International Women’s Day. Mexico City, Mexico. March 8, 2019.

I arrived home early due to protests across the street from my job in Mexico. In the middle of the street in Mexico City, I watched Mexican women march down the avenue of Paseo de La Reforma, protesting domestic violence and discrimination and marching for rights to a legal and safe abortion, education, equal employment, and equality. All of these women are daughters, sisters, mothers, partners, wives, aunts, grandmothers, friends, people. Remember, that a woman does not need a relationship connection to a man to be treated as a well-respected human being. Also, let us learn that it is not a necessity to have a daughter in order gain “magical insight” and suddenly understand that women are actually people too (just like your sons).

Today, I stood in a city where women in Mexico travel (if they have the financial means and resources) to access a legal and safe abortion, as abortion in most Mexico states is criminalized. I saw women join together, with handmade signs and banners, colored bandanas and flags, chanting and singing in Spanish, with hope for a new day.

I started my non- profit, The Beautiful Pain Movement, a support group for women and men dealing with abortion when I was 19 years old. I was young then and nervous to share my story, so I created the space, helping over 100 women and men in the course of a year and a half. I found that many women in my life had abortions. I discovered they never told a soul.

While my organization was created 8 years ago, I still stand in solidarity with women who make this decision and know the need for this option to be available to every woman worldwide.

I have held the hands of friends in clinics of white walls and silence. I realized today that just because I was born in a certain country, I have access to a legal and safe abortion. I have access to birth control, general health care, women’s services, and more. Planned Parenthood is a 17-minute drive from my childhood home. While we sure have a long way to go, we must stand in solidarity with all women, everywhere.  And shoutout to the two Afro- Latina women that I met holding a sign demanding intersectional feminism. We as women do not move forward unless you grab the women’s hand behind you and reach for the hand in front of you.

Here is an inside look from an eye-opening day. One day I hope to tell my daughter about all of the women who came before her and encouraged me, a proud African American woman who is still growing, learning, being inspired and moved, learning how to use her voice and trust her instincts, and standing in the middle of powerful women every. single. day.

“Here’s to strong women, may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.” – Unknown.

-T.

“Feminism Will Be Anti-Racist Or Feminism Will Not Be.” #BlackMexico #BlackMexicanWomen 

“I Exist Because I Resist.” (Sign on Left)

“All of Latin America Will Be Feminist.” (Sign on Right)

“The Place of the Woman is in the Revolution.” (White shirt on the left)

“My Body, My Rules.”

“Legal and Safe Abortion in All of Mexico.”

“Not One (Woman) Less.”

“Legal Abortion.”

“REVOLUTION: in the bed, in homes, and in plazas.”

“If One Day I Go And You Do Not See Me Anymore, Start A Revolution For All.” (Small white sign, second from left).

“We Are Against Our Daily Struggle to Survive.” (Brown sign)

“More Organizers, Less Silence.”

“No To Motherhood Imposed on Women.”

“Feminist.”

Large Purple Letters- “I Want to be Free.”

Smaller Purple Letters- “Sister, Yes I Believe You.”

“We Are Against Our Daily Struggle to Survive.” (Brown sign)

“Legal Abortion.”

“Neither God or Master, Death to the Patriarchy.”

“Femicide State.”

“It’s Going To Fall.”

“If We Do Not Burn, How Will We Light Our Way?”

“I Want to be Free.”