Recently there has been scandal and uproar in the French LGBT blogosphere after the online version of the Larousse dictionary defined homosexuality as "a perversion" and "a deviation", and called a transphobic slur "popular".
Larousse is one of the top online dictionaries in France. It is the French equivalent of Webster's dictionary and is used by thousands of French internet surfers every day since its launch in May 2008.
The scandalous definitions only appear in the online version of Larousse and don't appear in the printed version. Nonetheless, it still stirred up a lot of anger in the French LGBT community.
The shady definitions were first brought into question last month but since then, issues with other definitions have been unearthed. The news was first broken by popular French LGBT news, activism and social-networking site Yagg.com. On July 6th, Larousse's defined homosexuality as "a deviation of desire towards the same sex, in both fantasies and in physical relationships" while heterosexuality was defined as "sexual desire for individuals of the opposite sex". But the word "deviation" didn't appear in the encyclopedia part of the site, nor does it appear in any printed versions of Larousse.
Yagg contacted Larousse to let them know where they went wrong and three and a half hours later after an apology in a Tweet, the definition was corrected to read "sexual attraction towards persons of the same sex" as it does in the printed 2013 version of the dictionary. Larousse also said in the comments section of the article on Yagg.com, that defining homosexuality as a deviation was probably "an publishing error during an update of site content". However, the same
incorrect definition also appears in the free Beta of the Windows 8 Larousse
app. The publishing company defended themselves once more saying that "the app is in the Beta stages and will be updated before being put on the market".
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| Larousse.fr calling homosexuality a "deviation" (S) |
Scandals over? Nope. Last week a user on Yagg.com pointed out that the definition for the word "perversion" on Larousse.fr made an association with homosexuality in the same breath as a reference to paedophilia. The site's third meaning definition of the word "perversion" was "the practice by which a person satisfies their erotic impulses by intercourse with a partner who is not of a similar age and/or of the opposite sex".
Larousse have since updated "perversion" to be defined as "the erotic practice of a person whose actions are considered as immoral or antisocial". "Intercourse" has also been changed from the heterosexual definition to "a sexual activity between two individuals".
So "perversion" has been corrected and "intercourse" is no longer hetero-centric. Surely everything has been fixed now? Nope.
In the last few days in a letter to Yagg.com, Brigitte Goldberg, the president of Trans-Europe, expressed her anger with the definition of the pejorative word "tranny" in the same Larousse dictionary. It was defined simply as "Popular. Transvestite" with no mention of it being a transgender slur, and "popular" meaning "prevailing among the people generally".
"The fact that this term, used systematically in an insulting way towards many trans people, is considered as "popular" in major dictionaries and not as an insult, wipes out all our efforts made with the CSA (the Supreme Audiovisual Council) to stop its use in the media" said Goldberg.
The definition for this transphobic slur has since been modified to point out its pejorative meaning.
From the last check, the online dictionary does not contain definitions for asexuality or pansexuality, and the definition for gender is too vague and very incomplete. Although asexuality and pansexuality are very new to French people, one would expect one of the country's top dictionaries to do a bit of research so as to be as comprehensive as possible.
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