International Women's Day Includes Trans Women, Too!

Today is International Women's Day, which is celebrated every March 8.

The UN sponsored iteration of the day dates back to 1977, but the day's history goes back to 1909.

This year's theme is 'Equality For Women Is Progress For All', and equality and progress for women includes trans women in that mix as well.

Anti-trans feminine discrimination and violence basically has its roots in the same systemic anti-woman attitudes and anti-women violence that has historically plagued women on our planet.

And we trans women aren't immune to that.   Ours just comes with a heaping helping of transphobia on top of it along with the refusal to realize what we and medical science already knows in terms of  that trans women are women.

Medical science is increasingly making that point for us along with shifting cultural attitudes and the realization that the trans rights movement is an international human rights one..

But as we celebrate this 2015 edition of International Women's Day in Trans World, while we celebrate the fact that we have trans women running for political office in Britain, have trans parliamentarians in Belgium and Poland, trans feminine models rocking runways from New York to Milan, one who performed on the hallowed stage of Carnegie Hall, another who scored a groundbreaking legal win in Kenya., others who will grace movie and our television screens commenting on various issues inside and outside the trans community, we have trans women around the world who are not experiencing that same level of progress.

In many parts of the world, trans human rights progress is occurring at a glacial pace, if at all.

We still have far too many around the world that experience crushing discrimination that leads them to engage in survival sex work to pay the bills.  

And far too many of our sisters are being killed for simply trying to live their trans feminine lives in the United States, Latin and Central America, Brazil and Turkey.

And those are the trans murders we are aware of.

We have the Canadian Conservative led government that since 2013 has been stalling passage of C-279, the Trans Rights Bill as various Republican state led jurisdictions are trying to pass laws that dehumanize trans people and allow discrimination against them for their own selfish political gain.

And now that the US right wing is losing on the gay marriage issue, they now are starting to attack the humanity of trans people as their ticket to political power, fame and fortune and legitimacy in conservative political circles.

I wrote this last paragraph in a post penned for the 2012 edition of International Women's Day, and it still applies two years later as to where trans women fit into this day..

While we are fighting to overcome the transphobic hatred and disinformation aimed at us, we also seek to continue discussions with our cis sisters as to where trans women fit in the grand scheme of womanhood.  We're more than willing to do our part to help uplift all women cis and trans around the globe if we're respectfully given an opportunity to do so. 

And we're ready to handle our feminine human rights business if that respectful invitation comes.
 
International Women's Day also includes the issues that impact and ail trans feminine women across Planet Earth . Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't.