Still standing (english)
My recap of 2024
Dear readers,
First of all, I would like to thank my paying subscribers in particular for remaining loyal to me, even though I only write here infrequently. Some of you cancelled in December. I fully understand.
Since the middle of this year, I have had a real writer's block due to events in my personal life. I would love to write about the reasons, but I am prioritising the protection of the people involved. Suffice it to say that the resistance you experience when you oppose current political developments and the loss of women's rights is immense, even in the closest of circles. The influence of gender identity ideology is enormous. In particular, the claimed minority status of men who declare themselves to be women and the associated empathy trap, to which many women succumb, is catching. The non-scientific claims that haunt the once reputable media are also influential. How can people be persuaded that men can get pregnant when this misconception is spread from public broadcasting to academia?
It is women who want to keep women in check. At the same time, it is women who are the bravest fighters against this development. We are experiencing a massive backlash against women's rights and at the same time massive cuts to democracy.
My last year was characterised less by writing and more by activism and supporting many actions of the ‘Let Women Speak!’ initiative. I also travelled a lot and networked internationally. It was a year in which international resistance to the loss of women's rights became more organised and women showed solidarity across all national and political borders. This gives us hope, even though the situation of women in Afghanistan, among other places, is devastatingly terrible.
The New Zealand group ‘Lesbian Resistance’ has recorded an impressive video that summarises the global ‘War on Women’.
A look back at the past year with a longer introduction for December.
December 2024
The year 2024 ended with me appearing by name in a brochure presenting the results of a research project funded by the Federal Ministry for Women's Affairs with 230,000 euros. In this brochure, radical feminism - the staunch advocacy of the gender-based rights of girls and women - is declared to be "organised trans hostility ’. This work is thus in line with the brochure ‘What are TERFs? “ published by the Bundesverband Trans and the text on ”TERFs’ (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) published on HateAid. All of these publications pursue four main goals:
Advocating for women's rights is equated with an anti-constitutional crime.
The aim is to prevent other women from gaining access to the coherent arguments and demands of radical feminists and to prevent other women from joining the resistance. Women are kept docile.
Trans activists secure their jobs, which are primarily located in advice centres or pseudo-NGOs.
Further legislative projects are to be pushed through to secure the fiction of gender transition.
Since transactivism is based on a worldview that is far removed from reality - men can become women simply by declaring themselves, people can change their gender - this worldview must be secured by totalitarian laws that restrict freedom of expression, academic freedom and freedom of the press. It is not only women's rights that are being lost here. At the same time, trans activists portray it as anti-democratic when women demand their rights. Far too few women realise what this means for their future. Far too few men realise what this development also means for their rights. A state that casts a lie into law and wants to safeguard this lie inevitably develops into a totalitarian state.
Trans activists are very consciously attacking radical feminists in particular. This is because radical feminist analysis provides a comprehensive explanation of what we are facing and conclusively explains the reasons for the gender-based oppression of girls and women. Women should not have access to radical feminism if possible. The goals of radical feminism - the liberation of girls and women from their gender-based oppression - are not only being twisted by trans activists into hatred of men, but even into a mental illness (phobia) and now into an anti-constitutional and democracy-destroying attitude. Yet women's rights are an essential guarantor and marker for a progressive democracy and are guaranteed in Germany both by the constitution (Article 3) and by international law (CEDAW).
At the same time, it is very clear that the primary aim of trans activism is to undermine and destroy women's rights. Because if they really wanted to campaign against violence, they would not attack radical feminists in their many publications, but men who perpetrate violence. Instead, they fantasise that extremist and violent men would be influenced by radical feminism of all things.
November 2024
At the end of November, together with Madeleine, I launched the ‘What is a woman?’ campaign for the 2025 federal election in Germany. This campaign asks the candidates for the federal election the simple question of what a woman is. You can answer the question using a simple form on the website. We have now collected over 2000 addresses and are writing to them step by step. The question ‘What is a woman?’ is a statement on the political orientation and trustworthiness of a party and a candidate: Is the basis of one's political stance identity politics or realpolitik? Kamala Harris, among others, also stumbled over this question with the Democrats. It was one of the decisive reasons for her loss of the election in the USA. The campaign depends on your participation as voters. Write to your candidates and ask them to answer the question ‘What is a woman?’ on the website.
On 1 November, on the initiative of ‘Lasst Frauen Sprechen! ’ and LSquad Berlin - supported by the British grassroots group Twelve0Five - the largest worldwide demonstration against self-ID laws to date took place. Unfortunately, I was unable to take part in the demonstration in London as originally planned, nor in the demonstration in Berlin. However, I did help with the 24-hour documentation of the action, which I am summarising in a video and currently on a website. From New Zealand to San Francisco, women took to the streets in solidarity with women and girls in Germany and protested outside German embassies and consulates against the introduction of the Self-Determination Act in Germany.
October 2024
I gave an interview to the newspaper Tagespost in my function as spokeswoman for the initiative ‘Let women speak!’ about the Self-Determination Act and the planned international protest action. https://www.die-tagespost.de/leben/familie/man-drueckt-uns-einen-glauben-auf-art-257020
Blogger and podcaster Patrick Hyslop interviewed me about the Self-Determination Act (“Selbstbestimmungsgesetz“).
At the end of October, I was invited by Radfem Italia to a feminist conference in Milan, where I was interviewed by the great Italian feminist Marina Terragni about the German Self-Determination Act and the worldwide protest action planned for 1 November. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Marina and Radfem Italia once again for their warm hospitality.
I gave a talk at Women's Declaration International on the planned international protest on 1 November.
The first heroica - the conference for resistant women - organised by Frauenheldinnen e.V. took place at the beginning of October. I was invited as a panellist. Many thanks to Frauenheldinnen for organising this conference!
September 2024
At the end of September, as spokesperson for the ‘Lasst Frauen Sprechen!’ initiative, I gave a talk at WDI Australia on the German Self-Determination Act and the planned international protest action on 1 November.
August 2024
The Women's Media Tower in Cologne celebrated its anniversary. The event and party was a great opportunity to meet up with feminists.
In August, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against girls and women publishes her 17-page letter to Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock dated June 2024, in which she clearly criticises the Self-Determination Act and calls for the protection and safety of women and girls to be ensured in light of this legislation in accordance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is binding for Germany. Reem Alsalem issued a press release on this in October.
On 2 August, I took part in the spontaneous protest organised by Róisín Micheaux in Paris against women's boxing as an Olympic discipline. Both Iman Khelif and Yu Ting had been excluded from women's boxing by the IBA after a gender test. The International Olympic Committee, chaired by Thomas Bach, did not feel compelled to reintroduce gender tests at these Olympic Games. Bach relied solely on the entry in the civil status documents. Both boxers won gold medals for beating women - including with forbidden and life-threatening techniques such as the rabbit punch. It is now clear what everyone could see: That Khelif is a man with a variant of gender development.
July 2024
On 21 July, I took part in the Women's Declaration conference in London and was able to listen to the most important women's rights activists of our time.
We spent a summer weekend with the women from the ‘Let Women Speak’ initiative at my home.
May 2024
I had known since 13 May that the investigation proceedings against me, which were supposed to lead to a summons to appear for identification purposes, had been dropped due to a lack of sufficient suspicion. I had received a summons to appear for identification purposes at the end of 2023, which I was only able to avert with the help of a complaint to the administrative court and media coverage of my case.
April 2024
I gave a talk at the Women's Declaration on the previously passed German Self-Determination Act.
The Self-Determination Act (German Self-ID law) was passed in parliament on 12 April with very little advance notice on a Friday lunchtime in a barely occupied Bundestag. I took part in the protest and gave a speech.
I submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Federal Centre for Health Education regarding the studies it commissioned on conversion therapies in Germany. I asked for the complete studies to be sent to me as a basis for demanding a tightening of the law to protect against conversion treatments. The studies were refused to be made available to the public due to copyright and first publication rights.
March 2024
A portrait of me and my activism appeared in EMMA – the German feminist magazine
https://www.emma.de/artikel/rona-duwe-will-ueberzeugen-340865
I wrote two longreads on the non-evidence-based S2K guideline for the treatment of children and adolescents in Germany, Switzerland and Austria who have great difficulties with their bodies and gender role stereotypes. I explained why the cateogory ‘trans children’ creates a category of children who are defenceless.
Februar 2024
Gerd Buurmann invited me - together with Zana Ramadani - to his podcast.
I took part in the successful resistance of the ‘gender counts’ initiative against the attempt to replace women's toilets in public buildings with unisex toilets. Geschlecht zählt had suggested submitting an objection to the VDI (Association of German Engineers), which was ultimately successful. The translobby association dgti had previously succeeded in having unisex toilets recommended in its guidelines for the construction of sanitary facilities in public buildings. Feminists feared the creeping end of women's toilets.
Januar 2024
I filed a lawsuit against the state of North Rhine-Westphalia because I was wrongly summoned for identification purposes because of my tweets.
I wish all my readers a powerful new year and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your encouragement and support.