Women's rights not gender self indulgence!

On International women's day thousands gathered for a march in Instanbul, the capital of Turkey. An event replicated in many cities around the world as women celebrate their day and continue to make demands for equality still not achieved even in the developed West let alone some of the countries we could mention.

Al Jazeera reports:

Turkish police have fired tear gas at thousands of people who gathered in central Istanbul for a march to celebrate International Women's Day in defiance of a protest ban.

Women made up the majority of the crowd, which on Friday evening assembled at the edge of the city's Taksim Square before hundreds of riot police blocked its path, preventing protesters from advancing along Istiklal Avenue, the area's main pedestrianised shopping street.

Women in Saudi Arabia have only just been allowed to drive a car but still live in society dominated by male superiority and gender apartheid. In Iran a female lawyer has been imprisoned and flogged for simply defending women who have gone without hijabs or not worn them properly. The National Post reports:

A prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic’s mandatory headscarves for women has been convicted and faces years in prison, an activist group said Wednesday....

It shows “the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, which reported Sotoudeh’s conviction. “It knows a large segment of the country are fed up with the hijab laws.”

Sotoudeh, 55, was convicted in absentia after she refused to attend the trial before Tehran’s Revolutionary Court as she was unable to select her own counsel, Ghaemi said. The Revolutionary Court conducts closed-door hearings over alleged threats to Iran’s government.

There's a long way to go before women have their day which is why we should support this important movement. 

Yet there are those who seek to undermine women's rights and women's spaces with a self indulgent approach to themselves.  It's not just men in dresses pretending to be women who should be treated as transvestites truth be told but also others like this one

A "Mx Elis de Guerre" a self appointed journalist decided to treat us to an article How it feels to be Nonbinary on International Women's day.  It's all to with "identity erasure" says the odd opening but "they/them" goes further (it would be better but "they/them" will take offence") writes:

As someone who was AFAB, but now proudly identifies as an androgyne, uses they/them pronouns, and hates being misgendered as a woman, days like IWD⁠ ⁠are…difficult.

I have no idea what AFAB means but "they" says (god that's a ridiculous way to address an individual who says she used to be called Liz and from the article appears to be a woman changing her preferred gender) don't have a problem with International Women's Day...and here it comes the word but enters the discussion!

"Elis" whatever then announces:

Until March 1st, I went by “Liz,” a shortened version of my birth name.

***Note: THIS IS NOW MY DEAD NAME. DO NOT USE IT.***

I changed it to Elis so that people wouldn’t assume I was a woman upon hearing or reading my name. But more importantly, it feels right to me and further solidifies my identity as a non-woman.

Still, it’s only been a week since I announced the change and I understand that folx will take time to replace my dead name with my chosen name. I’m trying to be patient.

So Elis/Liz/they/them has gone from being "AFAB" to "androgyne" and now has changed name. 

I ask myself why this individual is writing about International Women's Day at all except to attract attention. And therein lies the problem of so many of the new 57 varieties of gender identification (which includes "allies" FFS, when was that a gender?).

When I come across individuals like Elis and the new wave of trans-activists who dictate what we should think and say in a way that makes them superior to us "civilians" I despair. Put on a dress, take hormones to grow a beard. Neither I nor anyone else is going to stop you as an adult free to wreck their bodies like others do with unecessary plastic surgery.

But don't try to claim International Women's Day is difficult for you. You say you are not a woman, well neither am I. I'm a bloke. A "straight" and hetrosexual  man as it happens not that I would normally bother broadcasting that to the world. I just get on with my life trying to be me. Something these people should try and do without going to such extremes.

I cannot help but think all these self-identifying types just lack individuality and like the bloke who spent his benefits on failing to look like David Beckham are just attention seekers. Nothing more.

Meanwhile women around the world remain oppressed, second class citizens in most societies, facing oppression rape and murder on a daily basis. People like "they" should remember there are real victims out there in the world.

"They" are not victims at all.