Sabriya Simon
Marcha da Mulheres Negras 2016
Marcha da Mulheres Negras 2016
Marcha da Mulheres Negras 2016

Priority Areas

Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.

Co-Creating Feminist Realities

While we dream of a feminist world, there are those who are already building and living it. These are our Feminist Realities!

What are Feminist Realities?

Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.

Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.

These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.

Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences

Through this initiative, we:

  • Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.

  • Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.

  • Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.

  • Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.


The AWID International Forum

As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.

We expect the next Forum to:

  • Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations

  • Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience

  • Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements

Learn more about the Forum process

We are sorry to announce that the 14th AWID International Forum is cancelled

Given the current world situation, our Board of Directors has taken the difficult decision to cancel Forum scheduled in 2021 in Taipei. 

Read the full announcement

Find out more!

Related Content

Defending human rights at the UN

Keeping an eye on anti-rights actor at the Human Rights Council

Anti-rights mobilization at the United Nations constitutes a response to the significant feminist and progressive organizing. It involves a constant threat for women's rights, especially when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights and an open door to racism, xenophobia and all kinds of discrimination.

Get to know all their tactics and discourses worldwide.

Read our full report


 

Main resolutions and organizations to follow on the 38th session

We’re looking at an attack on the human rights system, and all of these fundamentalisms are coming together to try to weaken the fabric of multilateralism, and that’s happening in large part at the expense of marginalized groups of people. It’s happening at the expense of women, and it’s happening through tactics that are often about gender and sexuality.

Cynthia Rothschild

Independent human rights expert, OURs member

We’ve experienced a lot of pushback from different states, from different civil society actors, from private corporations and large donors who are funding the activities of these anti-rights actors.

Meghan Doherty

Director of Global Policy and Advocacy with Action Canada

Read more on what we do at the Human Rights Council


More interviews at HRC38

Zhan Chiam

ILGA's Gender Identity and Gender Expression Senior Programme Officer

Paola Salwan Daher

Global Advocacy Adviser at the Center for Reproductive Rights

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Anatomy of a Survivor's Story

Maryum Saifee (@msaifee), New York, USA    

When you do a search for “Female Genital Mutilation” or “FGM” online, an image of four line-drawings of the female anatomy pop up next to its Wikipedia entry. It illustrates four types of violence. The first being a partial cut to the clitoris. The second, a more invasive cut with the entire clitoris removed. The third is progressively worse with the removal of the clitoris, labia majora and minora. And the fourth box illustrates a series of hash marks to symbolize stitches over the vaginal opening to allow only for urination and menstruation.

As a survivor of FGM, most questions about my story fixate on the physical. The first question I usually get asked is what type of FGM I underwent. When I told a journalist once that I went through Type 1, she said “oh, that’s not so bad. It’s not like type three which is far worse.” She was technically right. I had the least invasive form. And for many years, I gaslighted myself into feeling a sense of relief that I was one of the lucky ones. I comforted myself noting that I could have been less fortunate with all of my genitalia gouged out, not just the clitoral tip. Or worse I could have been one of the ones who didn’t survive at all. Like Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud, a twelve year old, who bled to death on a doctor’s operating table earlier this year in Upper Egypt. Nada is a  reminder to me that for every data point -- 200 million women and girls who live with the consequences of FGM globally -- there is a story. Nada will never be able to tell hers.

As much as I find the label “survivor” suffocating at times -- I also realize there is privilege embedded in the word. By surviving, you are alive. You have the ability to tell your story, process the trauma, activate others in your community and gain insights and a new language and lens to see yourself through.

The act of storytelling can be cathartic and liberating, but it can also shatter the storyteller in the process.

Without integrating the psychosocial support of trained clinicians into storytelling and healing retreats, well-intentioned interventions can result in more trauma. This is all the more important as FGM survivors navigate the double pandemic of their own PTSD from childhood trauma, and the indefinite COVID-19 global shutdown.

In many anti-FGM advocacy spaces, I have seen this insatiable hunger to unearth stories -- whatever the cost to the storyteller. The stories help activate funding and serve as a data point
for measuring impact. 

Survivor stories then become commodities fueling a storytelling industrial complex. Storytellers, if not provided proper mental health support in the process, can become collateral damage.

My motivation in writing this piece is to flip the script on how we view FGM survivors, prioritizing the storyteller over the story itself.

FGM survivors are more than the four boxes describing how the pieces of our anatomy were cut, pricked, carved, or gouged out. In this essay, I’ll break down the anatomy of an FGM survivor’s story into four parts: stories that break, stories that remake, stories that heal, and stories that reveal.

Type 1: Stories that break

I was sitting in the heart of Appalachia with a group of FGM survivors, meeting many for the first time. As they shared their traumas, I realized we all belonged in some way or another to the same unenviable club. A white Christian survivor from Kentucky - who I don’t think I would have ever met if we didn’t have FGM survivorship connecting us - told the contours of her story. 

There were so many parallels. We were both cut at seven. She was bribed with cake after her cut. I was bribed with a jumbo-sized Toblerone chocolate bar when mine was over. Absorbing her trauma overwhelmed me. And I imagine when I shared my story, others in the circle may also have been silently unraveling. We didn’t have a clinician or mental health professional in a facilitation role and that absence was felt. The first night, I was sharing a room with six other survivors and tried hard to keep the sounds of my own tears muffled. By the last day, I reached breaking point. Before leaving for the airport, my stomach contracted and I convulsively vomited. I felt like I was purging not only my pain, but the pain of the others I’d absorbed that week. We all dutifully produced our stories into 90 second social media friendly soundbites with narration and photos. But at what cost?

Type 2: Stories that remake

On February 6, 2016, the Guardian published my story as a survivor. The second it was released, I was remade. My identity transformed from nondescript, relatively invisible mid-level Foreign Service Officer to FGM survivor under a public microscope. That same day, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power tweeted my story with the introduction: “I was seven years old” before linking to the article. The tweet symbolized a moment for me where my personal and professional worlds collided. Since then, they have been forever intertwined. 

Even though I spent ten years of my career as a diplomat focused on other issues -- I lived in Cairo during the early days of the Arab Spring in 2011 and served in Baghdad and Erbil when the Syrian revolution turned from an uprising to civil war -- all of those past experiences that began to make mefeel erased. When I spoke on panels, my identity would be reduced to “survivor.” Like other survivors, I have worked hard to rewrite the script on how others see me.

I reinsert pieces of my other identities when speaking to underscore to the broader public that while yes, I am a survivor of childhood trauma and while my FGM story may have remade a part of my identity, it doesn’t define me.

Type 3: Stories that heal

With the guidance of a mental health expert, I have spent the last few months doing a deep dive into my FGM survivor story. I have told and retold my story over dozens of times in public venues. My goal is to break the culture of silence and inspire action. At this point, the telling of my story has almost become mechanized, as though I am reciting a verse from the Quran I memorized as a kid. I would always start with: “I was sitting an anthropology class when a fellow student described her research project on Female Genital Mutilation. And that’s when I had the memory jolt. A memory I had suppressed since childhood came flooding to the foreground.” I go into the details of what happened in granular detail -- the color of the floor, the feelings of confusion and betrayal in the hazy aftermath. And then I go on to talk about the afternoon I confronted my mother about the summer she and my father shipped my brother and off to India to stay with my aunt. The summer it happened. I later found out my aunt cut me without my parents’ consent. In my years of telling and retelling this story, I would have moments I felt nothing, moments I would break down, and moments of relief. It was a mixed bag, often contradictory emotions happening all at once. 

When I began to take apart the story, I discovered the core moment where I felt most gutted. It wasn’t the cut itself. It was the aftermath. I remember sitting in a corner alone, feeling confused and ashamed. When I looked at my aunt on the other side of the room, she was whispering to my cousin and they both pointed and laughed at me. Unearthing the moment of shame - the laughter - has haunted me since childhood. The piece that was carved out of me is called “haram ki boti” which translates into sinful flesh. Over time, the physical scar healed. But for many FGM survivors, the psychological wounds remain 

Type 4: Stories that reveal

Last year, I decided to take a sabbatical from the Foreign Service. I was burning out on both ends -- I had just completed a really tough assignment in Pakistan and was also doing anti-FGM
advocacy in my personal capacity. When I came home, an acquaintance from graduate school approached me to capture my story on film. As part of the process, she would send a camera
crew to shadow me. Sometimes while giving speeches, other times filming mundane interactions with friends and family. On a visit to my home in Texas, I’ll never forget the moment where my mom told me her story of survival. As part of the film, we went on a roadtrip to Austin to visit the university where I first had the memory jolt. My mom is patiently waiting for the cameraman to set up his tripod.  My father is standing next to her. 

In the end, we eventually had the conversation I never had the courage to have with either of my parents face to face. Looking them both in the eye, retelling my story with a camera as witness, we discussed how FGM ripped our family apart (specifically my dad’s relationship with his sister). For the first time, I heard my mom talking about her own experience and the feeling of betrayal when she discovered my aunt cut me without her consent. When I later told her that FGM was actually indigenous to the U.S. and Europe and that it was a cure for hysteria (prescribed by doctors) up until the 19th century, my mother exclaimed “that’s crazy to me, this was a cure for hysteria. I’m going to educate other doctors to speak out.” And in that moment, my mother, a survivor who had never shared her story before, became an activist. 

My story, intertwined with her story, revealed a tightly woven fabric of resistance. With our voices, we were able to break the cycle of intergenerational structural violence. We were able to rewrite the stories of future generations of girls in our own family and hopefully one day, the world.

 


 “Dreams”

by Neesa Sunar (@neesasunar), Queens, USA

This is a woman breaking free from her mundane reality, devoid of color. She dreams in a colorful, "nonsensical" way that people in her life would not understand. She could be considered insane, yet her dreams are more vivid and imaginative than actual life. This is frequently how schizophrenia occurs to me, more engaging and exciting than real life.

Neesa Sunar (@neesasunar)

< United against the violence, by Karina Ocampo 

Freeing the Church, Decolonizing the Bible for West Papuan Women, by Rode Wanimbo >

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Upasana Agarwal

Forgotten Song
Forgotten Song
Ode to the Moon
Ode to the Moon
Vapour and Fire
Vapour and Fire

About Upasana Agarwal

Upasana Agarwal

Upasana is a non binary illustrator and artist based out of Kolkata, India. Their work explores identity and personal narratives by using a visual remnant or evidence of the contexts they work with. They are especially drawn to patterns which to them communicate complex truths about the past, present and future.  When Upasana is not illustrating they organise and run a queer and trans community art centre in the city. 

Membership why page - Paz Romero

"This community is a place for connections, to understand our individual fights as part of global struggles, and sometimes even dance! There aren’t places like this online where you can meet real grassroots activists from all over the world and build solidarity and sisterhood."

- Paz Romero, Argentina

Illumination by the Light of the Full Moon: An African BDSM experience

Akosua Hanson portrait

Akosua Hanson is an artistic activist, based in Accra, Ghana. Her work spans radio, television, print media, theatre, film, comic art exhibitions, art installations, and graphic novels. Akosua’s activism has been centred around pan-Africanism and feminism, with an interest in the intersection of art, pop culture, and activism. She has a Masters in Philosophy in African Studies with a focus on Gender and African Philosophical Thought. Akosua Hanson is the creator of Moongirls, a graphic novel series that follows the adventures of four superheroes fighting for an Africa free from corruption, neocolonialism, religious fundamentalism, rape culture, homophobia and more. She works as a radio host at Y 107.9 FM, Ghana.

Ever experienced moments of deep clarity during or after sex?

 

In these panels, the Moongirl Wadjet is engaged in BDSM lovemaking with a two-gender daemon. Of the four Moongirls, Wadjet is the healer and philosopher, the conduit of the Oracle. She does this to launch a scientific and spiritual process – an experiment she calls “Illumination by the Light of the Full Moon” – through which she traces a vibrational time arc between her memories, sensations, emotions, visions, and imagination. It is a form of vibrational time travel in order to discover what she terms as “truth-revelations.” 

During the experience, some of Wadjet’s hazy visions include: an approaching apocalypse brought about by humans’ environmental destruction in service to a voracious capitalism; a childhood memory of being hospitalized after a mental health diagnosis; and a vision of a Moongirls’ origin story of the Biblical figure of Noah as an ancient black Moongirl warning of the dangers of environmental pollution.

More than a fun kink to explore for the sensations, BDSM can be a way of addressing emotional pain and trauma. It has been a medium of sexual healing for me, providing a radical form of liberation. There is a purge that happens when physical pain is inflicted on the body. Inflicted with consent, it draws out emotional pain – almost like a “calling forth.” The whip on my body allows me to release suppressed emotions: anxiety, depression, my sense of defenselessness to the stresses that overwhelm me sometimes.

When engaging in BDSM as an avenue for healing, lovers must learn to be very aware of and responsible for each other. Because even though consent may have been initially given, we must be attentive to any changes that might occur in the process, especially as feelings intensify. I approach BDSM with the understanding that in order to surrender pain, love and empathy have to be the basis of the process and by that, I create space or open up for love. 

Cover Illumination by the Light of the Full Moon

The engagement with aftercare after the infliction of pain is a completion of the process. This can be done in very simple ways such as cuddling, checking if they need water, watching a movie together, sharing a hug or just sharing a joint. It can be whatever your chosen love language is. This holding space, with the understanding that wounds have been opened, is necessary to complete the process of healing. It is the biggest lesson in practising empathy and learning to really hold your partner, due to the delicacy in blurring the lines between pain and pleasure. In this way, BDSM is a form of care work for me.

After BDSM sex, I feel a clarity and calm that puts me in a great creative space and spiritually empowers me. It is an almost magical experience watching the pain transform into something else in real time. Similarly, this personally liberating experience of BDSM allows Wadjet to access the foreknowledge, wisdom, and clarity to aid in her moongirl duties in fighting African patriarchy.


Moongirls was birthed during my tenure as the director for Drama Queens, a young artistic activist organization based in Ghana. Since our inception in 2016, we’ve employed different artistic media as part of their feminist, pan-Africanist, and environmentalist activism. We used poetry, short stories, theatre, film, and music to address issues such as corruption, patriarchy, environmental degradation, and homophobia.

Our inaugural theatre production, “The Seamstress of St. Francis Street” and “Until Someone Wakes Up” addressed the problem of rape culture in our communities. Another one, “Just Like Us,” was arguably one of the first Ghanaian theatre productions to directly address the country’s deep-seated issue of homophobia. Queer Universities Ghana, our queer film workshop for African filmmakers, has trained filmmakers from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda. Films birthed during the workshop, like “Baby Girl: An Intersex Story” by Selassie Djamey, have gone on to be screened at film festivals. Therefore, moving to the medium of graphic novels was a natural progression.

About seven years ago, I’d started a novel that I never completed about the lives of four women. In 2018, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) opened up a grant opportunity that launched the production of the project and my uncompleted novel was turned into Moongirls

There have been two seasons of Moongirls made up of six chapters each. Contributing writers and editors for the first season were Suhaida Dramani, Tsiddi Can-Tamakloe, George Hanson, and Wanlov the Kubolor. Writers for the second season were Yaba Armah, Nadia Ahidjo, and myself. Character illustrations and conceptualizations were by Ghanaian artist Kissiwa. And AnimaxFYB Studio, a premium animation, design, and visual effects studio, does the illustrations.



During the experience, some of Wadjet’s hazy visions include: an approaching apocalypse brought about by humans’ environmental destruction in service to a voracious capitalism; a childhood memory of being hospitalized after a mental health diagnosis; and a vision of a Moongirls’ origin story of the Biblical figure of Noah as an ancient black Moongirl warning of the dangers of environmental pollution.

Writing Moongirls between 2018 and 2022 has been a labour of love for me, even, a labour for liberation. I aim to be very explorative in form and style: I’ve dabbled in converting other forms of writing, such as short stories and poetry, to graphic novel format. By merging illustration and text, as graphic novels do, Moongirls aims to tackle the big issues and to honor real life activists. My decision to centre queer women superheroes – which is rare to see in this canon – came to mean so much more when a dangerous backdrop started developing in Ghana in 2021. 

Last year saw a marked hike in violence for the Ghanaian LGBT+ community that was sparked by the shutdown of an LGBT+ community centre. This was followed by arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of people suspected to be on the queer spectrum, as well as of those accused of pushing an “LGBT agenda.” Crowning this was the introduction in Ghanaian Parliament of an anti-LGBT bill named “Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values.” This bill is arguably the most draconian anti-LGBT bill ever drafted in the region, following previous attempts in countries like Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. 

I remember quite vividly the first time I read the draft of this bill. 

It was a Friday night, typically a night I take off to rest or party after a long work week. By sheer luck, the draft was leaked and shared with me on a WhatsApp group. As I read it, a deep sense of fear and alarm made burnt toast of my Friday night chill. This bill proposed to slap any LGBT+ advocacy with five to ten years of imprisonment, and to fine and imprison people who identify as LGBT+ unless they “recanted” and accepted conversion therapy. In the draft bill, even asexual people were criminalized. The bill went for all fundamental freedoms: freedoms of thought, of being, and the freedom to hold one’s personal truth and choose to live your life by that truth. The bill even went for social media and art. If it passed, Moongirls would be banned literature. What the bill proposed to do was so evil and far-reaching, I was stunned into a depression at the depth of hate from which it had been crafted. 

Scrolling through my Twitter timeline that night, the terror I felt inside me was mirrored. The timeline was a livestream of emotions as people reacted in real time to what they were reading: disbelief to terror to a deep disappointment and sorrow when we realized how far the bill wanted to go. Some tweeted their readiness to fold up and leave the country. Then, in the way Ghanaians do, sorrow and fear is alchemized to humour. From humour came the zest to upscale the fight.

So, the work still continues. I created Moongirls to provide an alternative form of education, to provide knowledge where it has been suppressed by violent patriarchy, and to create visibility where the LGBT+ community has been erased. It is also important that African BDSM is given this platform of representation when so much of BDSM representation is white. Sexual pleasure, through BDSM or otherwise, as well as non-heterosexual love, transcend race and continent because sexual pleasure and its diversity of experience are as old as time.

Snippet - Feminist Community Evening - EN

A Feminist Community Evening

✉️ By registration only. Register here

📅 Wednesday, March 12, 2025
🕒 5.00-7.00pm EST

🏢 Chef's Kitchen Loft with Terrace, 216 East 45th St 13th Floor New York

Organizers: Women Enabled International and AWID

Dear Feminist Movements: A Letter from the Board

Dear feminist movements, 

Speaking on behalf of the Board, I  write to express our deepest gratitude, appreciation, and respect for Hakima Abbas and Cindy Clark, our extraordinary Co-Executive Directors during the past five years who will be stepping aside to refresh the AWID leadership as we move into a new strategic plan and phase of our organizational life. They have consistently practiced the best principles of feminist organizational leadership and ethics of care as they navigated us through one of the most unpredictable, turbulent times in recent history of the world, the COVID-19 syndemic, and the subsequent downward global political spiral. They held AWID, our Staff, and Board firmly, gently, and lovingly as all of us experienced various impacts. They also held steadfastly to AWID vision and mission as they responded respectfully and strategically to various changes, not least the cancellation of the AWID Forum.

Going forward… we expect to continue with the co-directorship model given the nature, scope, and weight of the responsibilities of the executive role at AWID. Our first experience with co-leadership was a success in a multitude of ways, as you all have seen. 

The Board decided to prioritize an internal recruitment process first, fully recognizing the great potential that exists within the current team. We expect to complete the transition by the end of 2022. Hakima and Cindy will stagger their departure, and will facilitate a smooth transition to the new leadership.  

Seeing Cindy and Hakima leave AWID is difficult for the Board as well as others who have worked closely with them and love them.  Nonetheless, rest assured the AWID Board is leading the transition process in a way that fully recognizes the beautiful and inspiring indelible marks Hakima and Cindy will be leaving as part of our 40-year history, that embraces the next step of on-boarding and supporting new leadership, and that inspires us to do better at this moment in AWID's life. 

Major organizational transitions are neither simple nor easy. Sometimes they are forced, beyond anyone’s control, fraught, or even destructive. I, and many of you, have seen examples of those kinds of transitions. At other times, the staff’s needs and aspirations are aligned with those of the organization. Although we did not choose or wish Cindy and Hakima to leave AWID, their decision and AWID moving into the next strategic plan and new decade of existence are aligned. Best of all, we are in the wonderful, super competent, creative, and feminist hands of the Staff and Board.

We thank you, dear Feminist Movements, for your confidence in AWID. We also ask you to support our leadership transition in the coming months. Let’s continue to build, deepen, and strengthen our connections, as we have done for the past 40 years. 

Please stay tuned for more concrete developments and updates. You will be hearing from us in the coming weeks.

In feminist solidarity and love,
Margo Okazawa-Rey
President, AWID Board

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If the positions advertised have closed, or just don’t match your area of interest and expertise, we suggest the following resources for your job search.

Love letter to Feminist Movements #8

Dearest Beloved Feminist Movements,

Hello again, and again, and again. I have known and loved you my entire adult life, since I first met you meaningfully, after graduating from university. I’d seen you one time before then. That was you appearing as Betty Friedan on a local TV talk show in the US Midwest, in the late-1960s. At the time, Mrs. Wells, my other mother, and I commented on what wild, far-fetched ideas this woman was trying to convince us about. Decade after decade since then I have fallen more deeply in love with you, Beloved, and understand and witness your political and theoretical brilliance, ethical and moral authority, creativity, joy, and love, above all. Nearly 60 years later, I know we are partners forever.

Love letter to feminist movements from Your dramatically cloaked jungle nymph.

The early years of our acquaintanceship was ok. I was quite self-involved--figuring racial, gender, and sexual identity; getting clear on my core politics, values, and ethics; completing my formal education--and you provided numerous settings, intellectual drop-in centers, and comforting holding environments where and through which I was able to craft the young-adult building blocks of the feminist and human being whom I would become.

The predominantly white women’s movement of Cambridge and Boston, including Daughters of Bilitis, was my starting place. That suited me at the time but soon realized I desired something more. Poof! Like magic (serendipity), I connected with a small group of radical, anti-imperialist, Black, socialist lesbian women and we soon became the Combahee River Collective. 

That early Combahee experience, combined with critical life lessons and particular African-American/Korean immigrant racial politics of early-1990s in the US, prepared me for the journey that has led me to identify and work as a transnational feminist to address militarism and to dedicate myself to imagining other worlds where all living beings will thrive.

The next two critical women’s-movement moments were decades after Combahee years but deeply linked. First was meeting and being invited into the Korean feminist movement organizing against US military bases and supporting the “kijichon women” the Korean women whose lives, including for some, their mixed-race children, revolved around servicing US military personnel in numerous ways in villages and towns adjacent to the bases. Korean Beloved Feminists, especially Kim Yon-Ja and Ahn Il-Soon, the first sisters I met and traveled with, made me see and understand the critical importance of nation as an analytical and organizing principle. The “capstone” was living, working in occupied Palestine. The late Maha Abu-Dayyeh introduced me to the Palestinian women’s movement, with a profound comment, “you can leave Palestine but Palestine will never leave you.” So true. And, all my work and experiences across many borders brought me to AWID--my second home.

As you know, Beloved, being with you has not been easy or simple. Indeed, you are demanding, consistently riddled with contradictions, and sometimes even hurtful. Nonetheless, you continue to grow and develop, as you are supporting my political, emotional, and spiritual growth and development.  I guess we are growing each other--a very profound process to which I will dedicate the rest of my time in my current form.

The through-line of being with you all these decades is this: 

Feminists Collectively Engaging the Heads, Hearts, Hands, and Spirits to transform our worlds

This is chart with 7 consecutive circles arranged in a circumference. Each one is separated by an arrow which makes the chart a loop. Starting at the top, and following left to right, the circles say: #1 reflecting on individual experiences, #2 story-telling collectively, #3 theorizing, #4 visioning, #5 acting and reflecting, #6 re-visioning, #7 ethic of humility, care, joy, love.

 

So much love, Feminist Movements!

Your Margo
AKA DJ MOR Love and Joy

Wellfleet Massachusetts USA

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Last updated: May 2019

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Memory as Resistance: A Tribute to WHRDs no longer with us

AWID’s Tribute is an art exhibition honouring feminists, women’s rights and social justice activists from around the world who are no longer with us. 


In 2020, we are taking a turn

This year’s tribute tells stories and shares narratives about those who co-created feminist realities, have offered visions of alternatives to systems and actors that oppress us, and have proposed new ways of organising, mobilising, fighting, working, living, and learning.

49 new portraits of feminists and Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) are added to the gallery. While many of those we honour have passed away due to old age or illness, too many have been killed as a result of their work and who they are.

This increasing violence (by states, corporations, organized crime, unknown gunmen...) is not only aimed at individual activists but at our joint work and feminist realities.

The stories of activists we honour keep their legacy alive and carry their inspiration forward into our movements’ future work.

Visit the online exhibit

The portraits of the 2020 edition are designed by award winning illustrator and animator, Louisa Bertman

AWID would like to thank the families and organizations who shared their personal stories and contributed to this memorial. We join them in continuing the remarkable work of these activists and WHRDs and forging efforts to ensure justice is achieved in cases that remain in impunity.

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.” - Mexican Proverb 


The Tribute was first launched in 2012

It took shape with a physical exhibit of portraits and biographies of feminists and activists who passed away at AWID’s 12th International Forum, in Turkey. It now lives as an online gallery, updated every year.

To date, 467 feminists and WHRDs are featured.

Visit the online exhibit

Related Content

Transitions: Tangarr’s Story

Transitions: Tangarr’s Story

After Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) rights and communities on the peninsula became subject to the discriminatory and repressive ‘anti-gay propaganda’ law


Tangarr was born in Sevastopol, a city on the Black Sea. But as a gay transman, with strong views and principles supporting feminism, LGBTQI rights and human rights in general, he now considers Crimea a dangerous place and has fled with his partner to the continental part of Ukraine.

About Identity

Unlike most transgender people, Tangarr discovered somewhat later in life that his gender identity didn't match his sex assigned at birth. He told us about his childhood being relatively happy and his parents holding fairly liberal views on how a child is supposed to behave. He and his brother were treated equally, and Tangarr wasn’t persuaded to 'act like a normal girl' or do things traditionally considered feminine by society.

"I was playing Cowboys and Indians, climbing mountains with my parents and my brother, we went backpacking. I practiced Judo. I had no problem with being myself."

The coming of puberty, though, brought challenges for him. He wasn’t happy about everything his mother cherished, particularly the notion that this was the time that ‘turns girls into beautiful women’, an idea often romanticized.

His feelings about those changes were based on worry and frustration, he remembers, “it's hard to realize that your body develops in a way contradictory to your psyche”. 

Society didn’t treat him the way he wanted to be treated, people saw in him a young girl, and all he felt was a sense of wrongness and confusion related to the fact that their perception disappointed him.

“I thought I was lesbian (because they're, you know, stereotypically portrayed as masculine women), but I preferred men. It’s one of the moments when you realize how important enlightenment on issues of gender and sexual orientation is.”

Tangarr describes how he lacked information about transgender people, so he thought that the main problem was his body. He worked out, “became more muscular and athletic, yet something was definitely missing”. The sense of wrongness still persisted even if it was diminished by a quite liberal environment, including the understanding and support of friends.

His life was changed by someone (he used to know) attempting to insult him by saying “no matter how hard you work out, you’ll never be a man”. At this point, Tangarr realized something he said he never thought about before...

“I thought I was alone. A girl who feels like a guy — moreover, a gay guy.”

Legal changes and challenges

Prior to his legal sex change, the information Tangarr found online and the people he talked to helped guide him to learn all he needed to know about this process in Ukraine. He read stories, medical articles, basically everything about appearance changes and hormone replacement therapy.

He started the therapy and went through mastectomy (removal of breasts) procedure in Moscow, Russia as there “are no surgeons in Ukraine who are famed for quality in this matter”. For him this also reflects general “ignorance among the population on transgender issues, even among medical workers”. 

“For everything we hold dear, it’s unthinkable to refuse facing the challenge.”

However, to complete the legal sex change in Ukraine, irreversible sterilization is mandatory. Tangarr protested against this because, “forced sterilization is discriminatory for too many reasons to count”. With support of a friend, he was able to change documents legally, without undergoing hysterectomy (removal of the uterus). He is one of the very few people who has done so in Ukraine. 

Discrimination/Bias/Violence and joining movement(s)

 “I always found it weird that nobody does anything to stop it from happening… But then I understood that this nobody is me”

Tangarr’s experiences during his life (as a woman) moved him to join the feminist movement, “as further male socialization highlighted all the challenges girls and women must overcome on a daily basis”. He is an activist in "Lavender Menace", a group whose main fields of interest are queer theory, feminism and transgender rights, and is an active member of the Trans* Coalition, which unites transgender people and their allies in countries of the former Soviet Union. 

In December 2015, Tangarr began his work as an activist by participating in a dialogue between representatives of the transgender community from countries of Eastern  Europe and Central Asia (EECA) and the Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM), to discuss  prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS among transgender people as a socially vulnerable group. He made a presentation on "Cognitive biases as reasons for transmen being at a high risk of HIV infection, methods of prevention and improvement of the situation".

He has participated in creating an information booklet about gender, has authored articles on transgender issues, has worked on a video to support Odessa Pride, and has spoken on a television show about challenges transgender people face when trying to change legal sex.

In the Kirovograd (central Ukraine) Centre for Fight against HIV and AIDS, Tangarr has been invited to lecture journalists, human rights activists, medical workers and the police on transgender issues.

Tangarr firmly believes that “education is a panacea for biases and misconceptions, discrimination and xenophobia”. His motto: “surrender to the truth as fast as you can”.

“The more we know about gender identity and sexual orientation issues, the less biased we become. With prejudice comes suffering, and to dispel ignorance is to diminish distress caused by it.”

Topics
LGBTQI Rights
Source
AWID

Transiciones: La historia de Tangarr

Transiciones: La historia de Tangarr

Después de que Rusia le quitara Crimea a Ucrania y la anexara en marzo de 2014, las comunidades de personas lesbianas, gay, bisexuales, trans, queer e intersex (LGBTQI) de la península y sus derechos quedaron sujetos a una ley discriminatoria y represiva conocida como ley de «propaganda anti-gay»


Tangarr nació en Sebastopol, una ciudad sobre el Mar Negro. Como hombre trans y gay con firmes convicciones y principios que apoyan el feminismo, los derechos LGBTQI y los derechos humanos en general, considera que Crimea se ha tornado un lugar peligroso y por eso huyó con su pareja a la parte continental de Ucrania. 

Sobre la identidad 

A diferencia de la mayoría de las personas trans, Tangarr descubrió relativamente tarde que su identidad de género no coincidía con el sexo que le habían asignado al nacer. Nos contó que su infancia fue relativamente feliz y que su madre y su padre tenían una visión bastante liberal de cómo se supone que lxs niñxs deben comportarse. Los trataban a él y a su hermano de igual manera y nunca intentaron persuadir a Tangarr de que «actuara como una niña normal» o que hiciera cosas que la sociedad tradicionalmente considera como femeninas. 

«Jugaba a indios y vaqueros, escalaba montañas con mis padres y mi hermano, íbamos de mochileros. Practicaba judo. No tenía ningún problema en ser yo mismo.»


Pero la llegada de la pubertad implicó desafíos para él. No estaba contento con nada lo que su madre valoraba, sobre todo la idea a menudo idealizada de que ese es el momento en que «las chicas se convierten en bellas mujeres».

Sus sentimientos en relación a esos cambios tenían que ver más con la preocupación y la frustración, y recuerda lo «difícil que es darse cuenta que tu cuerpo se desarrolla de una forma que contradice a tu alma».

La sociedad no lo trataba de la forma en que él quería ser tratado; la gente veía en él a una joven y lo único que él sentía era que algo no estaba bien. Su confusión estaba relacionada con el hecho de que la percepción que la gente tenía de él lo decepcionaba. 

«Pensé que era lesbiana (porque, como ya saben, el estereotipo las muestra como mujeres masculinas), pero prefería a los hombres. Es uno de los momentos en los que te das cuenta de lo importante que es entender las cuestiones del género y la orientación sexual». 

Tangarr relata que como carecía de información acerca de las personas transgénero, pensó que el problema principal era su cuerpo. Hizo ejercicio y logró «volverse más musculoso y atlético, pero definitivamente algo estaba faltando». Sin embargo, la sensación persistente de que algo no estaba bien se veía atenuada por un entorno bastante liberal en el que contaba con la comprensión y el apoyo de sus amigxs.

Fue una persona (que él conocía) quien cambió su vida cuando intentó insultarle diciendo «No importa cuánto ejercicio hagas, nunca serás un hombre». En ese momento Tangarr se dio cuenta de algo que nunca se le había ocurrido antes... 

«Pensé que estaba solx. Una chica que se sentía como un chico — lo que es más, un chico gay».

Cambios legales y desafíos 

Antes de su cambio de sexo legal, Tangarr encontró información en línea y habló con gente que le ayudó y le guió mientras aprendía todo lo que necesitaba saber acerca de este proceso en Ucrania. Leyó historias, artículos médicos, básicamente todo lo relacionado con los cambios en la apariencia y la terapia de reemplazo hormonal. 

Tangarr comenzó la terapia y se hizo una mastectomía (extirpación de los senos) en Moscú, Rusia, ya que «no hay cirujanos en Ucrania que sean conocidos por su pericia en este tema». Para él, esta situación también refleja el estado general de «ignorancia sobre los temas trans que existe entre la población, incluso entre lxs trabajadorxs de la salud». 

«Por todo aquello que atesoramos, es impensable negarse a enfrentar el desafío.» 

Sin embargo, en Ucrania, para completar el cambio de sexo legal es obligatoria la esterilización irreversible. Tangarr protestó contra eso porque «las razones por las que la esterilización forzada es discriminatoria son demasiadas para ser enumeradas». Con el apoyo de una persona amiga pudo cambiar sus documentos legalmente, sin someterse a una histerectomía (extracción del útero). Tangarr es una de las pocas personas que lo ha hecho en Ucrania.

Discriminación/Prejuicios/Violencia y la afiliación al/los movimiento(s)  

«Siempre me pareció raro que nadie hiciera nada para evitar que eso sucediera... Pero luego entendí que ese nadie era yo.» 

Las experiencias de Tangarr durante su vida (como mujer) le llevaron a unirse al movimiento feminista, «ya que el proceso adicional de socialización masculina puso de relieve todos los desafíos que las niñas y mujeres deben superar día a día». Desde entonces es activista en la «Amenaza Violeta», un grupo cuyas principales áreas de interés son la teoría queer, el feminismo y los derechos trans y miembro activo de la Trans* Coalition [Coalición Trans*], grupo que une a las personas trans y sus aliadxs en los países de la antigua Unión Soviética. 

En diciembre de 2015 Tangarr comenzó su trabajo como activista participando en un coloquio entre representantes de la comunidad trans de los países de Europa Oriental y Asia Central (EECA, por sus siglas en inglés) y la Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM) [Coalición Euroasiática sobre Salud Masculina], para discutir sobre prevención y tratamiento de VIH y SIDA entre las personas trans como grupo socialmente vulnerable. Allí hizo una presentación sobre los «Los sesgos cognitivos como razones por las cuales los hombres trans corren un alto riesgo de infección por VIH, métodos de prevención y cómo mejorar la situación».

Tangarr ha colaborado en la creación de un folleto informativo sobre género, ha escrito artículos sobre temas trans, ha trabajado en un video que apoya al grupo Odessa Pride [Orgullo Odesa] y ha hablado en un programa de televisión acerca de los desafíos que enfrentan las personas trans cuando intentan hacer un cambio de sexo legalmente

En el Centro de Lucha contra el VIH y el SIDA de Kirovogrado (Ucrania central), Tangarr ha sido invitado a dar una conferencia para periodistas, activistas de derechos humanos, trabajadorxs de la salud y policías sobre temas trans. 

Tangarr cree firmemente que «la educación es una panacea contra los prejuicios y conceptos erróneos, la discriminación y la xenofobia». Su lema es: «Ríndete a la verdad tan rápido como puedas».

«Cuanto más sepamos sobre identidad de género y orientación sexual, menos prejuicios tendremos. El prejuicio trae aparejado sufrimiento, por eso barrer con la ignorancia es reducir el dolor que ella causa».

Source
AWID

Transitions : l’histoire de Tangarr

Transitions : l’histoire de Tangarr

Depuis l’annexion de la Crimée à la Russie en mars 2014, les droits et les communautés des personnes lesbiennes, gaies, bisexuelles, trans*, queers et intersexes (LGBT*QI) de la péninsule sont soumis à la loi discriminatoire et répressive de « propagande anti-gays » (lien en anglais). 


Tangarr est né à Sébastopol, une ville située au bord de la Mer Noire. Mais cet homme trans* aux convictions et aux principes bien ancrés, soutenant le féminisme, les droits LGBT*QI et les droits humains en général, estime que la Crimée est aujourd’hui un lieu dangereux (lien en anglais) et a fui avec son partenaire en Ukraine continentale. 

De l’identité 

Contrairement à la plupart des personnes trans*, Tangarr a découvert un peu plus tard que son identité de genre n’était pas en accord avec le sexe qui lui avait été assigné à la naissance. Il nous a raconté que son enfance avait été relativement heureuse, que ses parents avaient une vision plutôt libérale du comportement que l’on attend d’un enfant. Son frère et lui ont été traités de la même façon, et on ne demandait pas à Tangarr « d’avoir le comportement d’une fille normale » ou de faire des choses que la société considère féminines. 

« Je jouais aux cowboys et aux indiens, j’escaladais des montagnes avec mes parents et mon frère, on voyageait en sac à dos. Je faisais du judo. J’étais moi-même et je me sentais bien. »

Mais avec la puberté, il a vu surgir les difficultés. Il vivait mal les aspirations de sa mère, en particulier l’idée selon laquelle la puberté était la période qui « transforme les filles en de belles femmes », une idée qui est souvent enjolivée. 

Cette métamorphose suscitait en lui des sentiments de frustration et du tourment. Il se souvient : « C’est dur de réaliser que le développement de votre corps prend une direction opposée à celle de votre psyché ». 

La société ne l’a pas toujours traité comme il l’aurait souhaité, les gens voyaient en lui une jeune fille. Cela ne lui inspirait qu’une confusion et une impression d’incongruité, toutes deux liées au fait que leur perception le décevait.

« J’ai cru que j’étais lesbienne (parce que, vous savez, elles sont stéréotypées comme étant des femmes masculines), mais je préférais les hommes. C’est là qu’on se rend compte à quel point il est important d’éclairer les gens sur les questions d’orientation de genre et sexuelle. » 

Tangarr décrit qu’il a cruellement manqué d’informations concernant les personnes trans*, ce qui l’a amené à croire que le plus gros problème venait de son corps. Il s’est mis à s’entraîner, « [est] devenu plus musclé et athlétique, mais quelque chose manquait clairement ». Bien qu’atténuée par un environnement assez libéral et par la compréhension et le soutien de ses ami-e-s, cette impression d’incongruité a continué de persister.

Sa vie a changé lorsque quelqu’un (qu’il connaissait) a cherché à l’insulter en lui disant : « Tu peux t’entraîner autant que tu veux, tu ne seras jamais un homme ». À cet instant, Tangarr a réalisé une chose à laquelle il dit n’avoir jamais pensé auparavant… 

« Je me suis dit que j’étais seul. Une fille qui se sent comme un mec — un mec gay, qui plus est. »

Changements juridiques et obstacles 

Avant de changer légalement de sexe, les renseignements que Tangarr a trouvés sur le net et les gens avec lesquels il a échangé l’ont aidé à s’orienter afin d’obtenir toutes les informations nécessaires au sujet de ce processus en Ukraine. Il a lu des témoignages, des articles médicaux, essentiellement tout ce qu’il pouvait sur les changements au niveau de l’apparence et sur le traitement hormonal de substitution. 

Il a entamé sa thérapie et subi une mastectomie (ablation des seins) à Moscou, en Russie, puisqu’il « n’existe en Ukraine aucun chirurgien de qualité réputé dans ce domaine ». Pour lui, cela reflète aussi « l’ignorance générale de la population sur les questions trans*, et cela même parmi le corps médical ». 

« Au nom de tout ce qui nous tient à cœur, il est impensable de refuser de relever ce défi. » 

Mais l’Ukraine exige qu’une stérilisation irréversible soit pratiquée afin d’effectuer le changement de sexe. Tangarr s’est insurgé contre cette condition, car « la stérilisation forcée est discriminatoire pour mille et une raisons ». Avec l’aide d’un ami, il est parvenu à modifier ses documents légalement, sans avoir à subir d’hystérectomie (ablation de l’utérus). Il est l’une des très rares personnes à avoir procédé ainsi en Ukraine. 

Discrimination/préjugés/violence et adhérer à des mouvements 

 « J’ai toujours trouvé bizarre que personne ne fasse rien pour empêcher que cela n’arrive… Et puis j’ai compris que ‘personne’, c’était moi ». 

Les expériences que Tangarr a faites au cours de sa vie (de femme) l’ont amené à rejoindre le mouvement féministe, « dans la mesure où sa socialisation en tant qu’homme a mis en évidence tous les obstacles que les filles et les femmes ont à surmonter jour après jour ». C’est un activiste de Lavender Menace, un groupe dont les principaux domaines d’intérêt sont la théorie queer, le féminisme et les droits trans*. Il est aussi membre actif de la Trans* Coalition, qui rassemble les personnes trans* et leurs allié-e-s des pays de l’ex Union soviétique. 

En décembre 2015, Tangarr a entamé son travail activiste et participé à un dialogue entre représentant-e-s de la communauté trans* des pays de l'Europe de l'Est et d'Asie centrale (EEAC, en anglais) et de l’Eurasian Coalition on Male Health ou ECOM (Coalition eurasienne sur la santé des hommes), afin de parler des stratégies de prévention et des traitements du VIH et du SIDA au sein de la communauté trans* en tant que groupe socialement vulnérable. Il a présenté un exposé sur « les préjugés cognitifs comme causes de la forte exposition des hommes trans* à l’infection du VIH, les méthodes de prévention et l’amélioration de la situation ».

Il a participé à la création d’un ouvrage d’information sur le genre, rédigé des articles sur le thème trans*, travaillé à une vidéo de soutien à Odessa Pride et s’est exprimé lors d’une émission télévisée au sujet des obstacles juridiques auxquels les personnes trans* sont confrontées lorsqu’elles tentent de changer de sexe. 

Le Centre de la lutte contre le VIH et le SIDA de Kirovohrad (au centre de l'Ukraine) a invité Tangarr à donner une conférence sur les questions trans* à des journalistes, des activistes œuvrant en faveur des droits humains, des travailleur-euse-s de la santé et à la police. 

Tangarr est fermement convaincu que « l’éducation est une panacée capable d’éliminer les préjugés et les idées erronées, la discrimination et la xénophobie ». Il a pour devise : « Optez pour la vérité le plus rapidement possible ». 

« Plus nous savons de choses sur ce qui a trait à l’identité de genre et l’orientation sexuelle, moins nous nourrissons de préjugés. Les idées reçues engendrent de la souffrance. En abolissant l’ignorance, on diminue la détresse qu’elle provoque. » 

Source
AWID