Four years after calling a man a man on French television, Dora Moutot has a criminal conviction and faces new charges that could carry up to a year in prison.

In October 2022, the feminist author debated France’s first transgender-identifying mayor on the talk show Quelle Époque! She argued that self-identification laws could endanger women, citing males transferred to women’s prisons who then sexually assaulted inmates. Moutot stated that although “not all trans people do this – far from it”, women had no choice but to wary of all men, including those identifying as transgender.

Asked whether the mayor was a woman, Moutot said the mayor “is a man, a transfeminine man”.

As law professor Jonathan Turley has documented, three publicly funded LGBT organisations then filed a criminal complaint. On May 20, 2026, the Paris Judicial Court convicted Moutot of public insult on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. That offence carries up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine. The court ordered her to pay €4754. She is appealing.

The reasoning matters. The case began as a prosecution for incitement to hatred, and the charge was later reclassified. The court accepted that her words did not call on the public, explicitly or implicitly, to violence, discrimination or hatred. It convicted her anyway.

“For expressing my opinion, I have been convicted as a criminal,” Moutot said in the Free Press.

Moutot has also received death threats. Several complaints about those threats have reportedly been closed without anyone being identified. In a press release, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem said “women should not be sanctioned for expressing concerns about their own safety”. She warned that the contrast between the prosecution and the stalled investigations raises concerns about equality before the law.

The pattern is familiar in Australia. A NSW court ordered Kirralie Smith to pay $95,000 for transgender vilification over posts objecting to males in women’s football, and the NSW Supreme Court dismissed most of her appeal in July. The Full Federal Court found that Sall Grover unlawfully discriminated against a transgender-identifying man by excluding him from her women-only app. Jasmine Sussex faces a vilification complaint in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for criticising induced lactation in transgender-identifying men.

Each of these women spoke up for other women. Each has had to answer for it before a court or tribunal.

Concern for women’s and children’s safety should not be considered unlawful “vilification” or criminalised as “hate speech”.