LGBTQ Speaker Series: Alice Coffin

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

12:00 PM-1:50 PM

Why French Politics and France’s Cultural Background Make it Difficult for LGBTs to be out and Visible in France

In France, few public figures come out. The very meaning of "coming-out" is unclear in the public sphere. This relates to a larger French trend, which asks for minorities to remain silent and discreet.

As a journalist and a lesbian and feminist activist, Alice Coffin, co-founder of the French Association of LGBT journalists, has been studying this phenomenon for many years: how a specific conception of the boundaries between private and public lives, and an anti communautarian mainstream discourse, have led, among other factors, to this situation.

Alice Coffin is a Fulbright Scholar at Drexel University, working on The Negative Impact of Neutrality on LGBT issues in the French Media. This talk will give an overview of the French blockages against LGBT visibility and present the way French activists have been fighting this back.

RSVP here.

The LGBTQ Speaker Series is funded by multiple organizations across Drexel: The Office of International Programs, LGBTQA+ Faculty and Professional Staff CRG, Women and Gender Studies program, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Global Studies, the Africana Studies program, the Alumni Association, the Student Center for Diversity and Inclusion, the Department of Politics and the Center for Public Policy.

Contact Information

Phillip Ayoub
payoub@gmail.com