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sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans2006-08-24 02:25 pm
sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com) wrote in trans2006-08-24 02:25 pm
more thoughts about the MWMF
On August 21, Camp Trans issued a press release claiming that the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival had ended its policy of excluding transwomen.
In some circles there was a collective "Yay!" In other circles there was a collective "Oh no!" And in most of the woman-hating, trans-hating world, there was a collective "Huh-wha?"
Why, of all the soul-crushing discrimination that transpeople face at the hands of governments, churches, employers, landlords, violent queer-bashers, and so on, should transpeople spend so much time worrying about a music festival in Michigan? Furthermore, this is a privately-run festival held on privately-owned land. The land owner and festival co-organizer, Lisa Vogel, has made it explicitly clear that she does not want transwomen on her land.
Going even further, the presence of transwomen in the vicinity of the festival every year, trying to get in, doesn't make it any easier to disprove the accusation supporters of the exclusion policy have made from the very beginning -- that transwomen have internalized the male sense of entitlement to go wherever they want to go, especially places they've been told they can't enter. (Unfortunately it is always easier to make an accusation based on discrimination than it is to disprove one. The same action which by a WBW would earn praise, is vilified if done by a transwoman.)
So it is worth asking whether the time and energy to protest the MWMF's trans-exclusion policy is effort well-spent. It is doubly worth asking why transwomen would want to ever give any form of material support to people who have spent so much energy promoting the idea that exclusion is valuable and good.
I suppose this issue is disproportionately galvanizing because this case of discrimination is coming from within our community, and is being done by people who claim to be trans allies. It has become a watershed for many of the discussions in our community about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be transgendered. The implications go way beyond a single music festival; therefore the issues raised by the debate are worthwhile.
It is necessary to spend some time examining the response to Camp Trans offered by Lisa Vogel on August 22. Her response is dripping with words intended to make her sound like an ally of transpeople.
Let's look at this line by line.
"As feminists, we call upon the transwomen’s community to help us maintain womyn only space, including spaces created by and for womyn-born womyn."
Vogel has asked for recognition of WBW as a distinct gender identity. Essentially WBW means "woman-who-is-not-trans." This new category of non-trans-woman did not exist before transwomen began identifying as lesbians and seeking a place within the lesbian community.
"As sisters in struggle, we call upon the transwomen’s community to meditate upon, recognize and respect the differences in our shared experiences and our group identities even as we stand shoulder to shoulder as women, and as members of the greater queer community."
Vogel calls transwomen her "sisters in struggle," but it is clear from her underlying attitudes that she does not see transwomen as sisters (or women) at all. How can someone simultaneously ask to "stand shoulder to shoulder" with someone when telling them to go away?
She has listened to transwomen enough to learn about our need to be accepted as women. She offers these words in an attempt to mollify us. But as the following shows, she has not changed her attitudes, which adds to her words a degree of prevarication. It was this dishonesty, in fact, which inspired me to write all of this.
'Differences in our shared experiences' is a problematic notion. The idea here is that people who were raised as girls since birth have been socialized differently from people who were raised as boys since birth. There is probably some general truth to this, but there is an immensely wide range of experiences individual people actually have as children. But even if gender-based generalizations can be made about childhood, it is safe to say then that the experience transwomen have as children is NOT the same experience men have as children. This experience may even be more like what girls experience than what boys experience, but that is obviously not a possibility that Lisa Vogel would be willing to entertain.
"We once again ask the transwomen’s community to recognize that the need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing the larger and beautiful diversity of our shared community."
The main 'difference in our shared experiences' that Vogel refers to is that women have grown up in fear of men, because of widespread discrimination and abuse of women. Let's leave aside for the moment that transwomen have many of the same experiences and fears, and the same need for healing and escape from patriarchy. The key here is that festival organizers want to create a space where women can feel safe from the fear of being raped or sexually harassed.
This is a worthwhile goal, but the only way organizers can achieve this, really, is to only admit people they know personally. They can't do this, so instead they presume that any woman who enters is safe.
This presumption is faulty. Women can and do beat, rape, and sexually harass one another. It is uncommon, but the cloak of silence hiding violence within the lesbian community has created great problems for women attempting to escape abusive female partners. It gives them nowhere to turn, even while awareness has been raised and resources have been created for women victimized by men.
The "safe space" festival organizers seek to create then is founded on the unspoken presumption that only people born with penises have the inclination and ability to rape or sexually harass.
It is said that to be in a safe space of this sort is incredibly healing. I wouldn't know, having never been in a safe space, but let us presume that this is so. Therefore the exclusion of men and transwomen is ideologically justified by the need for healing.
But there is a big problem with this idea, and that is the fragility of the safe space.
No one on either side of this discussion is calling for the inclusion of men-born-men. But supporters of the policy say that transwomen who do not pass will be taken as men and destroy the lifegiving bubble of safety and security merely by being present. Transwomen who have entered the festival grounds are said to have violated its sanctity. In 1999, two transpeople (a post-op FTM and a pre-op MTF) dared to take a shower and were seen naked by others and henceforth ejected.
It makes one wonder what kind of "healing" can truly happen on the basis of arbitrary exclusion. Is true healing so fragile that the mere presence of another human being can unravel it?
I would like to offer an alternative thought: that healing comes about through compassion. Another person shows you compassion, and it heals a little bit of the hurt inside you.
Women who attend the festival have come prepared to show a little extra compassion; and so i submit that it is the compassion on display, and not the absense of penises, which facilitates the festival's healing effects.
If this is the case, then organizers of the festival are actually sabotaging the chance for healing within the community by excluding transwomen.
Acrimony between lesbian separatists and transactivists did not begin with the MWMF, but started much earlier. Vogel acknowledges in her response to Camp Trans that people on both sides want to promote healing and understanding, but if that healing will come from compassion, which requires being present together, then absense and exclusion will actually further the damage.
It's a large world we live in, but it's a small lesbian community. Activists tend to travel in many circles, and it's likely (nay, inevitable) that festival supporters and transactvists are going to cross paths with each other in other circumstances. Are festival supporters going to be more likely to feel compassion towards the transwomen they call "sisters in struggle" if they have benefitted from their exclusion under other circumstances? To think so does not make sense and it does not intuitively compute.
Unfortunately the atmosphere around this debate has become so poisoned that it will be difficult for any healing to occur if or when transwomen begin to attend the festival. At THIS point, i fear it is only more likely that the admission of transwomen to the festival will increase the acrimony.
Organizers of Camp Trans, the annual protest across the road from the festival, say that every year at least one trans woman at Camp Trans walks to the festival gate with a group of supporters, explains that she is trans, and tries to buy a ticket. In past years, the festival box office has produced a printed copy of the policy and refused.
"This time, the response was, 'cash or credit?'" said Jessica Snodgrass, a Camp Trans organizer and festival attendee who spent the week reaching out to supporters inside the fest. "They said the festival has no policy barring any woman from attending."
In some circles there was a collective "Yay!" In other circles there was a collective "Oh no!" And in most of the woman-hating, trans-hating world, there was a collective "Huh-wha?"
Why, of all the soul-crushing discrimination that transpeople face at the hands of governments, churches, employers, landlords, violent queer-bashers, and so on, should transpeople spend so much time worrying about a music festival in Michigan? Furthermore, this is a privately-run festival held on privately-owned land. The land owner and festival co-organizer, Lisa Vogel, has made it explicitly clear that she does not want transwomen on her land.
Going even further, the presence of transwomen in the vicinity of the festival every year, trying to get in, doesn't make it any easier to disprove the accusation supporters of the exclusion policy have made from the very beginning -- that transwomen have internalized the male sense of entitlement to go wherever they want to go, especially places they've been told they can't enter. (Unfortunately it is always easier to make an accusation based on discrimination than it is to disprove one. The same action which by a WBW would earn praise, is vilified if done by a transwoman.)
So it is worth asking whether the time and energy to protest the MWMF's trans-exclusion policy is effort well-spent. It is doubly worth asking why transwomen would want to ever give any form of material support to people who have spent so much energy promoting the idea that exclusion is valuable and good.
I suppose this issue is disproportionately galvanizing because this case of discrimination is coming from within our community, and is being done by people who claim to be trans allies. It has become a watershed for many of the discussions in our community about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be transgendered. The implications go way beyond a single music festival; therefore the issues raised by the debate are worthwhile.
It is necessary to spend some time examining the response to Camp Trans offered by Lisa Vogel on August 22. Her response is dripping with words intended to make her sound like an ally of transpeople.
As feminists, we call upon the transwomen’s community to help us maintain womyn only space, including spaces created by and for womyn-born womyn. As sisters in struggle, we call upon the transwomen’s community to meditate upon, recognize and respect the differences in our shared experiences and our group identities even as we stand shoulder to shoulder as women, and as members of the greater queer community. We once again ask the transwomen’s community to recognize that the need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing the larger and beautiful diversity of our shared community.
Let's look at this line by line.
"As feminists, we call upon the transwomen’s community to help us maintain womyn only space, including spaces created by and for womyn-born womyn."
Vogel has asked for recognition of WBW as a distinct gender identity. Essentially WBW means "woman-who-is-not-trans." This new category of non-trans-woman did not exist before transwomen began identifying as lesbians and seeking a place within the lesbian community.
"As sisters in struggle, we call upon the transwomen’s community to meditate upon, recognize and respect the differences in our shared experiences and our group identities even as we stand shoulder to shoulder as women, and as members of the greater queer community."
Vogel calls transwomen her "sisters in struggle," but it is clear from her underlying attitudes that she does not see transwomen as sisters (or women) at all. How can someone simultaneously ask to "stand shoulder to shoulder" with someone when telling them to go away?
She has listened to transwomen enough to learn about our need to be accepted as women. She offers these words in an attempt to mollify us. But as the following shows, she has not changed her attitudes, which adds to her words a degree of prevarication. It was this dishonesty, in fact, which inspired me to write all of this.
'Differences in our shared experiences' is a problematic notion. The idea here is that people who were raised as girls since birth have been socialized differently from people who were raised as boys since birth. There is probably some general truth to this, but there is an immensely wide range of experiences individual people actually have as children. But even if gender-based generalizations can be made about childhood, it is safe to say then that the experience transwomen have as children is NOT the same experience men have as children. This experience may even be more like what girls experience than what boys experience, but that is obviously not a possibility that Lisa Vogel would be willing to entertain.
"We once again ask the transwomen’s community to recognize that the need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing the larger and beautiful diversity of our shared community."
The main 'difference in our shared experiences' that Vogel refers to is that women have grown up in fear of men, because of widespread discrimination and abuse of women. Let's leave aside for the moment that transwomen have many of the same experiences and fears, and the same need for healing and escape from patriarchy. The key here is that festival organizers want to create a space where women can feel safe from the fear of being raped or sexually harassed.
This is a worthwhile goal, but the only way organizers can achieve this, really, is to only admit people they know personally. They can't do this, so instead they presume that any woman who enters is safe.
This presumption is faulty. Women can and do beat, rape, and sexually harass one another. It is uncommon, but the cloak of silence hiding violence within the lesbian community has created great problems for women attempting to escape abusive female partners. It gives them nowhere to turn, even while awareness has been raised and resources have been created for women victimized by men.
The "safe space" festival organizers seek to create then is founded on the unspoken presumption that only people born with penises have the inclination and ability to rape or sexually harass.
It is said that to be in a safe space of this sort is incredibly healing. I wouldn't know, having never been in a safe space, but let us presume that this is so. Therefore the exclusion of men and transwomen is ideologically justified by the need for healing.
But there is a big problem with this idea, and that is the fragility of the safe space.
No one on either side of this discussion is calling for the inclusion of men-born-men. But supporters of the policy say that transwomen who do not pass will be taken as men and destroy the lifegiving bubble of safety and security merely by being present. Transwomen who have entered the festival grounds are said to have violated its sanctity. In 1999, two transpeople (a post-op FTM and a pre-op MTF) dared to take a shower and were seen naked by others and henceforth ejected.
It makes one wonder what kind of "healing" can truly happen on the basis of arbitrary exclusion. Is true healing so fragile that the mere presence of another human being can unravel it?
I would like to offer an alternative thought: that healing comes about through compassion. Another person shows you compassion, and it heals a little bit of the hurt inside you.
Women who attend the festival have come prepared to show a little extra compassion; and so i submit that it is the compassion on display, and not the absense of penises, which facilitates the festival's healing effects.
If this is the case, then organizers of the festival are actually sabotaging the chance for healing within the community by excluding transwomen.
Acrimony between lesbian separatists and transactivists did not begin with the MWMF, but started much earlier. Vogel acknowledges in her response to Camp Trans that people on both sides want to promote healing and understanding, but if that healing will come from compassion, which requires being present together, then absense and exclusion will actually further the damage.
It's a large world we live in, but it's a small lesbian community. Activists tend to travel in many circles, and it's likely (nay, inevitable) that festival supporters and transactvists are going to cross paths with each other in other circumstances. Are festival supporters going to be more likely to feel compassion towards the transwomen they call "sisters in struggle" if they have benefitted from their exclusion under other circumstances? To think so does not make sense and it does not intuitively compute.
Unfortunately the atmosphere around this debate has become so poisoned that it will be difficult for any healing to occur if or when transwomen begin to attend the festival. At THIS point, i fear it is only more likely that the admission of transwomen to the festival will increase the acrimony.