In July, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit against US alt-right podcaster Candace Owens.
The couple's lawyers accused her of being at the helm of an online crusade predicated on the assertion that she would stake "her entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron is a man."
Owens is accused of "relying on discredited falsehoods" and "inventing new ones", in a bid to "maximise attention and financial gain for herself", with her podcast and video series, Becoming Brigitte, having amassed millions of views.
However, the false claims about Brigitte Macron first went viral in 2021.
Ahead of France's 2022 presidential election, self-proclaimed journalist Natacha Rey alleged that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth and named Jean Michel Trogneux — which is Brigitte's brother's name — during a four-hour YouTube interview with spiritual medium Amandine Roy.
However, this is not an isolated incident. Many other female public figures, such as former US First Lady Michelle Obama, New Zealand's former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and former US Vice President Kamala Harris, have also been victims of similar transphobic social media campaigns, which academics have dubbed "tranvestigations".
Transvestigations emerged on social media, particularly image-based ones such as X, Instagram and TikTok, because of individuals who seek to uncover some kind of hidden transgender identity among...
Gyanesh Kumar mentioned that many voters had complained of double voting in the past few days, but didn’t give any proof when asked for it.