The main sticking point, Coffin says, is the strong separation between private and public life. The blockages on coming out are terrible.”Ĭoffin with fellow members of EL*C, Eurocentralasian Lesbian* Community in 2019 © Alice Coffin Public and private divide “We contacted them directly saying ‘please come out of the closet, we need you’, and that’s when I saw how terrified they were. When the 2012/2013 debates on same-sex marriage led to a rise in homophobic attacks, militants like Coffin tried to get the support of gay public figures. And when you have the courage to do so, as former Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoé did in 1998, “you say sorry at the same time”.įrance's former Digital Minister Mounir Mahjoubi came out in May 2018. “Coming out is especially difficult in public life in France”, she says. The book describes how lesbian culture can be a source of pride and celebration in the US, whereas France operates what Coffin terms “homo-omerta”.

In 2018, Coffin spent time on a Fulbright scholarship in the US comparing how LGBTI issues are covered in the media. This interview first featured in the Spotlight on France podcast. “It’s kind of magic when you realise that your idols are lesbians too, but at the same time it’s sad to think that it’s never said.” She describes the sense of wonder on discovering that many of the nine French feminists who founded the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) in 1970, were gay. “Getting older, I discovered not only all those women who had been erased from cultural history, but also that many were lesbians.”

In Le Génie Lesbien, Coffin recounts how the lack of role models and representations in the media in the 80s in France robbed her of a happy lesbian adolescence.

Le génie lesbien by Alice Coffin