A new queer confidence is enriching Paris\u2019 culture and social fabric, say world champion para-cyclist and Paralympian Marie Patouillet and her partner, actor Soraya Garlenq. Both vocal LGBTQ+ activists, they couldn\u2019t be more on board.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was after she experienced sexist discrimination while taking part in the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021 that French para-cyclist Marie Patouillet decided she wanted to do more with her public profile. \u201cIf you are an athlete competing at national level, you have visibility. I think it\u2019s a deal, a contract,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd if you want to try and change things, you have to accept your life is political.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fighting to belong has long been in Marie\u2019s DNA. Born with a congenital malformation of her left foot and ankle, she took to sports as a child as a way to answer back bullies \u2013 \u201cto show them I could be as strong as them. And to discover and know my body, because no one could answer my questions about how it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n From football to rugby to skiing to surfing, Marie threw herself into them all, but it was when further deterioration in her ankle in her mid-twenties made all sports involving running impossible that in 2017 she first took up para-cycling, which she loved because it brought her the sensations of moving at speed that exhilarate her. Within a year, it was clear that elite-level competition was within her grasp, and she has since won a fistful of medals, including a gold at 2022\u2019s UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Baie-Comeau in Canada and two more at this year\u2019s UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story first appeared in The Paris is Turning Issue<\/strong><\/a>, available in print and digital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since returning \u2013 with bronze medals in the pursuit and road race events \u2013 from Tokyo, she has also taken every opportunity to advocate for people with disabilities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community, within sports and beyond. Among her allies in this endeavour have been luxury goods company LVMH and its star brand Dior, which invited her to be an ambassador and \u2018Artisan of All Victories\u2019 for the Paris Games, for both her sporting achievements and her drive to inspire others to overcome obstacles and achieve their full potential. \u201cFashion is really codified, so for Dior to work with Paralympic athletes, whose bodies don\u2019t match the norms, sends a big message,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we meet, on a rainy late-spring Paris afternoon, it is, at the suggestion of Marie and her fianc\u00e9e, actor Soraya Garlenq, at Violette and Co, a convivial feminist, lesbian and LGBTQ+ bookshop and caf\u00e9 in the 11th arrondissement. \u201cThis place was opened and run for close to 20 years by a lesbian activist couple,\u201d Soraya explains. \u201cCity authorities pressured them for years to close, saying their business plan wasn\u2019t strong enough, but they struggled on, until, with the added pressures of Covid, they retired and closed the shop in 2022. But then a group of younger lesbian activists organised, crowdfunded \u20ac172,000, and reopened the business, in these new premises, the following year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Packing the street outside with supporters on its relaunch last October, Violette and Co has extended its original remit to host regular talks, readings and association meetings. It\u2019s one of many signs, say Marie and Soraya, of growing queer visibility in Paris that\u2019s tangible across social politics, the arts and nightlife. \u201cLittle by little,\u201d says Marie, \u201cthe queer community is taking more space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWay more events and marches are happening,\u201d Soraya elaborates, \u201cdrag, vogueing and waacking are very big right now and queer expression in visual art is booming. And the new generation is way more active and way more angry, which is a good thing. We need some angry people to achieve change. And we need to be together, to advocate for every little world, not just our own. Trans rights, for example, are so important right now because they are so threatened. Nobody\u2019s free until everybody\u2019s free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born half-French and half-Moroccan in Rabat, Morocco, Soraya shares Marie\u2019s long-standing commitment to defying marginalisation. \u201cI lived in Morocco until I was 18, and although I loved it, I understood very young that its patriarchal culture believed my mind to be less than a man\u2019s, that I was not completely free. And I knew I was gay at around 15, so I knew after school I would move here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After studying dramatic arts at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux, she established herself in Paris as a stage actor and comedian, never bowing to pressure to play down her sexuality for her career\u2019s sake \u2013 still an issue for queer actresses in France<\/strong><\/a>, as elsewhere. Landmark roles have included several years as hip-hop fangirl M-Rodz in the comedy \u201cfake musical\u201d Airnadette<\/em> that she co-devised and which toured internationally with great success, a role in the third season of Donald Glover\u2019s award-sweeping US TV comedy-drama Atlanta<\/em> and regular \u2013 and ongoing \u2013 roles in French TV dramas La Stagiaire <\/em>and Dark Hearts<\/em>, an acclaimed drama about the Iraq war which sees her play a member of the Kurdish Peshmerga intelligence agency, and which is being shown on streaming platforms around the world. \u201cI get to speak English and Arabic, it\u2019s good for me to be exploring that,\u201d she says. \u201cFor 15 years, I was having a great time on stage, I didn\u2019t care about agents, I didn\u2019t need more. But around five years ago, I began to want to diversify, and international opportunities started to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, Soraya is fired up from a recent debut run at Lille\u2019s Th\u00e9\u00e2tre du Nord of Woke<\/em>, the first play directed and co-written by taboo-trashing novelist and filmmaker Virginie Despentes. Co-scripted with three other queer writers and activists \u2013 novelists Anne Pauly and Julien Delmaire and Spanish trans philosopher Paul B. Preciado \u2013 the play defiantly but playfully explores through its cast of queer and racially diverse performers the right-wing weaponisation of the word \u2018woke\u2019, \u201cagainst anything that you do, pretty much,\u201d Soraya says, \u201cif you are in favour of liberty and human rights. First of all, it was an honour to work with Virginie. I love her books; they made me the lesbian I am today. And it was exhilarating to work with an all-queer team, who are all from my community and concerned by the same issues. It made our discussions more and more creative and many ideas came in for other projects we could work on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marie, meanwhile, has been keeping her focus firmly on her long-term goal \u2013 the Paris 2024 Paralympics, for which she trains for 20 hours a week and has temporarily suspended her career as a general practitioner. \u201cIn Tokyo, there was no audience because of Covid, so I am excited to compete with family and friends there,\u201d she says. \u201cThe Paralympics will be a great party for Paris, and I hope the media coverage will bring the athletes attention and help more people discover disabled sports. But I try to stay in the moment, day to day. It\u2019s the best way to find performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marie expresses frustration that French elite sport lacks LGBTQ+ advocacy. \u201cThere is a lot of queer sport here, there are LGBTQ+ sports clubs and some football tournaments for women and trans players, and we have the Paris International Tournament\u201d \u2013 an annual 30-sport event organised by the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Sportive LGBT+ which brings together some 6,000 athletes from all over France. \u201cBut at elite level, the reality is we don\u2019t exist. There are some athletes who are out, but not activists. They don\u2019t speak out about homophobic discrimination. We need a Megan Rapinoe, or a Tom Daley.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our next stop is the cute, kitschy restaurant-bar Rosa Bonheur, on a hillside in the beautiful Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement, which Marie and Soraya used to frequent a lot when they were living in nearby Belleville. \u201cIt\u2019s very family-oriented during the day,\u201d says Soraya, \u201cbut always LGBTQ+-friendly, and they have DJ sets, and drag, and great queer nights on Sundays.\u201d They can\u2019t tell me too much about Paris nightlife right now, they say, given their respective schedules, but urge me to check out the queer cabaret scene, which is currently thriving, and a great reflection of the growing cultural confidence they see in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s one almost mythical place called Le Cabaret de Madame Arthur in the 18th, which was Paris\u2019 first drag cabaret bar when it opened in the 1940s, and is still open,\u201d says Soraya. \u201cBut there are four or five others which have much more contemporary, politically engaged, underground queer performance. It feels like queer performers and audiences are really reclaiming these spaces and it\u2019s really blooming as a scene. Le Cabaret de Poussi\u00e8re at the theatre Le Z\u00e8bre de Belleville puts on fantastic shows, very intelligent and artistic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLa Bouche in the 18th is also great,\u201d adds Marie. \u201cAnd the venue La Fl\u00e8che d\u2019Or in the 20th. It\u2019s very mixed, very young, very multi-cultural.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ask Marie about her own first foray into (non-sporting) performance, when she appeared last year in a 30-second video, \u00c0 Nos Loves au Grand Jour, <\/em>produced by Tinder, support organisation SOS Homophobie and T\u00eatu<\/em>, France\u2019s most-read LGBTQ+ magazine, to mark 2023\u2019s International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). In the short, she and Soraya are among other LGBTQ+ personalities depicted enjoying ordinary moments of tender intimacy \u2013 kissing in a car wash, in their case \u2013 to celebrate love in all its forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was excited when the director Sarra Ryma asked me,\u201d she says, \u201cI love her work. But I was a bit afraid because I am not an actor. So I proposed to do it with my wife, and it was a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour wife?\u201d I ask, having understood that Marie and Soraya were engaged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe just moved to a new apartment in Bagnolet,\u201d says Soraya. \u201cFirst, we have to empty all the boxes. Then let Marie train for the Paralympics. Then we will have time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut already, I love to say \u2018my wife\u2019\u201d says Marie with a shy, private smile. She turns to look Soraya in the eyes. \u201cIt\u2019s our project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n @marie_patouillet<\/strong><\/a> | @sorayagarlenq<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photography by Martin Perry, Nelson Rosier courtesy of Dior and Sife Elamine courtesy of Mandarin T\u00e9l\u00e9vision 2022<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A new queer confidence is enriching Paris\u2019 culture and social fabric, say world champion para-cyclist and Paralympian Marie Patouillet and her partner, actor Soraya Garlenq. Both vocal LGBTQ+ activists, they couldn\u2019t be more on board. It was after she experienced sexist discrimination while taking part in the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021 that French para-cyclist Marie Patouillet decided she wanted to do more with her public profile. \u201cIf you are an athlete competing at national level, you have visibility. 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