We salute International Women's Day

On March 8th, we celebrate International Women’s Day.

One day, when hundreds of millions of women around the world will probably live like any other day. They will face the same injustice, ignorance, violence and oppression. And, like any other day, they will use strength, intelligence, imagination, resilience, courage, solidarity and hope to face the many challenges they will meet.
But March 8th is also different. Because more and more, in every far corner of the world, the word has reached that this Day exists – that on this Day, millions of people celebrate the achievements of over a hundred years of women’s movements and stand up for the values of respect, equality, justice and human rights, the same values that the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia will also make resonate on May 17th.
Because we share these fundamental values, International Women’s Day and so many other international days are moments for us to express our solidarity and highlight the links. Because, yes, we feel part of International Women’s Day. And not only because thousands of Lesbians, Bisexual women and Trans women will be taking part in both celebrations.
We feel International Women’s Day is also ours to celebrate because many of the underlying causes of the injustices and inequalities that women have to bear are the same ones that also create homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, even if the experiences of these patriarchal structures are as individual and diverse as the people themselves. Societies which exalt power, aggressiveness, domination, possession and other such values have turned masculinity into an instrument of oppression of women, homosexuals and transgender people alike.
Increasingly, a global movement is forming, that unites all people in a new vision of what constitutes human bonds, away from stereotypical gender roles and socially predetermined behaviours and desires.
Because homosexuals and bisexuals, but most of all transgender people, have during their lifetime struggled with gender representations, and sometimes reinvented more nuanced gender roles, desires and behaviours, our stories meet the ones of the many straight women and men who, each day, reinvent different ways of coming together in real human bonds, away from patriarchy and machismo. And also, increasingly, from homophobia, transphobia and biphobia
Because International Women’s Day is a Day when to celebrate this new vision, we join in !