Geneviève Pastre

Pastre was born on 20 November 1924 in Mainz, Germany. She hoped to become a dancer but was encouraged by her parents to study classics, graduated from the Sorbonne, and gained her Agrégation teaching qualification. She taught in lycées in Saumur (1949-1955) and Montgeron (1955-1989).[2]

She led a theatre group, which became known as the Geneviève Pastre Company, between 1960 and 1978.[1]

She was married for eight years and had two daughters.[1]

Pastre published ten collections of poetry between 1972 and 2005.[5] She came out as lesbian with the publication of her 1980 essay De l'Amour lesbien ("About lesbian love") and then published several historical works including Athènes et le Péril Saphique: Homosexualité Féminine en Grèce Antique (Athens and the Sapphic Peril: Homosexuality in Ancient Greece) and L'Homosexualité dans le Monde Antique (Homosexuality in the Ancient World), which are said to " analyze modern mythologizing of the Athenian democracy and other classical institutions from a uniquely feminist and gay perspective", in part in response to Michel Foucault's work The History of Sexuality which she thought suffered from his "misunderstanding of ancient languages and of lesbianism".[1]

Pastre was one of the founders of the Comité d'urgence anti-répression homosexuelle (CUARH), in 1979. In the early 1980s she was involved in the radio station Fréquence Gaie (initially a gay community radio station, and since evolved into Radio FG), and was its president from 1982 to 1984.[1]

In the 1980s she set up a publishing house, Editions G. Pastre, to publish feminist and progressive writers, and was one of the founders of Les Octaviennes, an organisation of lesbian writers.[5] In 1990 she organised the Festival européen de l’écriture gaie et lesbienne in Paris.[1]

In 1995 she helped set up a new political party Les Mauves translated as The Lavender Party, which tried, but failed, to run a candidate in the 2002 French presidential election, but which was influential in bringing both France and the World Health Organization to stop classifying trans-sexualism as a mental disorder, and in encouraging Amnesty International to support the right to claim asylum for homosexual people in countries where homosexuality is illegael.[5]

The Centre LGBT Paris-Île-de-France has named one of its rooms the Espace Geneviève Pastre in her memory.

Plaque at the Centre LGBT Paris-Île-de-France

• Pastre, Geneviève (2002). Une femme en apesanteur : mémoires. Paris: Balland. ISBN 978-2715813922.
• Pastre, Geneviève (1980). De l'amour lesbien. Paris: P. Horay. ISBN 270580093X.
• Pastre, Geneviève (1987). Athènes et "le péril saphique" : homosexualité féminine en Grèce ancienne. Homosexualités dans le monde antique: 1. Paris: Libr. "Les Mots à la bouche". ISBN 978-2950089724.
• Pastre, Geneviève (1996). Les amazones : du mythe à l'histoire. Homosexualités dans le monde antique: 2. Paris: Editions G. Pastre. ISBN 978-2-908350-17-3.

• "Geneviève Pastre à propos du lesbianisme (interview with Aline Pailler)" (video: 2m 55s). ina.fr. 29 March 1990.
• List of Paster's works at the BNF