
Is there a consequential difference ?
Currently La Penn is polling at almost double the nearest competing French political party for the 2027 election.
I am not a La Penn fan and I highly doubt she is going to bring about free speech in France.
What will likely change is whose speech is persecutred.
Enjoy.
In the US the constitution protects EVERYONE’s speech or it is supposed to. Regardless whatever problems we have in the US are miniscule compared to the rest of the world.
Myriads of studies demonstrate that greater freedom results in greater prosperity.
Conditions in france are improving at a snails pace. Barely more than 1/10th the improvement in the US.
Most of Europe is similarly stagnant and has been for decades.
US economic growth under Obama was a pathetic 1.48% average for 8 years – the worst since the great depression.
Yet even under Obama the US did better than most of Europe has done during the entire 21st century.
One should never underestimate the ability of the French to F#$K things up.
The French declaration of rights – which features prominently in Thomas Paines excellent book “the Rights of Man” is a successor to the US declaration of independence and constitution and heavily influenced by them – Lafayette was important in drafting it.
But while the US revolution gave birth to he United States and Self Govenrment. The French Revolution was the birth of Scoialism and was a bloody mess that continued until Napolean took over the country by Force.
Paines “the rights of man” coimes in two parts – the first remains faithful to the concept of rights and liberty as the american founders conceived of it – the scottish enlightenment conception.
While the 2nd half of the book favorably explores the proto socialism that the French Revolution became. Paine was writing immediately Before things in France went to h311 so it is interesting to look at his arguments in light of what followed.
The 2nd part of “the right of man reads an awful lot like a Bernie Sanders speech. In the french revolution we get to see what that leads to.
So you’re okay with this?
Can you please tell me how you gleaned a positive response from the above post?
” I don’t agree with it, but I am not French.”
Try to read better?
France gdp growth rate for 2026 is currently 0.31%, a 0.53% decline from 2025
France gdp growth rate for 2025 was 0.84%, a 0.35% decline from 2024.
France gdp growth rate for 2024 was 1.19%, a 0.25% decline from 2023.
France gdp growth rate for 2023 was 1.44%, a 1.28% decline from 2022.
US growth was 2.5% in 2025, the atlanta FED predicts growth of 5.1% in 3Q 2026.
Even under Biden the US grew almost twice as fast as France.
There is a reason the standard of living in Europe is the same as the standard of living in Mississippi the WORST of all 50 states in the US.
If you wish to live in France PLEASE MOVE TO FRANCE, Stop trying to turn the US into Europe.
Most americans want to be better off next year than this year and better off in a decade than today.
This is of course disturbing on straight up straight down speech grounds. I have a question closer to home. Does putting who is a woman into freefloat render the 19th Amendment mere surplusage?
My bad. Sign in glitch.
but I love your descriptive and creative phrasing, “putting who is a woman into freefloat.”
A feminist correctly states a biological fact and she gets taken to court.
Back in 1987, there was a movie called Raising Arizona. One scene, a group of prison inmates are in a therapy session, discussing their feelings. The one inmate, a very large, muscular black man with a deep voice, says,
Prison Counsellor: Why do you say you feel “trapped” in a man’s body?
“Trapped” Convict: Well, sometimes I get them menstrual cramps real hard.
At the time it was over the top, totally absurd, funny.
How little did the directors, the Coen brothers, know their joke would become a taken seriously social issue.
Do they teach about the guevedoces in community college?
I can assure you that guevedoces constitute a nearly minute population in the sphere of LGBTQ+ –so small a number as to not even qualify for the “+” inserted after LGBTQ, so what was your point? Humor only, I hope.
These phony race baiters claim America and conservatives are racist as America voted for Obama twice and then turned against his party because of the awful job he did and yet they would never vote for a Tim Scott or a Condaleeza Rice. Who exactly are the racists.
hullbobby: Excellent.
HullBobby,
Right?
I can recall a 60 Minutes episode, back when 60 Minutes was good, and they interviewed Condaleeza Rice. A very smart, sharp, accomplished woman. I learned she plays the piano.
Hello Upstate:
I join your opinion, and as some might recall, I have spoken praise for Condoleezza Rice many times on this blog.
Your own words, “A very smart, sharp, accomplished woman. I learned she plays the piano,” exemplifies the impression she leaves/left on others. One did not/does not remember her as a Black woman as much as they might remember and agree on the other points you make about her.
Au contraire, Obama….who is also smart and sharp, –but compare between the two how such smartness and sharpness has been used…..That says it all.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chris-rufo-known-for-dei-and-crt-panics-tries-to-make-the-indian-question-a-thing
Yes, there are mainstream elements like Rufo who absolutely are racist. His “Indian Question” podcast was disgusting.
And before you attack the source, here is the National Review echoing the same sentiment: https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/09/the-indian-question-question/
The land of Voltaire.
Ammo up
I have a question that perhaps one of our s@@tlib socialist friends can answer.
“What does dialetical materialism have to do with gender dysphoria?”
Marxist societies tended to not be very tolerant of men who believe and liked to dress as women. But as we all know, the Soviet Union did not practice true socialism. I am certain today’s proponents will get it right and create heaven on earth.
antonio
Feminism is a class-disordered ideology incorporated under the umbrella of Critical Diversity Theory. That said, men and women are equal in rights, and the male and female sex and the masculine and feminine gender (i.e. sex-correlated attributes) are complementary in Nature.
All homos are trans (near viability at six weeks), some trans are sims with social progress, surgical mutilation, or medical mendacity.
I am going to attempt to engage in wokespeak.
“How do we get such needed laws here?”
antonio
Thank you, Professor Turley,, for bringing up this issue, which might be called “Transgender Tyranny.”
Come On Now – gotta let the French be French Baby!!! This how the French went from World Power in the 1700’s to World Joke by the 20th Century – and the journey to Absurdity is not yet complete. They still have a bit further to go as they destroy the little bit of culture they have left! Au revoir France!!
I have to agree.
It’s easy to find fault with this law or that law. My personal favorite is this anomaly: it’s illegal to give money to your local building inspector to influence his or her behavior, but it’s legal to give money to any politician to influence his or her behavior. The key to all this is one simple truth: it’s politicians who make (and don’t make) the laws.
In the USA, we need to get back to yelling fire in a crowded theater is prohibited, but so-called ‘hate speech’ and ‘fighting words’ are not.
Too many people, including yourself, think that the Supreme Court stated that “yelling fire in a crowded theater is prohibited”. It did not! In Schenck v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. introduced an important element into that statement. That of FALSITY. If a theater IS on fire, would you want people to shout, “Fire”? Of course. However, if the theater is NOT on fire, and the goal is pandemonium, then the shouting of “Fire” IS prohibited.
true, and Holmes also factored in the element of “intent” as in the Gitlow case, “every idea is an incitement. The only difference between the expression of opinion and incitement…is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.”
How quick would the French convict Dora for refusing to recognize a transgender, if Dora was Muslim?
Interesting how judges are always assumed incorruptible until they make extreme or non sensical rulings in most societies. The flaws of our legal system mostly are due to the respect and honor it has been deemed to have, but not earned. A judge can always point to some idiosyncratic loophole or exception in a poorly written, overcomplicated law by an ideologically driven legislature that allows for such ridiculous violations of human freedom. Unless judges like this face circumstances and penalties, this will only worsen. Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all had so called judges to justify their actions. How many of them ever received their punishments? That should change.
Robespierre could not be reached for comment.
This is another example of why even common sense advances such as gay marriage are now losing support among the populace. People argued the camel’s nose in the tent concern and it turns out they may have been right. We went from of course people should be allowed to marry the person they love to “of course a trans man should be housed in prison with women” and “of course a hairy man should be changing in a woman’s locker room with your 17 year-old daughter”, to “hey look, it is Trans Day at the White House and it just happens to be Easter”.
70 + years ago my dear late mother coached us with “Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you”. That was normally followed by “they can call you whatever they want and it doesn’t make it true”. Still seems so simple, true, precise and no one’s speach is constrained. Thank you Mom, the world could use your help!
France, leading the charge to attain the “égalité, fraternité” of third world status!
Don’t go to France. See, that was easy.
“Don’t go to France. See, that was easy.”
A once-great country, a country of the Enlightenment, a country of great scientists and writers (Lavoisier and Pasteur , Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Hugo) — that country is circling the drain.
And your reply to that historic destruction is a callously flip comment.
This is the rise of Fascism in Europe. Nobody is less tolerant than today’s left. They censor and punish anyone who says something they don’t like, using the power of the state to do it. If it sounds like Hitler’s Germany to you, you’d be correct.
You could say.. The thing is, non-leftist parties formed a majority in the French legislature from 1986 to 1988, 1993 to 1997, 2002-2012, and since 2017. , although this last period involved co-operation between leftist and social-liberal-technocratic parties. There have been ample opportunities for starboard and social liberal parties to restore conventional liberties (as their have been in Britain). What you get from the conventional starboard is failure theatre.
Change the pink hair and nose rings for brownshirts and the behavior would be the same.