Paris, le 21 mars 2025

The world may not yet know her full story — but it will.

There is a deeply lived, shared struggle between Elton Ilirjani and Parashqevi Simaku, because both individuals fight for bodily autonomy: Elton, for the right to exist outside a system that controls and punishes gender nonconformity; and Parashqevi Simaku, the Albanian music icon of the 1980s, as an artist and a woman who chose her art over conforming to the submissive, idealized model of a wife. This is why a transgender person is the right figure to appear in the music video of a woman crushed by patriarchy — not only because the Albanian transgender supermodel offered the iconic singer material support when no one else did, but because their struggles are intertwined in a fight for freedom.

There is real power in the solidarity between Parashqevi and Elton. Parashqevi had become a projection of male desire — but by refusing conditional help, she made it clear she would not submit to that desire, nor to the stereotype of a woman who exists only for men and by their support.

The primitive mindset of many men — in general, but especially in the Balkans and within the Albanian immigrant community — repels those who are truly fighting for freedom. Parashqevi did not give in. She resisted the relentless pressure of male expectation. Her silence, her refusal, was a Me Too all its own.

The world may not yet know her full story — but it will.
She is already a global icon in the making.

#MeToo #AlbanianIcon #fightforfreedom #EltonIlirjani #ParashqeviSimaku

Makeup & Hair by artist Make @enilena_makeupartist

eilirjani & @parashqevisimakunolfe — Photo © courtesy of Fadil Berisha.