Is macrons wife a biological male
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Executive summary
No credible evidence supports the claim that Brigitte Macron, wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, is a biological male; multiple courts and mainstream fact‑checks have treated the allegation as false or as defamatory, and recent convictions for cyber‑harassment centered on that falsehood [1] [2].
1. The allegation and where it came from
The conspiracy that Brigitte Macron was born male and once lived as “Jean‑Michel Trogneux” originated in online videos and social‑media posts beginning in 2017 and was amplified by self‑described independent journalists and influencers, notably Natacha Rey and Amandine Roy, who claimed without verifiable evidence that Brigitte never existed and that her brother had changed gender and assumed her identity [3] [4].
2. Legal pushback and courtroom findings
French courts have repeatedly been the venue where these claims were contested: in 2024 two women were ordered to pay damages after being found guilty of slander over false claims about Brigitte Macron’s gender, and more recently a Paris court found 10 people guilty of cyber‑harassment for spreading false online claims that she was born male, citing malicious, degrading and insulting behaviour [5] [1] [6]. Those rulings reflect judicial conclusions about the harm and untruth of specific online accusations, even as legal technicalities later affected some appeals [2] [7].
3. Nuance: appeals, free‑speech arguments and what courts did not decide
Not all court actions amounted to a definitive legal pronouncement on Brigitte Macron’s sex in the abstract; a French appeals court overturned libel convictions in one case on free‑expression grounds and did not formally rule on the truth of the gender claims — a procedural distinction emphasised by fact‑checkers and Reuters, which noted that an appeals ruling concerned defamation law rather than adjudicating the factual question of Ms Macron’s sex [8] [7]. In other words, an acquittal or overturn on procedural or free‑speech grounds does not validate the underlying conspiracy theory; Reuters explicitly points out the court did not rule on her gender [8].
4. Other responses: civil suits and evidentiary offers
The Macrons have pursued legal remedies beyond French courts, filing a defamation suit in the United States against prominent amplifier Candace Owens and signalling plans to present documentary and “scientific” evidence in that litigation to show Brigitte Macron is a woman, according to their lawyer’s public statements [9] [4]. French reporting and Brigitte Macron’s own statements have cited birth certificates and family records as part of the factual record she says has been ignored by online abusers [2] [1].
5. What the public record supports and what it does not
The public record assembled by reputable news outlets, courts and fact‑checkers demonstrates there is no credible, substantiated evidence that Brigitte Macron is biologically male and that repeated online claims to the contrary have been false or malicious; several defendants have been convicted for spreading those claims and French courts have ordered damages in at least one case [1] [5] [6]. At the same time, legal rulings on defamation or appeal can hinge on freedom‑of‑expression concerns rather than a factual finding about sex or biology, so absence of a direct judicial pronouncement in some appeals does not equate to validation of the rumours [8] [7].