A symposium that was to be in support of Iranian and Afghan women has now been put off after organizers apparently received threats from transgender activists for inviting a woman who believes that sex is wholly determined by biology.
The Times reported that the Comité Laïcité République (CLR), translated as the republic secularism committee, an association meant to promote French secularism, has said trans activists had threatened to crash the event with “rotten eggs and baseball bats” after learning that Marguerite Stern would be there. Stern has spearheaded a nationwide effort to denounce the “murder of women by their husbands and partners,” per the report.
Stern took to Twitter concerning the debacle, saying: “I receive threats because I say that women are females. That’s the world we’re living in. I was first cancelled from the conference, and then it was postponed and I was re-invited.”
The symposium, entitled Woman, Life, Freedom, the slogan of Iranian women who are pushing back against religious leaders in their countries for the freedom to remove their hijabs, is set to take place at a later date in Paris, according to Gilbert Abergel, the association’s chairman.
Abergel noted that images of the event’s advertising poster circulated around social media with a knife digitally overlaid on it, seeming to suggest violence. The original event was supposed to take place in Nantes on April 15.
The CLR released a statement about the event on Twitter: “Numerous threats inciting violence were made on social media, including the distribution of our poster announcing the event crossed out with a knife, with calls for counter-demonstrations due to the presence of Ms. Stern, an activist feminist, critic of transgender ideology.”
“This led the organizers to postpone this event for the sake of preserving the safety of the speakers, of all the participants, and to prevent the Château from suffering any damage. The Comité Laïcité République lodged a complaint and informed the Prefect of these threats.”
The report noted that Babacar Lame, who organized the Nantes event, said that he merely want to promote “freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom of opinion,” but that he had faced “absolutely monstrous violence.”
Stern went on to say: “I feel restrained in my freedom of expression. It’s a form of totalitarianism, of censorship. It’s serious.”
She said on another occasion: “I have faced unspeakable harassment for three years because of my positions on transgenderism.”
“When I see the physical attacks that happen in the Anglo-Saxon world... yes, I am afraid. [But] one thing terrorises much more than the threats I receive: that’s the idea of stopping speaking out.”
