Progress in France: Le Sperme Pour Tous!
BY KELLY COGSWELL
Last Tuesday, on October
15, the French National
Assembly approved
by a 57 to 17 vote a bill
opening up medically assisted reproduction
to single women and
lesbian couples. Right now, only
straight, married women can access
the procedure here in France.
Though the draft didn’t mention
transgender men, several deputies
proposed amendments including
them. The amendments were defeated,
but the good news is that
trans men became visible through
the issue, and they’ve been getting
support, both in parliament and in
the media.
There was a strongly worded
piece in the daily Libération by Cléo
Carastro that denounced the weight
of religion on the debate, calling for
access to artifi cial insemination
for everyone that wanted it, gay,
straight, cis, trans, married, unmarried,
“without distinction, and
without discrimination related to
civil status or gender.”
The approved bill now goes to the
Senate for debate. A vote is expected
there sometime in January.
It is likely the law will be ultimately
enacted. The most recent
polls show almost 63 percent of the
French public supports extending
the right to all women, up six
points since early October, just before
the law was handily approved
in the Assembly.
What’s interesting is how effective
opponents have been in giving
the impression that French society
is widely opposed.
The heavily Freudian Academy
of Medicine got plenty of press for
its declaration that it would be a
“major anthropological rupture” to
get rid of the “father fi gure which
remains essential in the development
of the child according to child
psychiatrists, pediatricians, and
psychologists.” Agnès Buzin, the
minister of health, responded that
the Academy was “perhaps, a little
out of date.”
On October 6, the rabidly homophobic
Manif pour Tous (Demo
for Everyone) movement poured a
huge amount of money into bringing
its followers from all over the
Gouines contre la Nature , or Dykes Against Nature, hold a sign demanding “self-determination for our
families” at an October 5 demonstration at Place Saint Michel in Paris.
An EXISTRANS demonstrator at Place de la République in Paris on October 19.
country to march in Paris against
the new law. Being more than a
little Freudian themselves, their
rallying cry was Liberty, Equality,
Paternity.
According to an independent
research group, about 74,500
protesters eventually attended,
though the organizers claim more
than half a million, with Donald
Trump apparently doing the math.
This was signifi cantly less than
the average of 340,000 protesters
the group mobilized on several occasions
to protest the law approving
same-sex marriage seven years
KELLY COGSWELL
KELLY COGSWELL
ago, when Manif pour Tous emerged
as the paramount ultraconservative,
anti-gay force.
I expected a bigger march. The
two round-the clock TV news channels
did free publicity for them day
after day, sometimes featuring
scrolling banners on the bottom of
the screen wondering how many
demonstrators would turn up this
time.
And news shows seemed to give
more time to guests trying to kill
the law than to those in favor.
Though this time, after months of
pressure from activists, talk shows
P E R S P E C T I V E : A D y k e A b r o a d
and panels occasionally featured
real-life lesbians who’d had artifi -
cial insemination, or at least were
competent to talk about the issues.
Not just discussions among
straight men with the power to determine
our dykely fates.
Could it be that lesbophobia is
slightly diminishing in France?
Maybe some bigots agree with the
extreme right patriarch Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who doesn’t care who’s
having babies as long as they’re
bolstering the white population.
Or perhaps the arguments of
our enemies just began to sound
bizarre. At some point, Manif pour
Tous started warning that there
would be a run on sperm banks if
dykes were allowed access to artifi -
cial insemination, effectively denying
straight couples suffering from
infertility the God-given right to
reproduce. On the basis of no evidence
whatsoever, they shrieked,
“There’s already a lack of sperm!”
Thankfully, gay men stepped in,
amusing the public by publishing
a letter offering to donate sperm to
their needy dyke friends. Gametes
for everyone!
One of the upsides of all this
is that Laurence Vanceunebrock-
Mialon, a deputy from the governing
party, La République en
Marche, has emerged as a strong
voice on LGBTQI issues. Only the
second out lesbian ever elected to
the National Assembly, she knows
fi rst-hand the issues of assisted reproduction,
herself having gone to
Belgium for the procedure — and
after splitting with her partner facing
the legal nightmares. She also
wants trans men to have access to
it, and is working to ban genital
surgery for intersex babies.
Lesbians are also organizing
again. Gouines contre la Nature
(Dykes against Nature) held a rally
supporting reproductive assistance
for everyone of all genders, a couple
of weeks ago at Place Saint-Michel
in Paris.
And at this past weekend’s EXISTRANS
rally and march in the
capital, along with the demand for
an end to violence against trans
women, both assisted reproduction
for trans men and protection
of intersex children were on the
agenda.
GayCityNews.com | October 24 - November 6, 2019 21
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