Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and transgender people

The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is an annual feminist music festival held every August near Hart Township, Michigan. The festival maintains what producer Lisa Vogel refers to as "the intention" that only women who were assigned female at birth should attend. The festival's term for its intended attendees is "womyn-born-womyn" (WBW): that is, assigned female at birth, raised as a girl, and currently identifying as a woman.^[1] This intention is a point of contention among some people who feel that trans women should be allowed to attend.

History

The intention first came to popular attention in 1991 after a trans festival goer named Nancy Burkholder was asked to leave the festival after several women recognized her as a trans woman, and expressed discomfort with her presence in the space.^[2][3] When approached by festival security and asked if she was, in fact, trans, Burkholder told her it was "none of her business" but that she "was willing to submit to genital examination in order to satisfy [security's] concerns about my sex."^[2][2][4] Festival producer Lisa Vogel maintains that this instance was the first and only time anyone was asked to leave on the basis of sex or gender.^[5] In August 2014, Lisa Vogel apologized for this incident, stating:

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.^[6]

In a 2005 interview with Amy Ray, co-founder and owner Lisa Vogel discussed the intention within its informing political framework:

I feel very strongly that having a space for women, who are born women, to come together for a week, is a healthy, whole, loving space to provide for women who have that experience. To label that as transphobic is, to me, as misplaced as saying the women-of-color tent is racist, or to say that a transsexual-only space, a gathering of folks of women who are born men is misogynist. I have always in my heart believed in the politics and the culture of separate time and space. I have no issue with that for women-of-color, for Jewish women, for older women, for younger women. I have seen the value of that and I learned the value of that from creating this space for so many years. So the troublesome thing is, in the queer community, if we can't, not just allow, but also actually actively support each other in taking the time and space that we need to have our own thing, then to come together, in all of our various forms, is going to take that much longer. And I understand how certain activists in the Camp Trans scene only see this as a negative statement, and I think that there's a lot of connection that's getting lost. Because, I really think that folks aren't understanding how crucial this space is, as it is, for the women who come here. And, maybe that's just it.^[7]

Criticism and protest against the WBW intention

After Nancy Burkholder was asked to leave the festival in 1991, a protest movement against the "womyn-born-womyn" intention developed. Opponents contend that the intention constitutes discrimination against transsexual and transgender people, many of whom identify as women, are legally female, and have to cope with the effects of sexism and misogyny in their daily lives. Transsexual activist Julia Serano provided her perspective on the issue: "Some of the women who travel from all over the country to attend Michigan think nothing of wearing their suspicion or hatred of trans women on their sleeves, and they will often make extraordinarily ignorant and insensitive comments about trans women in their attempts to justify our exclusion. . .[The] idea that the femaleness of my mind, personality, lived experiences, and the rest of my body can somehow be trumped by the mere presence of a penis can only be described as phallocentric."^[8] Activists for including trans women have handed out pamphlets to festival goers waiting in line for admission, protested at the gate, and boycotted performers who have played at the festival. They also established an annual protest encampment near the festival known as Camp Trans, which became inactive after 2011.

Several trans women have, since that time, attended the festival openly.^[9][10] Several artists who have been invited to and/or performed at the Festival have lost contracts or been forced to cancel appearances because of their support or their appearance of support for the intention.^[11][12] Other performers at the festival were physically threatened by pro-inclusion supporters, faced verbal harassment and bomb threats.^[13] In October 2013, the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp asked a Board member, whose Festival related team had raised funds for the organization, to resign her position for attending the festival without repudiation.^[14]

In 2006, a trans woman and Camp Trans organizer named Lorraine was sold a ticket at the box office. Supporters of trans women inclusion then issued a press release declaring, incorrectly, that the "womyn-born-womyn" intention was no longer in effect. In response, Lisa Vogel reaffirmed her support of and the festival's adherence to the intention.^[15] More recently, on April 11, 2013, in response to a Change.org petition organized by activist Red Durkin, asking performers to boycott the festival as a result of the WBW intention, Lisa Vogel released a statement again reaffirming the intention: "I reject the assertion that creating a time and place for WBW to gather is inherently transphobic. This is a false dichotomy and one that prevents progress and understanding.... Whatever spaces we carve out in our community to encourage healing and rejuvenation should be accepted, and we should support each other in this endeavor. Nobody should be asked to erase the need for autonomous spaces to demonstrate that they are sisters in struggle."^[16]

See also

• Camp Trans

References

Works cited

• Serano, Julia (2009). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press. ISBN 0-7867-4791-9. 

Further reading

• Eaklor, Vicki L. (2008). Queer America: A People's GLBT History of the United States. New York: New Press. ISBN 978-1-59558-636-0. 
• McHugh, Erin; May, Jennifer (2010). The L life: Extraordinary Lesbians Making a Difference. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. ISBN 978-1-58479-833-0. 
• Morris, Bonnie J. Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women's Music Festivals, Alyson Publications, New York City, April 1999. ISBN 978-1-55583-477-7
• Shneer, David; Aviv, Caryn (2006). American Queer, Now and Then. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59451-171-4. 

External links

• Michigan Women's Music Festival
• Festival letters and statements to the community
• Myths and the Truth about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
• Voices from The Land: A Collective Memoir from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival