A pretty interesting and somewhat depressing story at the Free Press today about a French feminist who has already been fined once for stating that biological men are not women.
Dora Moutot seems to have been a pretty standard left-leaning feminist who ran an Instagram account focused on women and sex.
The account had hundreds of thousands of followers and soon became my primary source of income; I earned more through brand partnerships and content than I ever did before, as a lifestyle journalist. I wasn’t political—certainly not “right wing,” as I’m so often labeled today. If anything, my work appealed to young liberal women fed up with inequalities between men and women in the bedroom.
But as her account gained more followers and attention, she started to hear from trans people who wanted her to make the show more inclusive.
...in 2020 I started getting messages from transgender activists, demanding I be more “inclusive” in my commentary by including “women with penises” in my definition of “woman.” I refused, and explained that being a woman is a biological fact and that I didn’t think saying so should be controversial.
Word must have gotten around the trans activist community, because all of a sudden internet activists began labeling me as a transphobe and a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), a term I’d never even heard before. All of my brand partnerships—my main source of income—dropped me and refused to work with me again. They told me I had become too controversial.
They couldn't control her, so they ruined her. But that wasn't enough. In 2022 she was invited on a French TV program to discuss transgender issues opposite Marie Cau, France’s first transgender mayor. When asked directly if she thought Cau was a woman, Moutot said, Cau "is a man, a transfeminine man."
Two months later she learned that a collection of trans activist groups was suing her for a crime called "public insult." In France, individuals can bring criminal cases under this law. Moutot was facing a huge fine and the possibility of jail time.
“Public insult” is a criminal offense, 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. And under French law, private parties have the right to initiate criminal prosecutions themselves...
During the trial, which took place this past February, the prosecutor argued my opinion—that allowing trans women to use women’s spaces is dangerous—amounts to accusing all trans women, and all men, of being rapists (even though I explicitly clarified: “I’m not saying that all trans people do this”). That I warned women to “be wary” of men, he said, was an incitement to discrimination. He asked the judge to sentence me to a “civic awareness course” to teach me the “values of the French Republic”—essentially, a reeducation camp.
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.
That's a fairly significant fine for what would be considered a protected statement of opinion in the United States. But, encouraged by the outcome, more trans rights groups went through the archives of her past statements and sued her again.
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?”
The author goes on to describe a list of threats and doxing which has made her fearful of speaking up in France. She was born in the U.S. to French parents and is now considering moving to the U.S. where speaking the truth about biological sex is still allowed (so far). In the meantime, she is appealing her previous conviction and raising funds to fight the new charges she is facing.
This is the future I think a disturbing number of trans activists want for everyone who disagrees with them. If they can't hector you into self-censorship, they'd be only too happy to see you go to jail. One way or another, they want to make opposition to their cause too costly to contemplate.
Here's the exchange that got Moutot in legal trouble.
In 2026, I was convicted by 🇫🇷 French court for this. 3 LGBTS NGOS attacked me over the sentence: "But as women, we have to be cautious about people with penises ” while talking about about transgender ideology and the placement of trans women in female prisons. I said this… pic.twitter.com/CGfUGuyzBV
— Dora Moutot (@doramoutot) September 4, 2026
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