Audio from the Suffrage Day For All Women event organised by Queer Endurance/Defiance on 19 September 2021. The event was organised in part to counter the Fight for our Rights! march held by Suffragettes NZ. The events happened during Covid-19 Alert Level 2, with social distancing and face masks. A special thank you to the organisers and participants for allowing this event to be recorded and shared.
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On the 19th of September 2021, amidst the challenging period of COVID-19 Alert Level 2, the Suffrage Day For All Women event took place in Cuba Mall, Wellington. Organized by Queer Endurance/Defiance, this gathering rallied to celebrate Women's Suffrage Day in an inclusive manner, asserting the importance of recognizing the rights of all women, including transgender women, and advocating for universal suffrage.
The motivations behind this event were rooted in a response to actions perceived as anti-transgender movements, which leveraged the significance of Women's Suffrage Day to propagate exclusionary sentiments. Participants sought to counter the narratives of these groups by visibly and vocally affirming the presence and rights of transgender individuals in society, emphasizing that their inclusion does not equate to taking over anyone's spaces but simply standing up for themselves.
During the event, speakers touched upon recent legislative developments concerning the rights of the queer community. They discussed the progress of the Conversion Therapy Bill aimed at ending the practice categorized as torture, although some groups pushed to exclude transgender individuals from protection. Another legislative focus was the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act, making it slightly more accessible for transgender people to update their birth certificates. This was highlighted as an important albeit niche issue for the community.
Participants conveyed a spectrum of emotions, from fear and insecurity to excitement and resolve, highlighting the diverse experiences within the transgender community. The spotlight on transgender individuals leading to both gains in recognition and vulnerability served as a potent reminder of the complexity of visibility and advocacy.
Amidst the public conversations, a non-binary, transmasculine individual disclosed personal struggles of transition, stressing the barriers they faced. Contrary to the misinformation circulated by opposing groups suggesting an erosion of women's rights, attendees aimed to clarify that the existence and acknowledgment of transgender identities posed no threat to others.
The sentiment echoes the disapproval expressed towards certain groups accused of misusing the suffrage legacy to perpetuate discrimination against transgender people. Participants countered this narrative, stressing that denying reproductive rights and related privileges in the UK under the banner of feminism was an absurd contradiction to the essential principles of the movement.
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