TERFs: Not Suitable For Work

Alexa Faucher is a former chief of staff to a Communist mayor in a town in the Paris suburbs (Chevilly-Larue) who lost her job for sharing her gender-critical views online. A bleeding-heart lefty, an atheist, and a feminist — but none of that counted for anything, ultimately, because she also knows that humans come in two sexes, regardless of what anyone’s legal document says.

Enjoy our mutual outpouring of woe.

By the way, Alexa can’t get a job despite her decades of experience in politics. As you can hear, she is a brilliant, smart, hard-nosed b***h. If you need someone like that, please let me know and I will pass on the message.

Send me your stories, I’m all (t)ears: roisinmichaux@gmail.com. I’m also on X/Twitter: https://x.com/RoisinMichaux

Do you think it matters that sex is being replaced by self-declaration of something called ‘gender identity’? I do, and I was fired for it. I made a bet that other people care about it too. So this newsletter is my new job. If you think my work is important, please take out a paid subscription.

Show notes (AI generated)

Episode overview

In this episode of Peaked, Róisín Michaux speaks with Alexa, a former chief of staff to a Communist mayor in the Paris suburbs who says she lost her political role following her public feminist and gender-critical views online.

The conversation explores ideological conformity within left-wing political culture, institutional responses to gender-critical speech, tensions between feminism and gender identity ideology, and the psychological experience of becoming socially and professionally ostracized as a “TERF.”

Drawing from experiences in French municipal politics, feminism, psychiatry, Covid-era social compliance, and online political culture, the discussion examines broader themes including class politics, secularism, postmodernism, collective rights versus individual identity, institutional capture, social conformity, and the cultural influence of American identity politics on Europe.

Alexa also reflects on French republican secularism, anti-racism politics, feminism, social welfare, and the contradictions she sees within contemporary left-wing movements around religion, sex-based rights, and gender ideology.

Key Topics Discussed

* Alexa Faucher’s dismissal from Chevilly-Larue

* Jérôme Martin’s online denunciation campaign

* French public-sector contracts and “devoir de réserve”

* “Fired TERFs” and institutional retaliation

* Helen Joyce and UK legal developments

* Covid-era conformity and institutional obedience

* Didier Raoult and anti-establishment scientific dissent

* Finland’s reassessment of youth gender medicine

* Keira Bell and the Tavistock case

* French secular feminism and laïcité

* Planning Familial and “men can get pregnant” activism

* Marguerite Stern, Dora Moutot, and French feminist fracture

* Identity politics vs materialist feminism

* “Women with penises” and compelled language

* Surrogacy and commodification of women’s bodies

* National gender-critical figures across Europe

French Political & Institutional Context

Stéphanie Daumin — PCF Mayor of Chevilly-Larue

Website: ville-chevilly-larue.fr

Alexa explains that she served as directrice de cabinet for Stéphanie Daumin, the Communist mayor of Chevilly-Larue, a historically left-wing suburb in the Paris “Red Belt.”

The political context matters because the episode repeatedly contrasts:

* older class-based Communist politics,with:

* newer activist and identity-centered ideological frameworks inside the contemporary left.

Jérôme Martin’s denunciation campaign against Alexa Faucher

Website: x.com

Referenced in relation to the activist campaign that followed Alexa Faucher’s tweet asserting the immutability of biological sex.

Jérôme Martin publicly denounced Faucher online, helping escalate the controversy surrounding her employment.

Follow-up thread:

The episode repeatedly returns to:

* online activist escalation,

* public denunciation,

* and institutional pressure campaigns following ideological dissent.

Chevilly-Larue cabinet dismissal controversy

Website: frontieresmedia.fr

One of the primary French-language reports documenting the controversy surrounding Alexa Faucher’s dismissal after her tweet regarding biological sex.

The Tweet Referenced in the Episode

The controversy centered around Alexa Faucher’s reply concerning biological sex and legal identity changes:

« Votre sexe n’a jamais été, n’est pas, et ne sera jamais féminin. Les stéréotypes de genre que vous choisissez, et qui nous sont imposés, si. Bisous. »

The tweet became widely circulated in activist and political networks following Jérôme Martin’s denunciation campaign.

UK Gender Politics & Institutional Conflict

Helen Joyce discussing the UK Supreme Court ruling

Website: youtube.com

Referenced when Róisín discusses listening to Helen Joyce following the UK Supreme Court ruling on sex-based legal protections.

The ruling is discussed less as a narrow legal issue and more as:

* a test of institutional compliance,

* ideological capture,

* and whether public bodies will obey legal definitions of biological sex.

Keira Bell and the Tavistock case

Website: wikipedia.org

Referenced during discussion of safeguarding concerns surrounding youth medical transition.

The Bell case became internationally significant because it challenged whether minors could meaningfully consent to puberty blockers and medical transition pathways.

The Cass Review

Website: cass.independent-review.uk

Referenced in broader discussion of:

* evidence standards,

* youth gender medicine,

* and institutional reassessment of pediatric transition pathways.

The review became internationally influential after concluding that the evidence base for pediatric medical transition remained weak and underdeveloped.

Finnish study on psychiatric morbidity and youth gender services

Website: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Referenced during discussion of the “Finnish study” mentioned by the speakers.

The April 2026 Finnish register study:

Psychiatric Morbidity Among Adolescents and Young Adults Who Contacted Specialised Gender Identity Services in Finland in 1996–2019

was discussed as evidence of increasing institutional doubt emerging from inside youth gender medicine systems themselves.

The speakers specifically emphasize that skepticism is now increasingly coming from:

* clinicians,

* researchers,

* and medical systems previously aligned with affirmation-based treatment models.

Covid, Conformity & Institutional Trust

Didier Raoult and France’s Covid divide

Website: france24.com

Referenced during discussion of:

* conformity,

* institutional trust,

* and scientific dissent during Covid.

For many French listeners, Didier Raoult became symbolic of:

* anti-establishment scientific dissent,

* distrust of centralized expertise,

* and collapse of institutional legitimacy during the pandemic.

The speakers use Covid primarily as:

* a psychological analogy for ideological compliance.

Retracted hydroxychloroquine study associated with Didier Raoult

Website: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Referenced indirectly during discussion of:

* early contradictory Covid messaging,

* institutional confusion,

* and scientific authority.

The Raoult controversy became one of France’s defining symbolic conflicts over:

* expertise,

* media trust,

* and anti-establishment dissent.

National Gender-Critical Figures Referenced

The episode repeatedly returns to the idea that:

“every country has one”

meaning a nationally recognizable gender-critical feminist figure or activist.

Ireland — Laoise de Brún/Countess

Website: laoisedebrun

UK — Kelly-Jay Keen / Standing For Women

Website: x.com

UK — J.K. Rowling

Website: x.com

Germany — Rona Duwe

Website: ronalyze.de

Austria — Faika El-Nagashi

Website: substack.com

France — Marguerite Stern

Website: wikipedia.org

France — Dora Moutot

Website: wikipedia.org

These figures are discussed as examples of:

* feminist opposition to gender ideology,

* online harassment campaigns,

* institutional retaliation,

* and ideological fracture across Europe.

Dora Moutot 🔗

X/Twitter: https://x.com/doramoutot

🔗 Co-author page / Book: Search “Transmania” on Éditions Magnus or Amazon.fr

🔗 Femelliste YouTube (joint): https://www.youtube.com/@femelliste

Marguerite Stern 🔗 Personal website:

https://www.margueritestern.com/

🔗 X/Twitter: https://x.com/MargueriteStern

🔗 English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Stern

🔗 French Wikipedia: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Stern

Joint Work

🔗 Femelliste official:

https://www.femelliste.com/

🔗 Transmania (book): Widely covered; see Wikipedia entry for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmania

Organizations & Activism

Act Up-Paris

Website: actupparis.org

Referenced because Jérôme Martin previously served as president of Act Up-Paris between 2003 and 2006.

The discussion repeatedly returns to:

* activist pressure,

* public denunciation,

* direct-action political culture,

* and ideological enforcement mechanisms.

Planning Familial’s “inclusive sexual health” campaign

Website: planning-familial.org

Referenced during discussion of ideological changes inside French feminist and reproductive-rights organizations.

The campaign became controversial among some French feminists because it adopted:

* gender-neutral reproductive language,

* “inclusive” terminology,

* and messaging interpreted by critics as replacing sex-based language around women’s bodies.

Alexa contrasts this with earlier feminist traditions centered on:

* abortion rights,

* material sex differences,

* and secular feminism.

Guest — Alexa Faucher

🔗 X (Twitter)https://x.com/alexafaucher

🔗 LinkedInhttps://fr.linkedin.com/in/alexafaucher

🔗 Novel — Puisqu’on a marché sur la lunehttps://www.amazon.fr/PUISQUON-MARCHE-LUNE-Alexa-Faucher/dp/2367951535

Alexa Faucher is a French law graduate, political communications professional, author, and materialist feminist.

She served as directrice de cabinet for the Communist mayor of Chevilly-Larue until July 2025 following controversy surrounding her tweet about biological sex.

The episode also references her:

* public-sector communications background,

* strategic political work,

* feminist activism,

* and experience inside French municipal political structures.

(Her X/Twitter account was reportedly made private following the controversy.)

Host — Róisín Michaux

🔗 Substack / Podcast Home

🔗 X (Twitter)https://x.com/RoisinMichaux

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