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A French court has ordered Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey to pay Macron €8,000 (about $8,864) over claims they made in 2021 that falsely asserted the first lady is actually her brother.
France's first lady Brigitte Macron has won her defamation suit against two conspiracy theorists who falsely claimed she is transgender.
A French court has ordered Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey to pay Macron €8,000 (about $8,864) over claims they made in a 2021 YouTube video that falsely asserted the first lady is actually her brother, and has secretly transitioned. The two must also pay €5,000 (about $5,540) to her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, as well as a suspended fine of €500 (bout $540).
The women's false claims went viral in 2022, just weeks before the French presidential election, prompting Macron to file a libel complaint. Despite the first lady successfully challenging the claims in court, the rumors have still continued to spread internationally, gaining even more traction earlier this year when conservative commentator Candace Owens parroted them.
“After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man," Owens wrote at the time. "Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The implications here are terrifying.”
French president Emmanuel Macron has not spoken about the disinformation since Owens’ podcast episode aired, when he addressed the rumors at an International Women’s Day observance in April.
“The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios,” he said. “People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.”
Macron is one of many figures that have become the target of far-right "transvestigations," in which social media circles target celebrities by “investigating” their biological sex, offering "fake pseudo-scientific 'evidence' that they are transgender (with the underlying bigoted and ignorant implication that being a transgender person is a bad thing)," according to media advocacy organization GLAAD.
Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif most recently became the target of conservatives accusing her of being transgender, even though she is a cisgender woman hailing from a country where it is illegal to identify as trans and transition, with figures as large as Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance fallaciously added to the fire. Khelif has since filed a lawsuit against the right-wing pundits that spearheaded the rumors, including J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk.
