Posted30 avril 2022, 16:03
Activists blocked the presentation of a book dealing with the early medicalization of trans children, organized by a society of psychoanalysts and hosted by the Uni.
It was with a banner “transphobia kills” and cries of “assassins” that about fifteen trans activists and sympathizers interrupted a conference on Friday evening organized by the Center de psychanalyse Suisse romande, to which the University had rented a room of Uni Bastions. When they burst in, some 150 people (a third on the spot, the rest by zoom) attended the presentation of the book “The factory of the transgender child – how to protect minors from a health scandal?” by its authors, Céline Masson and Caroline Eliacheff. The point of the latter, expressed in particular on Sud radio on March 24, is, very briefly, the following: we must listen to the sometimes very serious suffering of young people, but no irreversible medical intervention must be carried out before the age of majority.
“Public health issue”
For activists, this is an “openly transphobic” discourse that has no place at the University. “We believe that by welcoming it, it makes this statement audible and tolerable.” In a press release, they explain that in the audience were psychiatrists “who are and will be in effective capacity to block access to transition for patients who have a vital need for it. (…) In this context, it is practically a public health issue to show opposition to their propaganda.”
Activists opposed to the debate
Reached by telephone and faced with the fact that the speaker’s remarks do not appear outrageous, an activist judges that “in anti-trans discourse, the attack always comes from the children. It’s an angle that puts them on the side of good. However, access to medical care improves the quality of life. Preventing a transition has a direct impact on mental health and can lead to suicide.” Consequently, he explains that the militants are opposed to any debate (“an instrument of the dominant to channel the anger of the dominated”, they write), since “debating a speech is already considering it audible”.
“Violent and not constructive”
This posture and the intrusion that led to speakers and the audience leaving the premises and moving to continue the conference struck a woman who was following her by zoom. “I was shocked. Calling people transphobes, murderers, is violent, not constructive. I understand that there may be militancy, but the way to do it is contrary to freedom of expression. Contextualizing the debate, she explains that two currents of thought run through the scientific world. “One advocates following the impulse of the child and medicalizing very quickly, the other defends waiting. Both of these positions are legitimate. Calling the supporters of one of assassins is very violent. Asking questions about early medicalization is not yet voting for Trump or Le Pen, let alone being transphobic.
The Uni does not endorse
The University, via its spokesperson Marco Cattaneo, declares itself “deeply attached to freedom of expression. It is a place of debates, exchanges, confrontation of ideas. The refusal of dialogue expressed yesterday by this group of activists is totally contrary to the academic approach, we can in no way endorse it. The alma mater also specifies that it is “committed to the fight against transphobia through its equality & diversity service, thanks to the work carried out by the Center Maurice Chalumeau or even through student associations. She is committed to advancing knowledge on the complex issue of gender and the personal and societal issues that accompany it.
Céline Masson, co-author of the controversial book, is sorry that the activists did not want to debate. “We offered them to attend the conference, I was ready to chat with them outside, but they didn’t want to. Their idea, from the start, was to prevent the conference. The professor of child and adolescent psychopathology at the University of Picardie (F) regrets it. “A trans woman was also there, she spoke, we didn’t agree on everything, but it was important to discuss.” She judges the episode symptomatic of the violence of the debate which is currently agitating the scientific community. “When we do not accompany a request for a sex change, we are immediately accused by some of our medical and psychiatric colleagues of transphobia.” What she defends herself against. “We don’t prevent it, we just say that 13-year-old children don’t necessarily know what they want and that we have to wait before carrying out sexual mutilation.”