Michfest and Defending Women's Culture and Spaces.

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Fri, 2014-08-22 04:51

Pondering

A letter from Michfest:

5. Join the Conversation, Not the Digital Sound Bite War
Our community is strong enough to hold disagreement and to engage deeply with each other, face-to-face, through difficulty. The Michfest community welcomes conversation; we do not stifle it. We have and will continue to remain in community with those trans womyn for whom Michfest has been home; trans womyn like those organizing the New Narratives Conference who do not require females to disappear ourselves or our unique experiences to prove our political and social solidarity.

More to follow

Fri, 2014-08-22 04:53

Pondering

Statement from Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival August 18, 2014
Many demands have been made of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (“Michfest”) via the Equality Michigan call for a boycott launched July 28, 2014. We have a few demands of our own.

1. Get Your Facts Straight
As the 39th Festival closes and we turn our hearts and minds to our landmark 40th anniversary, we reiterate that Michfest recognizes trans womyn as womyn - and they are our sisters. We do not fear their presence among us, a false claim repeatedly made. What we resist – and what we will never stop fighting – is the continued erasure and disrespect for the specific experience of being born and living as female in a patriarchal, misogynist world.

Over 20 years ago, we asked Nancy Burkholder, a trans womon, to leave the Land. That was wrong, and for that, we are sorry. We, alongside the rest of the LGBTQ community, have learned and changed a great deal over our 39-year history. We speak to you now in 2014 after two decades of evolution; an evolution grown from our willingness to stay in hard conversations, just as we do every year around issues of race, ability, class and gender. Since that single incident, Festival organizers have never asked a trans womon to leave the Festival. We have a radical commitment to creating a space where for one week a year, no one's gender is questioned - it's one of the most unique and valued aspects of the Festival. The Michfest community has always been populated by womyn who bear the burden of unwanted gender scrutiny every day.

The truth is, trans womyn and trans men attend the Festival, blog about their experiences, and work on crew. Again, it is not the inclusion of trans womyn at Festival that we resist; it is the erasure of the specificity of female experience in the discussion of about the space itself that stifles progress in this conversation. As long as those who boycott and threaten Michfest do not acknowledge the reasons why the space was created in the first place, and has remained vital for four decades, the conversation remains deadlocked.

2. Acknowledge the Validity of Autonomous, Female-Defined Space
Michfest is widely known as a predominantly lesbian community. This does not mean that heterosexual womyn, bisexual womyn, or those who do not share this identity are not present or welcome. But for a week, we collectively experience a lesbian-centered world; we experience what it feels like to be in a community defined by lesbian culture.

There are trans womyn and trans men who attend and work at the Festival who participate in the Michfest community in this same spirit – as supporters of, rather than detractors from, our female-focused culture. The presence of trans womyn at Michfest has been misrepresented as a kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But the real issue is about the focus of the event, a focus on the experience of those born female, who’ve lived their lives subjected to oppression based on the sole fact of their being female.

In an August 4, 2014 article titled “What Is a Woman: The Dispute Between Radical Feminism and Transgenderism,” The New Yorker magazine documents the extremism of the current push for language that erases the female experience. The board of the New York Abortion Access Fund, for example, “voted unanimously to stop using the word ‘women’ when talking about people who get pregnant. A Change.org petition directed at NARAL and Planned Parenthood “specifically criticizes the hash tag #StandWithTexasWomen. . .and the phrase ‘Trust Women.’”

We see this same pressure for erasure of a specifically female reality when “Pussy Manifesto,” the female empowerment song written by the performers Bitch and Animal, now embraced as an unofficial Michfest anthem, is disparaged by some as transphobic – as was the event “A Night of A Thousand Vaginas” – solely for the use of the words vagina and pussy.

If it is considered transphobic to talk about our pussies, our vaginas, or to even use the word female as specific to sex, our movement is dangerously close to using the same tactics as the far right, womyn hating, Michigan Republican leadership, who revoked the speaking privileges of two female legislators for saying the word vagina out loud on the Michigan State House floor. What has our movement come to when the mere articulation of your own experience in your own female body is denounced as an injury to another? It’s time to examine the core issue here, which is our right to create an autonomous space focused on a female-defined experience.

3. Acknowledge That Michfest Creates Spaces That Do Not Exist Elsewhere
This year, thousands of womyn and girls from 3 weeks to 92 years old attended our 39th Festival. This included over 75 deaf womyn who came to rejuvenate and be in community. Nearly 200 womyn with disabilities came into the woods to thrive. At one of the workshops held this year, young womyn stated that until they came to Festival, they had never seen an old gender-non-conforming female in person; they did not know that those womyn existed. We built this space to let these womyn be seen and celebrated. We built this space around the fierce solidarity of female experience that has always been and continues to be deconstructed into invisibility; where that unique experience is relegated to a place of dishonor. Whenever females honor ourselves, wherever we take up space, and sit collectively in the source of our collective power, we are burned and stoned, both literally and metaphorically.

4. Turn Your Energy Towards the Real Enemies of Female and LGBTQ Liberation
While the abuse and disenfranchisement of womyn and girls escalates around the world and LGBTQ people experience life-threatening harms, LGBTQ organizations have turned inwards on a curious target – a weeklong music festival that does not ban or exclude anyone, that simply seeks to devote its focus to an experience that is denigrated in the larger world: the experience of being born and living as female.

Equality Michigan and the organizations endorsing its petition including HRC, the Task Force, NCLR and the National Black Justice Coalition, are targeting Michfest with McCarthy-era blacklist tactics. Specifically, they have called for attendees and artists to boycott the event, and – astonishingly – have threatened the livelihood of artists and vendors by branding those who participate in the Festival as “having committed anti-transgender discrimination.”

These organizations are targeting artists who perform at Michfest while remaining completely silent when queer-identified artists play at venues that generate profits for racist, transphobic, and homophobic corporate entities and individuals, whose interests are dangerous to the global LGBTQ movement and all basic human rights.

We call on the constituents, donors, and dues-paying members of the LGBTQ institutions targeting Michfest to hold them accountable for this misuse and misdirection of organizational resources, and to withdraw their time and dollars from these organizations until the targeting of Michfest ends. Sisters - we urge you to redirect your money to organizations that speak to your lives and speak for you.

5. Join the Conversation, Not the Digital Sound Bite War
Our community is strong enough to hold disagreement and to engage deeply with each other, face-to-face, through difficulty. The Michfest community welcomes conversation; we do not stifle it. We have and will continue to remain in community with those trans womyn for whom Michfest has been home; trans womyn like those organizing the New Narratives Conference who do not require females to disappear ourselves or our unique experiences to prove our political and social solidarity.

Michfest has always existed outside the gender binary. We built this city out of a radical diversity of age, culture, race, class and gender. We continue the revolutionary work of digging out from under the boot of patriarchy; a system of oppression so omnipresent, it is invisible in the analysis used by the very organizations who are supposed to be fighting alongside and for us. We are fierce allies to and members of the trans and broader LGBTQ movement – but our alliance cannot and will not be premised on our continued erasure.

We turn to our LGBTQ community and say: we hear your truths; we ask you to acknowledge that you hear ours. Listen to the voices of the tens of thousands of women who call Michfest home. Join the conversation in person in your home communities, not exclusively through social media platforms or online petitions. We invite our sisters to participate in this conversation in person on the Land. Make room in your heart to hold difference of opinion and disagreement – this is the challenging path to honoring true diversity. We turn to our LGBTQ community and ask you to unite with us in the belief that we can work together as a movement and stand together in solidarity. We ask you to work with us, not against us.

Sisters - If you stand with us, please go to facebook.com/michfest and like this statement, share it on your page and add it to your blog. Together our voices will be heard.

IMPORTANT: Please don't hit reply to this email to correspond with the office - it will go nowhere, it is an email service. Give us a call @ 231-757-4766 if you have any questions.

Fri, 2014-08-22 12:33

jas

Hear, hear.

Mon, 2014-09-01 23:10

Pondering

Another communique:

Dear Sisters,

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. I write this note just four days off the land, and two weeks since most of you present at this year’s Festival left for Area 51 (thank you Elvira, for that instantly-classic naming of the world off the Land). Like you, we have dust in our shoes, love in our hearts, and Amazon pride in every cell. I feel so full of appreciation, love and passion for our vibrant community, and I thank you for everything you do to make this time, this space, this home in our beautiful woods, continue to be the place that changes lives for the better – yours and mine – every year. Many of us feel our most authentic selves when we are in this community on the Land, when the walls of media sounds and images (that so rarely include us) start to crumble, and the mirrors we see ourselves in reflect our strength and beauty – we remember who we are meant to be. We remember that our bodies are beautiful, and more important, that these bodies are ours at whatever size, shape, shade or ability we occupy. We remember that it is our goddess-given right to move through the woods with connection to the forest, not shadowed with fear. We accept and celebrate the word sister from those we meet on the path, womyn we know or have just met, gathering to break bread together under an oak tree as we recognize our place in this family of womyn. Free of the shackles that restrict out true spirits, we become beautifully feral.

As Festival 39 winds down and we begin to gather the threads that will build the 40th Anniversary, I want to share a few pieces of information with all of you:

1. Is there life after 40?
I realize that the conversation I initiated with the worker community about the future of the Festival was translated down the telephone line (to at least some ears) as an announcement that the 40th would be the last Festival. I know this because I had crew, campers, children, performers and crafts womyn all approach me, most with great passion after hearing about “the end of Festival”. The children, in particular, were NOT having it. This is why I spoke with Elvira and asked her to talk with the community, on my behalf, Saturday night. As she does, Elvira had a soulful and smart way of approaching this tender discussion.

I wanted to bring the conversation that was happening in the corners of our community into the open, to air the question – would there be life after 40? I wanted to hear the will and heart of the worker community. I also needed to share the reality that given the resizing the Festival has experienced in the last 10+ years, there was no doubt in my mind that to move into the Festival’s 5th decade, we will need to resize/reshape/re-imagine in order to create an event that can be paid for by the actual number of womyn who attend. Change is necessary to make it work, change that means much more than a little tweak here or a small shift there. So I asked the worker community – do WE have the will to actually change what we do, imagine something different – or – does this community want to go out Amazon proud at 40, and know we did something incredible for four decades?

I also shared that I personally have the will and passion to step into this new horizon, but I don’t have the desire to have my work be a struggle about the necessity for these changes. I cannot continue to assume greater and greater financial risk, and living from Kickstarter to donation campaign is not a long-term plan. So I asked the worker community to deeply contemplate whether or not they could imagine being part of this transformation.

Once we are settled in our fall/winter office, we will send a questionnaire to campers, workers, artists and craftswomyn to gather the input that will help inform the 41st Festival, while at the same time, our minds, hearts and hands carry us to the 40th Anniversary celebration. In the meantime, please send in your feedback forms. I personally read every one of them and they influence the shape of the Festival a great deal. Write a letter if your input is bigger or broader than any form or survey could handle. We want to hear from you and have your voice be part of the shape of the Festival to come.

2. Standing United In Radical Listening
When Equality Michigan launched a boycott petition against us just days before the gates opened, we were committed to keeping our focus on what matters most – the experience of our community coming together on the land. In the days since the Festival, as we’ve responded to these external attacks, hundreds of you have voiced your deep and thoughtful support. The outpouring of community love through letters written to NCLR, HRC and the other organizations that supported the boycott mean the world to us. The organizations that signed onto the boycott ignited a spark among all of us. True, that spark had something do with Festival, but the spark lit up a much broader issue -- our need, as lesbian and feminist womyn, to stand up and collectively say to our LGBT and Lesbian community-funded organizations – you are supposed to represent us, and you don’t.

So many sisters and, even some brothers, liked and re-posted our “Michfest Says We Have a Few Demands of Our Own” email. Together we reached a pass-along group of over 120,000 people with that letter. Our voices are being heard.

This conversation is complex. Many of us find ourselves in discussions where we are called to explain our experience of this community within a sometimes impenetrable cloud of language around sex and gender. To help in this conversation, we have launched a page located at michfest.com/festival_community_statements.htm to house our community letters and posts from the last two years, along with some smart blog posts and letters from womyn in the community. Feel free to share any of this as widely as possible, and please check back often. This is just the beginning of a space to house loving, smart, female-centered writing that continues the conversation about the intention of the Festival.

3. Getting to the 40th
So many womyn have posted, written or called and asked how to support the Festival financially now. We have updated the page that houses a very easy way to make contributions, purchase a ticket in memory, or buy an honorary ticket to the 40th anniversary at a gift amount. All of that information is on michfest.com/donate . We thank you for any way that you are able to financially support the Festival as we gear up for our most incredible 40th Anniversary gathering. Just a reminder: the best donation you could make to the festival is to bring more womyn!

4. Festival Moments Photographs
A stunning group of 20 art photographs by our beloved Festival photographer Desdemona “Bunty” Burgin are now available for sale in sizes from 8x10 prints all the way up to 30x60 canvas and more than a dozen formats in between. If you’ve wanted Festival artwork in your home, take a peak at this gorgeous collection at michfest.smugmug.com. We are offering a 15% discount for low-income sisters with the promo code FestForever.

5. What about those Mason Jar mugs?
Holy shit, those sold out fast! That’s the #1 thing we are hearing about and so we have re-ordered them. If you missed them on the land and want a pair for your home or a dozen for gifts, now is your chance. Anyone who orders by September 2nd will be guaranteed to have theirs shipped by the end of September. You will also have an opportunity on that order page to pick up another gorgeous 16 month calendar and Peace On Earth, Good Will To Womyn holiday cards. Go get ‘em Amazons! Visit michfest.com/merch to place that order!

Once again, thank you for your passionate love and connection to our community. When very difficult things happen, as happened this year with the Equality Michigan call for a boycott, our community rallies and not only supports, but breaths new life into our blessed home. It’s been true for 40 years and I trust it will carry us into our 5th decade – our deep truth – an army of lovers cannot fail!

With all my love,

Lisa
IMPORTANT: Please don't  hit reply to this email to correspond with the office - it will go nowhere, it is an email service. Give us a call @ 231-757-4766 if you have any questions.

Tue, 2014-09-02 22:16

Maysie

Transphobic bullshit.

Quote:

The lesbian community has become rather accepting of trans people who identify as “he,” as a “guy,” or “trans men who...are pretty far along with their transition.” Despite this FTM-specific progress, many lesbians remain dismissive of, and hostile toward, trans women. Many pretend that they are most concerned about our “male energy” or “male” genitals, but this is a hypocritical stance considering the dyke community’s infatuation with trans men, drag kings, and strap-on dildos in recent years. Personally, as a trans woman, I have found that lesbians who wish to dismiss me do not simply take me to task for the fact that I am transgender Ð instead, more often than not, they mock my femininity. And the overwhelming majority of arguments used to justify trans woman-exclusion are firmly rooted in traditional sexism.

....

Michigan is the world’s largest annual women-only event in the world, and the fact that a growing number of dykes and trans folks feel apathy and indifference over the exclusion of trans women (who identify and live as women) from this event contributes to the growing sense that trans women are merely second-class citizens in both the trans and lesbian communities. Part of the reason why I wrote my original post was to encourage people to recognize the connections that exist between 1) outright trans woman-exclusion at events like Michigan, 2) everyday sentiments of trans misogyny (i.e., prejudice targetted directly at trans women rather than transgender people as a whole) that occur on a regular basis in the queer women’s community, and 3) the way that such sentiments make trans women feel unwelcome, unsafe and irrelevant in queer women’s spaces, even those that have policies that explicitly welcome us.

While many people contribute to this problem in different ways, I focused my original post on FTM-spectrum folks who choose to enjoy their own privilege of being in queer women’s spaces without recognizing how their presence often further marginalizes and invisibilizes trans women's identities. When a FTM-spectum trans guy who calls himself “he” goes to a women-only space like Michigan, it reinforces a belief that most transphobic and trans-ignorant women already have, which is that trans people’s identified genders are not to be taken seriously. And when FTM-spectrum folks overlook or fail to question the gross disparity in the numbers of trans men vs. trans women in what are supposed to be queer women’s events and spaces, they provide cover for the trans misogynists; I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people claim that Michigan’s policy is not transphobic because “lots of trans people [i.e., FTM-spectrum folks] attend.”

Julia Serano: Frustration and Not There Yet

Wed, 2014-09-03 10:20

Pondering

As the 39th Festival closes and we turn our hearts and minds to our landmark 40th anniversary, we reiterate that Michfest recognizes trans womyn as womyn - and they are our sisters.

Maysie, my quote is from 2014, yours is from 2006. Trans women are fully accepted as womyn and as sisters at Michfest.

Wed, 2014-09-03 11:13

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Can I offer them spelling lessons?

[Sorry, can't help it. Pet peeve. I understand the impulse, but I've always thought "womyn" and "womon" make us look like flakes.]

Wed, 2014-09-03 12:23

lagatta

Oh, I heartily agree. It is based on false Etymology:

Quoting wikipedia, but I've read this in many scholarly texts: "The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann[1] to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman.[2] In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone", however subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 1200s had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr.[3] The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.[4]"

So "man" meant human, like the German "Mensch" or Dutch "mens". Woman doesn't mean a human with a womb, or "of" (belonging to) a male.

I'm not particularly interested in women-only festivals either, though it is fine if some women, whether lesbian, bi or het are. I am far more interested in increasing the numbers, presence and prominence of women in arts festivals, whether visual arts, music, cinema etc.

Wed, 2014-09-03 14:15

Pondering

lagatta wrote:
I'm not particularly interested in women-only festivals either, though it is fine if some women, whether lesbian, bi or het are. I am far more interested in increasing the numbers, presence and prominence of women in arts festivals, whether visual arts, music, cinema etc.

Michfest isn't just a music festival. It's a community of women where many women experience feeling safe for the first time in their lives. Women can walk around in the dark in the middle of the night and feel safe. The absence of the male gaze is liberating and many women come away with greater acceptance of their bodies.

Women do all of the work on The Land including all the jobs like stage building usually reserved for men.

To dismiss it as just another music festival shocks me.

Burning Man is just another iteration of the man's world we live in. It's not revolutionary it's conformist. Fake progressive.

I’ve been to That Thing Out In The Desert, otherwise known as Burning Man, for 4 years. In theory, I love it, and I love what it stands for. I love art, and freedom, and creation, and silly costumes. I love community building, and trading supplies, and being in the moment.

But I’ve also worked with the Bureau of Erotic Discourse teaching about sexual assault and consent at Burning Man. It’s a problem. BED was founded because Burning Man as an organization didn’t really do enough to teach people about sexual assault, sex and substance use, and consent- so a grassroots effort was created. I’m still baffled that BED isn’t a formal art of the infrastructure of the BORG, considering how sexual assault seems to be a pretty consistent issue.....

Which brings me to exhibit one, the “photo project”, “Man Grabs 100 Boobs at Burning Man“, that went viral. This was defended strongly, mostly by men, as “art”, often silencing women who spoke up to say how the photographer didn’t give them the opportunity for informed consent and sometimes didn’t respect their consent for the photo to begin with.....

Then, I have Exhibit 2, “Early Crime States from Burning Man 2013“. I was horrified to read this, which says how crime stats are going down at BM before saying “The only concerning standout crimes were sexual assaults, one of which was a rape that occurred on the open desert, the victim was held at gun point and abused by two others”. This article finishes with a chirpy “To the future of fancy-free partying!”

http://www.consentculture.com/2013/10/08/radical-entitlement-rape-cultur...

Is there anyone boycotting Burning Man?

http://www.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2012/09/19/the-dark-side-of-burnin...

Whenever you hear about Burning Man, it's often about the art, the peace, the spiritual enlightenment, and, most importantly, the freedom. Some burners, as the attendees like to be called, even feel as if that is their home and they can't wait to get back to it every year.

This year, however, in addition to all the posts about how 2012 was the best burn ever, there was also a very different post entitled "Serial Rapist on the Playa." It details the story of a 19-year-old girl who was strangled, drugged, and raped one night. According to the blog, which was written by the victim's mother, who was also at Burning Man, she was found face down behind Emerald City. The people who found her assumed she had overdosed and took her to the medical tent. After being attached to an IV all night, they released her. Upon returning to her tent, the bruises that appeared made it clear she had been strangled and raped.

All the women who attend Burning Man should attend Michfest instead. Imagine that, if women would actually band together and show the world what a wonderful environment women's culture creates. Who cares how womyn is spelled? Women have been integrating in the "legitimate" art world for quite some time now. It's no different than any other aspect of the conventional world. The art world is fake progressive more interested in being clever than revolutionary.

Michfest is a feminist gem in the ocean of North American male dominated culture, world culture even. It boggles my mind that any activists, male or female, are so dismissive of it.

Male power over women is the foundation on which patriarchy was created. Remove male power in a small space for one week and a tiny glimpse of the possible is revealed in the communal life that women build. Something much more radical than Burning Man, it is women rising.

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:29

#10

lagatta

It's a moot point, because I don't travel to the US. I have even less interest in Burning Man than in Michfest.

Some heterosexual women would rather have the opportunity of meeting a like-minded fellow, non? I certainly agree that a lot of alternative, "prefigurative" events don't take hostile environments as seriously as they should, from sexual harassment and verbal homophobia to rape or violence against "others", but I have been to cultural, political events where these issues were taken very seriously.

There are all sorts of people in the field of creative arts. When I was talking about integrating and showcasing more women, I was speaking about our ability to earn a living. I'm about as "political" as they come, but I still have to pay my rent, utilities, food and clothing for our ghastly winters (I'm very concerned about the latter these days. Finding a good winter coat that is warm but "professional" looking isn't easy, and I don't always manage to do it second-hand, despite la boutique du Chaînon and the Ste-Madeleine-d'Outremont church bazaar). At least I don't need new boots.

I'm paid to care about spelling.

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:32

#11

Pondering

Reasoning

Feminists typically object to the fact that "woman" and "women" are just "man" and "men" with a "wo-" prepended.

“ By taking the “men” and “man” out of the words “woman” and “women” we are symbolically saying that we do not need men to be “complete. We, as womyn, are not a sub-category of men. We are not included in many of the history books, studies and statistics that are done in male dominated societies, thus they do not apply to us, for in these items we do not exist. In these societies men are the “norm” and women the “particular,” a mere sub-category of the “norm,” of men. The re-spelling of the word “woman” is a statement that we refused to be defined by men. We are womyn and only we have the right to define our relationships with ourselves, society, with other womyn and men. These re-spellings work as a symbolic act of looking at and defining ourselves as we really are, not how men and society view us, but through our own female views of ourselves, as self-defined womyn.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn

I can certainly see rejecting the use of womyn but I don't agree that it is flaky in any way. Ridiculing women who are making themselves visible fighting the patriarchy is self-defeating. Silly flaky women. Sounds familiar.

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:35

#12

lagatta

Did you read my point about word origins? "Man" originally meant a human, not a male human. That alternative spelling was developed out of linguistic ignorance, and ignorance is never a good master - or mistress. Like thinking "niggardly" has anything to do with a racial slur.

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:35

#13

Bacchus

"Let me be clear that my tone here is peaceful because I know it’s easy for words to be interpreted as hostile in tense discussions like this one. I have never known anyone, cis or not, who has been sexually assaulted by a trans woman, which is not to say that this never occurs, because I’m sure it does. On the other hand I have been sexually assaulted by a cis woman, and I can think of a few other women I know who have confided in me about similar experiences. It is dangerous to assume that adults’ ability to violate others is entirely dependent on what gender they were assigned at birth. Avoiding the presence of people who were assigned male at birth is not a solution for rape culture, and cis lesbians are absolutely capable of disrespecting consent/violating others on the assumption that as women they’re automatically incapable of rape. The woman who assaulted me flat out told me that it wasn’t assault because she was a woman. She is welcome at MichFest while trans women I know who respect other people’s boundaries aren’t. That does not compute. Also, we can’t talk about gendered experiences of sexual assault without acknowledging that trans women DO experience it, at an alarmingly high rate. Trans women are far more likely to be survivors than perpetrators."

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:36

#14

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

I've always thought Burning Man was a stupid wankfest, if that helps.

Who cares how "woman" is spelled? Well, if the people spelling it "womyn" or "womon" didn't, they wouldn't bother, would they? So I'd wager the misspellers care a good deal more than I do. And I think it makes them look silly.

As for the art world, I suppose you could say that I'm part of that. Cultural industries, anyway. I'm not always interested in being revolutionary, and in a lot of ways I think being too-consciously revolutionary is counterproductive. I seek to make the kind of film I want to make - and that is, in its own way revolutionary, and hopefully, if it works, becomes less revolutionary every time I do it. I don't need to call attention to my radicalism by misspelling perfectly mundane words.

Wed, 2014-09-03 15:44

#15

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Pondering wrote:

Reasoning

Feminists typically object to the fact that "woman" and "women" are just "man" and "men" with a "wo-" prepended.

“ By taking the “men” and “man” out of the words “woman” and “women” we are symbolically saying that we do not need men to be “complete. We, as womyn, are not a sub-category of men. We are not included in many of the history books, studies and statistics that are done in male dominated societies, thus they do not apply to us, for in these items we do not exist. In these societies men are the “norm” and women the “particular,” a mere sub-category of the “norm,” of men. The re-spelling of the word “woman” is a statement that we refused to be defined by men. We are womyn and only we have the right to define our relationships with ourselves, society, with other womyn and men. These re-spellings work as a symbolic act of looking at and defining ourselves as we really are, not how men and society view us, but through our own female views of ourselves, as self-defined womyn.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn

I can certainly see rejecting the use of womyn but I don't agree that it is flaky in any way. Ridiculing women who are making themselves visible fighting the patriarchy is self-defeating. Silly flaky women. Sounds familiar.

Did you miss the bit in my first post to this thread where I said I understand the reasoning?

However, it's such a stupid quibble that it damages the perceived validity of many other more important points that might be made. If by "making themselves visible" you mean "diminishing their credibility", I think you're spot on.

Re-inventing spelling in an ahistorical manner is silly whether you're female or not.

Wed, 2014-09-03 16:30

#16

Pondering

Timebandit wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Reasoning

Feminists typically object to the fact that "woman" and "women" are just "man" and "men" with a "wo-" prepended.

“ By taking the “men” and “man” out of the words “woman” and “women” we are symbolically saying that we do not need men to be “complete. We, as womyn, are not a sub-category of men. We are not included in many of the history books, studies and statistics that are done in male dominated societies, thus they do not apply to us, for in these items we do not exist. In these societies men are the “norm” and women the “particular,” a mere sub-category of the “norm,” of men. The re-spelling of the word “woman” is a statement that we refused to be defined by men. We are womyn and only we have the right to define our relationships with ourselves, society, with other womyn and men. These re-spellings work as a symbolic act of looking at and defining ourselves as we really are, not how men and society view us, but through our own female views of ourselves, as self-defined womyn.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn

I can certainly see rejecting the use of womyn but I don't agree that it is flaky in any way. Ridiculing women who are making themselves visible fighting the patriarchy is self-defeating. Silly flaky women. Sounds familiar.

Did you miss the bit in my first post to this thread where I said I understand the reasoning?

However, it's such a stupid quibble that it damages the perceived validity of many other more important points that might be made. If by "making themselves visible" you mean "diminishing their credibility", I think you're spot on.

Re-inventing spelling in an ahistorical manner is silly whether you're female or not.

No, their reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with the origins of the word and it is a stupid quibble that women shouldn't be giving credence to. Women should be focused on the celebration of women's culture. (In my opinion). I get so discouraged on this board. No wonder the right is winning.

Wed, 2014-09-03 17:16

#17

Pondering

Bacchus wrote:
It is dangerous to assume that adults’ ability to violate others is entirely dependent on what gender they were assigned at birth. ...She is welcome at MichFest while trans women I know who respect other people’s boundaries aren’t. That does not compute.

It doesn't compute because it isn't true.

As the 39th Festival closes and we turn our hearts and minds to our landmark 40th anniversary, we reiterate that Michfest recognizes trans womyn as womyn - and they are our sisters. We do not fear their presence among us, a false claim repeatedly made.

Over 20 years ago, we asked Nancy Burkholder, a trans womon, to leave the Land. That was wrong, and for that, we are sorry...Since that single incident, Festival organizers have never asked a trans womon to leave the Festival....The truth is, trans womyn and trans men attend the Festival, blog about their experiences, and work on crew.

While I am sure it is possible for women to sexually assault one another it is not something women commonly experience or fear. This reminds me of the men's rights group that claim men suffer as much domestic violence as women do. When I am walking alone at night it isn't women I'm afraid of.

Over 20 years ago, time to get over it and attend the festival if that's what you want to do. Lots of trans women do. They are not just tolerated they work on crew. They are fully 100% accepted. The trans women you know are either lying or misinformed. They are welcome at Michfest.

Wed, 2014-09-03 17:18

#18

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Pondering wrote:

No, their reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with the origins of the word and it is a stupid quibble that women shouldn't be giving credence to. Women should be focused on the celebration of women's culture. (In my opinion). I get so discouraged on this board. No wonder the right is winning.

You're confusing my posts with lagatta's. I didn't make the point about etymology, she did. I understand that their reasoning has nothing to do with the origins of the word. However, because it has nothing to do with what the word actually means, it's a silly thing to do.

What the cocopuffs is "women's culture" anyway? Isn't that a terrifically essentialist idea? Also, equating my lack of enthusiasm for wanky word switches with "the right" is quite a leap in logic. I remain a social democrat even in the face of correct spelling.

My objection to the spelling may be a quibble, but I don't have a lot of patience for affectations - and that's what these spelling swaps are, an affectation as irritating as hipsters wearing beards and trucker hats. The problem with this affectation, however, is one that gets applied to feminists in general and helps to perpetuate some very unhelpful stereotypes.

You're not the only one who's discouraged. I would have thought we'd outgrown such middle school tactics since the '80s when I first encountered them.

Wed, 2014-09-03 17:25

#19

6079_Smith_W

I like the statement the Indigo Girls made about this situation:

Quote:

"We have made it clear that this will be our last time at the Festival until MWMF shows visible and concrete signs of changing their intention," Amy Ray and Emily Saliers wrote on their site. "We have no animosity towards anyone in this case but see the deep and fearless legacy that MWMF has had during its existence and we honor that. We also honor the prayerfulness that has been a part of this struggle on both sides."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/indigo-girls-michigan-festival-...

I most recently read about this in a facebook post, and it didn't help that the poster was equating the situation at Michigan with all instances where men use their power to shut women out. The article attached wasn't about the author being refused entry. If I understood the gist of the article, she went in, but she said she could not consider it a safe space because of womyn who did not accept her, and made that known by wearing a piece of red cloth. A difficult situation to be in, certainly.

(talking about self-described womyn at Michican I'll defer to the spelling rule)

It's a hard question, and especially galling to see it equated with patriachal power. I don't think there is any question that the exclusionary distinction is discriminatory; thing is, it is discrimination born from suffering and oppression. It doesn't make it right, but I think it is a really shitty deal that transpeople are caught in the middle of what is really two groups seeking their own safe space.

The most I see that a festival can do is to ensure equal access. As for the badges, you can't force people to hold values they do not by boycott or anything else. The best I can see is that change and acceptance comes over time as people learn.

Wed, 2014-09-03 17:37

#20

Pondering

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I like the statement the Indigo Girls made about this situation:

Quote:

"We have made it clear that this will be our last time at the Festival until MWMF shows visible and concrete signs of changing their intention," Amy Ray and Emily Saliers wrote on their site. "We have no animosity towards anyone in this case but see the deep and fearless legacy that MWMF has had during its existence and we honor that. We also honor the prayerfulness that has been a part of this struggle on both sides."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/indigo-girls-michigan-festival-...

I most recently read about this in a facebook post, and it didn't help that the poster was equating the situation at Michigan with all instances where men their power to shut women out. The article attached wasn't about the author being refused entry. If I understood the gist of the article, she went in, but she said she could not consider it a safe space because of womyn who did not accept her, and made that known by wearing a piece of red cloth. A difficult situation to be in, certainly.

(talking about self-described womyn at Michican I'll defer to the spelling rule)

It's a hard question, and especially galling to see it equated with patriachal power. I don't think there is any question that the exclusionary distinction is discriminatory; thing is, it is discrimination born from suffering and oppression. It doesn't make it right, but I think it is a really shitty deal that transpeople are caught in the middle of what is really two groups seeking their own safe space.

The most I see that a festival can do is to ensure equal access. As for the badges, you can't force people to hold values they do not by boycott or anything else. The best I can see is that change and acceptance comes over time as people learn.

This is true, but I think the letter makes it clear that trans women are fully welcomed at Michfest in any capacity, professional and private. If they don't go it's because they choose not to. Trying to destroy Michfest with a false propaganda campaign is unjustifiable.

Wed, 2014-09-03 23:57

#21

jas

lagatta wrote:
labial consonants

(tee hee)

Thu, 2014-09-04 07:15

#22

lagatta

Ha! Look up Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco...

Well, there are so many phallic buildings and towers.

Thu, 2014-09-04 11:15

#23

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Pondering wrote:

This is true, but I think the letter makes it clear that trans women are fully welcomed at Michfest in any capacity, professional and private. If they don't go it's because they choose not to. Trying to destroy Michfest with a false propaganda campaign is unjustifiable.

This doesn't sound welcoming at all...

Quote:
Michfest is widely known as a predominantly lesbian community. This does not mean that heterosexual womyn, bisexual womyn, or those who do not share this identity are not present or welcome. But for a week, we collectively experience a lesbian-centered world; we experience what it feels like to be in a community defined by lesbian culture.

There are trans womyn and trans men who attend and work at the Festival who participate in the Michfest community in this same spirit – as supporters of, rather than detractors from, our female-focused culture. The presence of trans womyn at Michfest has been misrepresented as a kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But the real issue is about the focus of the event, a focus on the experience of those born female, who’ve lived their lives subjected to oppression based on the sole fact of their being female.

I think the fundamental problem here is a high level of essentialism - FTM transexuals are "essentially" female in some women's views, where MTF transexuals are not because they were born male. The above statement pretty clearly relfects that, and certainly sounds very much like a withholding of acceptance of MTF transexuals as women. Then later in their statement, they say they are accepting. It's not consistent.

Thu, 2014-09-04 20:12

#24

Tehanu

Pondering wrote:
Over 20 years ago, time to get over it and attend the festival if that's what you want to do. Lots of trans women do. They are not just tolerated they work on crew. They are fully 100% accepted. The trans women you know are either lying or misinformed. They are welcome at Michfest.

Um. "Time to get over it" seems a tad premature and inappropriate -- I wouldn't tell someone who's been discriminated against to get over it. And saying they are 100% accepted is not likely something trans women would agree with.

Tell me, was anyone wearing a red badge this year? I'm betting they were.

While it's encouraging to hear Lisa Vogel publicly stating that trans women can attend the Festival, she is still reacting defensively, not constructively, and there are still some significant problems with her approach. She's not taking responsibility for over two decades of exclusion, and is still using the highly-problematic "women-born-women" (or "womyn-born-womyn") language -- being "born and living as female" -- which trans women feminists have identified as being very hurtful. In fact this type of terminology is used almost entirely by a small subset of feminists who in most cases are virulently anti-trans. And I personally feel that subset brings shame to the term feminist.

And no, this trans-exclusionary language hasn't gone away. In this Facebook post on August 1, responding to the HRC and Equality Michigan, the Festival specifically says the following:

Quote:
• MWMF has, since its inception in 1976, formed itself as a space for womyn-born-female as a means to resist and survive the debilitation of female subjugation;
• We believe that support for womyn-born-female space is not at odds with standing with and for the transgender community.

As well, as Maysie pithily noted up thread (waves wildly to Maysie!) Julia Serano points out that by admitting female-to-male trans folks also undermines recognition of trans people's identities, as in effect the organizers are denying that they're men.

Here's the other side:

Statement from the Human Rights Campaign

Statement from Equality Michigan with a raft of co-signers

And here is information about Camp Trans, which was started in response to trans exclusion at the Festival: ... if you check out the History section you will find that trans exclusion has been happening a whole lot more recently than two decades ago. In 2007 there was a grudging compromise that they wouldn't stop trans women from buying tickets. Not exactly a solution. (Worth noting that section desn't look as though it's been updated to reflect what's been happening recently.)

What Lisa Vogel and the MWMF organizers could do:

-- Apologize properly and sincerely for trans woman exclusion from the Festival, and acknowledge the hurt caused by not being recognized as women by a feminist-identified organization.

-- Acknowledge that "womyn-born-womyn" or "womyn-born-female" is hurtful terminology that invalidates trans women's lives. Pledge to stop using such language.

-- Acknowledge the importance of recognizing both trans women and trans men's identity as women and men, and being consistent about that.

-- Pledge to move forward in solidarity with all women, acknowledging all women's lived experiences under patriarchy. No more caveats.

-- Commit to working with the trans feminist community to achieve real and lasting inclusion.

I've said many times that I really hate the transphobic underbelly of some feminism. Not only is it deeply hurtful to a group of women who are already very marginalized, but it also exposes the rest of us who strongly identify as feminists to being likewise identified as exclusionary.

And, frankly, given that there are still clearly problems, I'm also a bit leery about the title of this thread -- "defending women's culture and spaces" from who? Those mean trans women and LGBTQ activists?

Thu, 2014-09-04 20:15

#25

jas

Tehanu wrote:
-- Acknowledge that "womyn-born-womyn" or "womyn-born-female" is hurtful terminology that invalidates trans women's lives. Pledge to stop using such language.

What terminology do you propose instead? Women have a right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a female body. Just as transwomen have the right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a male body.

Tehanu wrote:
-- Acknowledge the importance of recognizing both trans women and trans men's identity as women and men, and being consistent about that.

Why blame the festival for that? If transmen want to be related to as men, why are they seeking inclusion in an all-women event? The obvious answer is that many FTMs have a social history with the women's and lesbian communities. I would think some transwomen do as well, but we don't hear about this as much. There's a more obvious shared history with FTMs.

I think transphobia is a natural reaction for a community that has had to fight for its own space, its own security, find its own way to self-determination outside of paternalism and male-centric world. It's unfortunate for transwomen, but if they're really feminists they'll understand that it will take some time. And that understanding is what will create bonds of trust.

Thu, 2014-09-04 20:41

#26

Tehanu

jas wrote:
What terminology do you propose instead? Women have a right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a female body. Just as transwomen have the right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a male body.

Are you aware of the use of that terminology specifically to exclude trans women?

Quote:
Tehanu wrote:
-- Acknowledge the importance of recognizing both trans women and trans men's identity as women and men, and being consistent about that.

Why blame the festival for that? If transmen want to be related to as men, why are they seeking inclusion in an all-women event? The obvious answer is that many FTMs have a social history with the women's and lesbian communities. I would think some transwomen do as well, but we don't hear about this as much. There's a more obvious shared history with FTMs.

Did you read the Julia Serano link?

Quote:
I think transphobia is a natural reaction for a community that has had to fight for its own space, its own security, find its own way to self-determination outside of paternalism and male-centric world. It's unfortunate for transwomen, but if they're really feminists they'll understand that it will take some time. And that understanding is what will create bonds of trust.

I hold feminists to a higher standard of fighting against discrimination towards all women, rather than justifying transphobia for whatever reason. I refuse to agree that excluding trans women from the feminist community's space, security and self-determination is a feminist act. I don't think it's a "natural reaction" for feminists to be transphobic and I won't defend transphobia among feminists.

Rather than rehashing what many have said about this, over and over and over, I'll refer you to some babble and EM threads addressing "women-born-women" exclusion, and the intersection of feminism and trans women's rights.

New women's pharmacy in Vancouver ... excludes trans women

Vancouver women's pharmacy is bad news

Trans inclusion and feminism

Thu, 2014-09-04 20:58

#27

jas

Post #1 lays it all out, as far as I'm concerned, and raises some new concerns. Trans rights advocates could at least speak to these points:

Quote:
The New Yorker magazine documents the extremism of the current push for language that erases the female experience. The board of the New York Abortion Access Fund, for example, “voted unanimously to stop using the word ‘women’ when talking about people who get pregnant ....

WTF, trans rights activists? How stupid is this?

Quote:
We see this same pressure for erasure of a specifically female reality when “Pussy Manifesto,” ... is disparaged by some as transphobic – as was the event “A Night of A Thousand Vaginas” – solely for the use of the words vagina and pussy.

If it is considered transphobic to talk about our pussies, our vaginas, or to even use the word female as specific to sex, our movement is dangerously close to using the same tactics as the far right, womyn hating, Michigan Republican leadership, who revoked the speaking privileges of two female legislators for saying the word vagina out loud on the Michigan State House floor. What has our movement come to when the mere articulation of your own experience in your own female body is denounced as an injury to another? It’s time to examine the core issue here, which is our right to create an autonomous space focused on a female-defined experience.

Thu, 2014-09-04 21:00

#28

Tehanu

jas wrote:
Tehanu wrote:
-- Acknowledge that "womyn-born-womyn" or "womyn-born-female" is hurtful terminology that invalidates trans women's lives. Pledge to stop using such language.

What terminology do you propose instead? Women have a right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a female body. Just as transwomen have the right to discuss and bond on issues relating to growing up female in a male body.

That language is NOT used to defend some women's right to discuss and bond on issues related to growing up female in a female body. It is used to exclude trans women from feminist spaces. If you want to say you are not excluding trans women stop fucking using that language.

Regarding the New Yorker article: Anyone can cherry-pick particular examples and use them to belittle, demean and distract from actual, hurtful, harmful discrimation. That article was denounced by plenty of people when it came out. Including Julia Serano in The Advocate, also pointing out her own reluctance to be interviewed for it, which turns out was plenty justified.

Please do take the time to read that article.

Any thoughts on my point about why feminists don't get a free pass on being transphobic?

Thu, 2014-09-04 21:25

#29

jas

Regardless of whether the NYer article was received well or not, it states that the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund "voted unanimously to stop using the word ‘women’ when talking about people who get pregnant."

Do you not find that concerning? Can you see why some women would find it concerning? Do you recognize the concern around the potential for erasure, via language, of female experience? After finally getting to the point where we can talk about our lives without being shouted down or dismissed?

Can you sympathize with that fear?

And why should transwomen feel excluded by women using the words "pussy" and "vagina"? Is somebody making this up? If not, what is the problem? And why should we care, honestly, when it gets this ridiculous?

Thu, 2014-09-04 21:44

#30

Tehanu

Quote:
Regardless of whether the NYer article was received well or not, it states that the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund "voted unanimously to stop using the word ‘women’ when talking about people who get pregnant."

Do you not find that concerning? Can you see why some women would find it concerning? Do you recognize the concern around the potential for erasure, via language, of female experience? After finally getting to the point where we can talk about our lives without being shouted down or dismissed?

Can you sympathize with that fear?

And why should transwomen feel excluded by women using the words "pussy" and "vagina"? Is somebody making this up? If not, what is the problem? And why should we care, honestly, when it gets this ridiculous?

Well, I agree with Timebandit and Lagatta that the use of "womyn" is pretty far out, and certainly that's been used lots of times to mock feminism. So what if the New York Abortion Access Fund - one organization - questions language in a way that you and the New Yorker feel is extreme.

Does that example invalidate trans activism? Of course not. Does it distract from the discrimation that trans women face from a segment of feminism? Absolutely. For feminists to base their defense on some cherry-picked language examples rather than addressing the actual issue of discrimation against trans women is exactly the same tactic that (among others) men's rights groups use to belittle feminism.

So no, I don't sympathize with that fear. I sympathize with the women who are being discrimated against by the very movement that is supposed to fight for their rights. And really, "fear"? Some people are pointing out that men can get pregnant too. Ooooh, scary stuff.

Did you read the Serano rebuttal?

ETA: I'm going to quote Pondering from upthread:

Quote:
I can certainly see rejecting the use of womyn but I don't agree that it is flaky in any way. Ridiculing women who are making themselves visible fighting the patriarchy is self-defeating. Silly flaky women. Sounds familiar.

Same applies to trans activists.

Thu, 2014-09-04 22:02

#31

lagatta

There is a problem here. I'm certainly opposed to discrimination against transpeople. However, I think there are biological and social differences between transpeople and people who were born female or male. There are also biologically "in-between" people. All these people should be respected, but sorry, I'm not up enough on the fine points of this issue.

All of this stuff confirms my utter lack of interest in attending this or a similar festival. In my case, it would be a hostile place for heterosexuals. I don't mind that terribly much, as in "normal" homophobic society, the hostility is towards LGBT people. It simply makes it a place I'd have no interest in spending a week at. And far less interest still in things like Burning Man.

A close friend, who is lesbian, is also uninterested in attending that kind of thing. Sure, she is thrilled to attend parties and gatherings that are lesbian or mostly lesbian, but not things with such pretenses of creating a micro-society without men. All people, whatever our sex or sexual orientation, should be working for "safe spaces" for all.

Thu, 2014-09-04 22:31

#32

Tehanu

lagatta wrote:
There is a problem here. I'm certainly opposed to discrimination against transpeople. However, I think there are biological and social differences between transpeople and people who were born female or male. There are also biologically "in-between" people. All these people should be respected, but sorry, I'm not up enough on the fine points of this issue.

There are biological and social differences between people growing up with physical illness and those who are healthy. Among able-bodied people and disabled people. Among those with mental health issues and those without. There are differences in life experience among white people and people of colour. Among rich people and poor people. Among thin people and fat people. And so on.

Nobody is arguing that there aren't some differences in biology or social experiences between cis women and trans women. Arguably, any of those differences may pale in comparison to the variation between some of the other groups above. But I am saying, and I think you'd agree, that those differences should not be used as justification for discrimination and exclusion.

Maysie said it beautifully on another thread:

Quote:
... Women don't share a common experience "as women". What can be argued is we share a common experience due to sexism and misogyny. Cis-women who don't conform to rigid gender roles, which is probably most women on babble, are punished in smaller and larger ways (depending on the extent of the lack of conformity) by society, our families, our co-workers, etc.

The same goes for men, by the way.

I actually don't believe there are "common experiences" of sexism and misogyny except in very broad ways, since all of our identities as women are also grounded in our race locations, our class locations, our ability, sexual orientation, education, and other factors.

... But, feminist ideas of oppression, intersectionality and multiple subject locations have changed. This is due to, I think, the few mini-revolutions within the feminist movement, mostly around inclusion issues. Lesbians and other queer-identified women fought to be included, and in fact fought to be counted as "real women". Poor women, women of colour, immigrant women, all have had struggles (some of them ongoing to the present) around inclusion. Many from all those groups gave up on fighting for inclusion and have created their own spaces. One could call this fractioning, but if there are service needs which aren't being provided, this takes precedence, imv, to some notion of standing together when that's not feasible or likely.

Thu, 2014-09-04 22:44

#33

lagatta

Oh, all that is true (though I think you may be underplaying the BIOLOGICAL differences between women and people who have transitioned from male to female). Yes, if someone wants to be called a woman (or a man, or neither, or a "third sex") and treated as one that is fine with me, but conversely, don't label me as a "cis-woman" whatever the hell that means.

Thu, 2014-09-04 23:04

#34

6079_Smith_W

lagatta wrote:

All these people should be respected, but sorry, I'm not up enough on the fine points of this issue.

That goes double for me.

But it doesn't surprise me that some people for whatever reason - fear, bad experience - are going to get territorial and discriminate against others. It's hardly surprising in a community which is under attack, and this is hardly the only community where it happens.

And yes, I agree that supposedly progressive groups like feminists should be held to a higher standard. I don't see any justification or excuse for it, or reason that it should be tolerated, or that it can be called anything but discrimination. But discrimination never was about logic, and getting people to accept others is not always as simple as explaining why they should.

The two things that struck me: one was people who have little interest in resolving this using it as a foil against feminism generally. And the other, the distinction between what the festival can do to resolve this (and I agree there is still a long way to go), and the fact that individual people are going to be a lot more slow in changing their minds, and some never will.

I get what you say, Tehanu about the terminology being that of an ideological fringe group. But I'd be surprised if subtler forms of discrimination and lack of acceptance of trans people isn't just as common as other forms of discrimination in our society. So while I agree that it needs to be called out, I see it as a problem that belongs to all of us.

(edit)

Cross posted with the last couple. Well said Tehanu (and well said Maysie).

On a more general note, I don't have any problem with those who want to form separate intentional and even exclusionary groups, and obviously they aren't going to be for everyone. But that is an entirely different question than not accepting women as women within those groups.

Thu, 2014-09-04 23:17

#35

takeitslowly

While there are biological differences between trans women and cisgender women. I question the importance of such distinction in most settings. There are so much differences and variations even among trans women. Some transitioned earlier, some later, not to mention different classes, racial, or educational backgrounds.

Fri, 2014-09-05 01:44

#36

Pondering

The festival welcomes all women but it was organized by and in support of lesbian women, not feminists in general. I am not part of the community so I hesitate to speak too deeply on the issue. However, the lesbian community has good reason to feel defensive and to have felt the need to create this week long event forty years ago where lesbians could celebrate in community with one another.

Heterosexual trans men were butch lesbians for lack of better terminology and from a physical perspective pretty much still are because of the limits on surgery. So, from a lesbian perspective trans men still have the "right" body part for a sexual relationship. It is not unusual for a trans man and a lesbian to have a relationship.

This offends some trans women who feel that the "lesbian" should call herself "bi" if she is with a trans man out of respect for him. Lesbians, quite naturally, are offended by the notion they should not longer identify as lesbians if they are with a trans man because they would never be with a non trans man. So, trans men are an embedded part of the lesbian community. Trans women have had a great deal of trouble fully integrating with the lesbian communityl.Their was/is the great cotton ceiling debate which some lesbians took great offence to. It was in reference to the lesbian community accepting them socially but not sexually.

Sexual orientation is fixed and I can't blame lesbians for using 'having a vagina' as an identifying factor. Understandably though that has been very hurtful to trans women.

What is woman's culture? It's the history that isn't in the history books. It's the art we create that speaks to the female experience of life. It can be explored within the context of art or culture in general, but women are still greatly under-represented in the serious art world and in the canons of all forms of art. It seems like it's okay to focus on black music, or french literature, or chinese art, but not on women's music.

Michfest isn't a feminist event, it is a lesbian event that welcomes all women, including trans women, and they admit they were wrong to have asked a trans woman to leave 20 years ago. It took them years to grow beyond tolerance to full acceptance. Apparently there are still some lesbians that wear red squares to indicate their disagreement with the policy. I don't think it's fair to expect organizers to police that at a lesbian centered event.

I think that trans women activists should meet Michfest halfway and acknowlege how far lesbians have come in accepting women who were assigned male at birth and sometimes still have penises. I think its very normal that a lesbian event started out with a zero tolerance for penises rule. I think it's commendable that they have matured and become genuinely more inclusive.

It wouldn't hurt trans activist to express understanding for lesbian history and experiences instead of acting like it was always just an inexplicable prejudice on the part of Michfest rather than a natural reaction by lesbians to an extremely new phenomenon only made possible by modern surgical techniques that even now aren't fully perfected.

Targeting and trying to publically shame the lesbian community isn't productive at this point. Attend Michfest if you want to, or urge trans friends to do so, and wear pink circles or something as a symbol of women's unity.

Fri, 2014-09-05 07:49

#37

Maysie

Thanks to Timebandit for this:

Quote:

I think the fundamental problem here is a high level of essentialism - FTM transexuals are "essentially" female in some women's views, where MTF transexuals are not because they were born male. The above statement pretty clearly relfects that, and certainly sounds very much like a withholding of acceptance of MTF transexuals as women. Then later in their statement, they say they are accepting. It's not consistent.

Tehanu! Thanks for adding your smarts and your... everything!! Also, quoting some smarty-pants thing I said from whenever-the-hell? Aw shucks.

Pondering wrote:

I think that trans women activists should meet Michfest halfway

Because the oppressed have historically been asked to do this, I say NO, absolutely not.

Quote:

and acknowlege how far lesbians have come in accepting women who were assigned male at birth and sometimes still have penises.

I'm reading Serano's first book, which is based on her blog, and it's changing my life and messing with me big time, in a good way. Please take a few minutes/hours to read her. She's fucking brilliant. See Tehanu's links above. That said, I'm still a stalwart social constructionist (she takes aim at both this camp and the biological essentialists) and disagee with her on a lot of things. This doesn't change the fact that she brings a significant voice to feminist theory.

Quote:
I think its very normal that a lesbian event started out with a zero tolerance for penises rule.

Now THERE's some essentialism. Sheesh.

Quote:

I think it's commendable that they have matured and become genuinely more inclusive.

Woohoo! Yay! Have a cookie! This is kinda like the Some of My Best Friends are Black defence. BUZZ! Sorry, wrong answer, but thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

P.S. Tehanu!

Fri, 2014-09-05 07:55

#38

lagatta

While women are underrepresented in history books, I don't think it is true any more that we "aren't there". Many social historians and scholars in related disciplines have worked long and hard on "history from below", whether of women who aren't empresses, queens or abbesses, ordinary workers (women or men, free or unfree), family structures, oppression and dispossession (of women and of peoples and classes), women in creative and scientific fields, various forms of resistance and a host of other topics.

I remember interviewing some women labour pioneers who were leaders of the Dupuis Frères strike, and a lot has been done on the lives of Léa Roback and Madeleine Parent, just to speak of women in the Québec labour movement, by historians and documentary filmmakers.

Fri, 2014-09-05 13:55

#39

Pondering

lagatta wrote:

While women are underrepresented in history books, I don't think it is true any more that we "aren't there". Many social historians and scholars in related disciplines have worked long and hard on "history from below", whether of women who aren't empresses, queens or abbesses, ordinary workers (women or men, free or unfree), family structures, oppression and dispossession (of women and of peoples and classes), women in creative and scientific fields, various forms of resistance and a host of other topics.

I remember interviewing some women labour pioneers who were leaders of the Dupuis Frères strike, and a lot has been done on the lives of Léa Roback and Madeleine Parent, just to speak of women in the Québec labour movement, by historians and documentary filmmakers.

Are you claiming that women are now equally represented in history so we won the battle on that front?

Lesbians have long been an oppressed group. I think it is pretty hypocritical to accuse lesbians of essentialism while the rest of us, male and female, claim our own sexual orientation is sacrosanct and not up for accusations of bigotry. Even some trans women reject relationships with other trans people based on physical configuration rather than gender.

I'm getting uncomfortable with this conversation because although I want to defend Michfest I am concerned it is becoming hurtful to trans women. Just like gender, sexuality, be it LBGTQ or not, should not be up for debate. I have sex with people with penises. Even when I think they are pricks it's still what I'm attracted to. It's not a choice. Lesbians who feel essencialist about genital parts are no more or less entitled than the rest of us including trans people.

Trans women are openly welcomed at Michfest and do attend and do work on the crew at Michfest. There's an idea. Why not name and shame the trans men and women that dare to attend the festival? Shouldn't they be vilified? Shouldn't they be urged to boycott Michfest until Michfest grovels convincingly enough?

Fri, 2014-09-05 14:50

#40

lagatta

What is woman's culture? It's the history that isn't in the history books.

No, of course I don't think women have achieved equal representation in historical publications. But a lot of us have worked hard to get more representation in history and related fields, as well as in the arts and sciences.

Fri, 2014-09-05 16:32

#41

Pondering

lagatta wrote:

What is woman's culture? It's the history that isn't in the history books.

No, of course I don't think women have achieved equal representation in historical publications. But a lot of us have worked hard to get more representation in history and related fields, as well as in the arts and sciences.

That doesn't invalidate the term "women's culture" as a description for the cultural expression of half of the human race not traditionally valued. It's not like Michfest takes away from women performing in other venues or attending unisex events. It's not a zero sum game.

Trans rights must be vigorously defended but I sympathize with this statement:

These organizations are targeting artists who perform at Michfest while remaining completely silent when queer-identified artists play at venues that generate profits for racist, transphobic, and homophobic corporate entities and individuals, whose interests are dangerous to the global LGBTQ movement and all basic human rights.

Michfest has and is continuing to integrate trans people as welcome members of the Michfest community, embracing them as sisters without qualification. It's time for mutual respect not demanding that one side eats crow for what was common knowledge until very recently (boys were born with penises and girls with vaginas). I would expect the lesbian community to have trouble with alternate views. Changing people's minds on this is very much like convincing people the world was round. It doesn't make sense. It defies our sense of reality. Of course the world is flat, boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Discovering things are not what they seemed is cause for celebration not condemnation for believing what appeared to be fact in the past. I do think the trans community should also have empathy for the lesbian community. In fact it seems many do as trans people do attend Michfest.

Sat, 2014-09-06 12:45

#42

pookie

Despite the thread title, I am not exactly sure why I am supposed to care more about some festival's ongoing struggles with trans people than the fact that a group trying to promote reproductive/abortion rights in New York has gone to great lengths to avoid the idea that it is, in any way, dealing with women.

In its determination to be sex-neutral, the group's mission statement reads, to me anyway, as a little bizarre.

Parenthetically, I note, too, that such erasure would make any attempts to argue that access to abortion is, constitutionally, a sex equality issue moot. Perhaps that isn't a concern to most posting in this thread, but it is to me.

Sat, 2014-09-06 15:39

#43

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Quote:
Heterosexual trans men were butch lesbians for lack of better terminology and from a physical perspective pretty much still are because of the limits on surgery. So, from a lesbian perspective trans men still have the "right" body part for a sexual relationship. It is not unusual for a trans man and a lesbian to have a relationship.

Ah, NO. Butch lesbians still identify as female. FTM identify as male, just as MTF identify as women. It's incredibly disrespectful to ignore the distinction. Here's a quote and a link:

Quote:
If you are a woman-identified butch lesbian, becoming a trans man is not "going all the way." Being butch does not set you on some path to "full" masculinity. A butch woman's masculinity is not different in degree from that of a butch man or FTM; it is different in kind. - See more at: http://www.butchwonders.com/blog/why-arent-all-butches-trans#sthash.JivL...

Quote:
What is woman's culture? It's the history that isn't in the history books. It's the art we create that speaks to the female experience of life. It can be explored within the context of art or culture in general, but women are still greatly under-represented in the serious art world and in the canons of all forms of art. It seems like it's okay to focus on black music, or french literature, or chinese art, but not on women's music.

Such an airy-fairy definition. Meh.

As an artist, what I create may in some respects be informed by my experience as female, however, it is impossible to seperate that from my experience as white, growing up working class, western Canadian, etc, etc, etc.

The problem I have with this definition is that being female isn't a culture of its own in the way being French or POC is and can be. Most of us have males that we are close to and exist with and share a culture with. I don't think we can be separate enough to claim that we have our own culture. And even if we could, I don't think it would be productive - rather, it would reinforce the inequalities rather than remove them.

The root of this, of course, is essentialism -the idea that women are fundamentally different in some biologically determined way. I regard this as a virulent strain of utter bullshit. As long as we maintain that males and females (and all points in between) are so fundamentally different that we need seperate spheres, we play into the ideas that women are not suited to certain kinds of work or positions of power. It's the same thinking with a "no, but we're actually really good" pasted overtop. The "seperate but equal" sentiment of this kind of thinking should be ringing claxon bells of alarm. So from a feminist perspective, I think we need to put that philosophy to bed and move the heck on.

It seems to me that Michfest is suffering from a serious case of essentialism and that it's causing them some problems. I can understand why they would have historically embraced that kind of thinking, but it's clear that the world has changed in the 40 years since its inception and it's now time to catch up with the 21st Century.

Sat, 2014-09-06 17:53

#44

Bacchus

Pondering, replace the word trans with POC and women with white or replace trans with women and replace women with men

Then tell me if the defenses of michfest are still reasonable, or totally fucking racist and sexist and discriminatory for those substitutions and how they arent for michfest?

Sat, 2014-09-06 19:14

#45

Pondering

Bacchus wrote:

Pondering, replace the word trans with POC and women with white or replace trans with women and replace women with men

Then tell me if the defenses of michfest are still reasonable, or totally fucking racist and sexist and discriminatory for those substitutions and how they arent for michfest?

That makes no sense. The trans woman I quoted acknowledged the unique experience of being assigned female at birth. Actually, I would say women who are POC do have unique experiences growing up that are not shared by white people. WOC do have some events at Michfest that exclude women who are not WOC while there are no events that exclude trans women.

This year an intensive workshop was held :

Breast Casting for Womyn of Color ~ Cassandra Buchanan

What's wrong with whitish breasts? We should protest!

Michfest is embracing trans women as fully welcome members of the sisterhood, fully accepted as women. They are part of the Michfest community, they work on the Michfest crew. As long as the trans woman in question had coloured breasts she could go to the breast casting workshop but I probably couldn't.

Should Michfest change their policy and bar trans women so they can un bar them?

I think trans women should take yes for an answer.

Sat, 2014-09-06 19:26

#46

6079_Smith_W

Timebandit wrote:

The problem I have with this definition is that being female isn't a culture of its own in the way being French or POC is and can be. Most of us have males that we are close to and exist with and share a culture with. I don't think we can be separate enough to claim that we have our own culture. And even if we could, I don't think it would be productive - rather, it would reinforce the inequalities rather than remove them.

Perhaps not, and perhaps not in the case of women. But I think a different case could be made for gay and lesbian communities, which have been forced underground, have a very unique history (not to say that women do not) and in some cases had their own languages.

It has nothing to do with interacting with others, and you or I might not even recognize it as a culture, and I am sure not every gay or lesbian person even sees it that way. But again, that we don't see it doesn't make it invalid.

And it doesn't make any difference regarding this question of discrimination against trans people (though I could see how that way of seeing things could lead some into that trap).

Sat, 2014-09-06 19:45

#47

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Smith, Pondering referenced "women's culture", not lesbian culture, and it's not the only time that the wide net has been cast over that particular topic. While we still have a long way to go before we achieve full equality for women, I also think that women and men, in general, are not living in the seperate spheres they tended to inhabit a generation ago. The argument is better made for a group that has had to be underground, which is why there is a LGBT subculture. But for women, simply on the basis of being female? I don't think so.

Sat, 2014-09-06 19:47

#48

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Pondering, as I pointed out after quoting the statement you posted, the acceptance is lukewarm at best and pretty contradictory. Brings to mind the art of the notpology. It doesn't sound like full acceptance, and it certainly doesn't come off as a welcome with open arms.

Tue, 2014-09-09 02:17

#49

Sean in Ottawa

It is a disturbing trend that young people-- students at universities can no longer be expected to be at the forefront of progress... That there could be T-shirts by frosh leaders at Carleton including women that said Fuck Safe Spaces says a great deal. It was older women who noticed and complained not other students. The tone deaf nature of the current generation of students hopefully will wear off as they get older because a lot of damage can be done in a short time. It would not take much for one generation to squander the hard-won progress of a previous generation.

I am not hearing that women feel any safer than they did a generation ago although perhaps some here can comment on that first hand.

Wed, 2014-09-10 19:32

#50

Pondering

Timebandit wrote:
Pondering, as I pointed out after quoting the statement you posted, the acceptance is lukewarm at best and pretty contradictory. Brings to mind the art of the notpology. It doesn't sound like full acceptance, and it certainly doesn't come off as a welcome with open arms.

Racial integration didn't come easily either. Closing down Michfest does nothing to improve the status of trans women. Claiming space at Michfest and contributing to it's success gives a meeting place for reconciliation and ultimately solidarity between all kinds of women.

I stopped contributing to this conversation because I have become uncomfortable with the direction which has the potential to be become hurtful towards trans women if it hasn't already. I believed this was an example of the communities of women making peace and coming together. It was not my intent to ignite a debate.

Unless someone objects I'd like to request the closure of this thread. We can start up a new one to discuss women's spaces and whether or not women's culture exists.

Thu, 2014-09-11 10:47

#51

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

True, racial integration didn't come easily - but it didn't happen without a lot of pushing and not letting the majority wiggle out of situations where they were clearly in the wrong. So in this case, instead of saying "Well, we shouldn't make them, give them time, it's understandable that they're grudging about it" why don't we just say, "You know, as an oppressed group they should be more understanding, step up to the plate and maybe re-examine their position without trying to preserve their status quo". Michfest doesn't have to close down. There's a choice to be made: Stop discriminating, adapt and keep going or stay the course and have people call you on your prejudices.

The additional problem is that it isn't a story of women coming together. It's a story of women being excluded because others can't let go of their prejudices - and that's been inherently hurtful to trans women from the start. If exclusion is the only way to preserve the space, then perhaps it's time to change it.

Michfest and Defending Women's Culture and Spaces.

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