False rumours that Brigitte Macron is transgender have been spreading for years. Now Candace Owens, an American far right commentator, has published a video repeating them and gaining millions of views.
The debunked conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron, the wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, was born a biological man and transitioned to become a woman has been pushed many times in recent years.
On Friday, far-right US commentator Candace Owens released a video titled Becoming Brigitte: An Introduction.
In it, she rehashes the claim that Macron was born a man and went by Jean-Michel Trogneux. She also claims to be the target of a legal threat from the French president. The video, which lasts 40 minutes, goes on to tangentially link the Macrons to a wider conspiracy involving paedophiles and an elite world order.
“When I said that I would stake my entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the current first lady of France was born a man, there were many people of course who did not believe me because that just sounds crazy,” Owens says.
She offers no evidence to back up the claim — and it is not true.
What is the conspiracy theory about Brigitte Macron?
The conspiracy theory has been floating around since Emmanuel Macron was first elected in 2017. It was then pushed by self-described journalist Natacha Rey.
She claimed that Brigitte never existed and that her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux had changed gender and started using that name.
Rey was interviewed by Amandine Roy, a self-proclaimed spiritual medium, for a YouTube video in 2021, and the false theory went viral before the French presidential election in 2022.
The so-called evidence often pointed to is a picture of Jean-Michel as a child, which shows similarities to Brigitte, but as they are siblings, this is not unusual.
This led Brigitte Macron to file a libel complaint against Roy and Rey. In September the pair were ordered by a French court to pay €8,000 in damages to her and €5,000 to her brother.
Emmanuel Macron also commented on the claims for the first time last year, saying, “There are still some crazies out there.”
The tactic of baselessly labelling someone as transgender is not specific to Brigitte Macron. Many high-profile women have faced similar conspiracy theories towards them. The phenomenon is known as “transvestigation”.
According to US-based LGBTQ+ organisation GLAAD, “The practice maliciously targets cisgender public figures — from Madonna to Melania Trump to Olympic boxer Imane Khelif to Kyle Rittenhouse — and then ‘investigates’ them 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.”
The theories are often linked to broader conspiracies about global control, depopulation, or other secret agendas.
Another well-known example of this is Michelle Obama, who has faced theories that she is transgender for years.
ADVERTISEMENT“I’ve heard about the swampy parts of the internet that question everything about me, right down to whether I’m a woman or a man,” she wrote in her 2018 memoir.
“A sitting US congressman has made fun of my butt. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been furious. But mostly, I’ve tried to laugh this stuff off.”
