The Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men, Isabelle Rome, on Monday gave her support to Family Planning, the target of strong criticism from right-wing and far-right elected officials, for having used the image of a pregnant transgender man in a communication campaign.
“Family planning is an essential historic association for women’s rights and access to contraception and abortion. I fully support the action.”said the minister, according to her words sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Let’s not let the far right stir up hatred by instrumentalizing a communication campaign which I can understand does not achieve consensus”she adds.
The minister refers to a Family Planning poster bearing the slogan “At Planning, men can also be pregnant”. A drawing represents a transgender man (that is to say, born biologically female and whose gender identity is male) during his pregnancy.
Family Planning claims an “unconditional” welcome
This message was strongly criticized on social networks, in particular by right-wing or far-right voices. MP RN Laure Lavalette thus lambasted “archi-subsidized militants who only seek to spread their grotesque and false ideology”while Laurence Trochu (Reconquête!) denounced the “doctrine” from the Association. “We don’t want it”she wrote on Twitter, with the hashtag #protegeonsnosenfants.
The RN deputy and vice-president of the National Assembly, Sébastien Chenu, has, among other things, denounced a “obsession with deconstructing everything”.
But how stupid…and probably dangerous in the end, this obsession with deconstructing everything. And thank you for not… https://t.co/tc2iRKoygB
denouncing “drifts” who “must stop”the deputy (LR) Fabien Di Filippo estimated for his part that Family Planning “moves away from science to pour into the most questionable ideological militancy”.
In response, the feminist association had denounced, on August 19, in a press releasea “smear campaign on the back of gender minorities”and clarified that she was considering possible legal action against the “instigators of hatred, who are sometimes elected officials of the Republic”.
On the merits, the Family Planning pointed out that it practiced a reception “unconditional”. Some trans people “seek advice for contraception, abortion, medical monitoring of their transition” and “It’s up to us to make them feel welcome”he added.
Several left-wing politicians have lent their support to Planned Parenthood.