Written by:
Gina DeVries
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 13#7
Jess Snodgrass, 21, lives in Pittsburgh. She is active in the movement to change the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival’s policy against transsexual women.
Can you give us a brief history of the MWMF trans policy?
In 1991, a woman was kicked out of the festival on the suspicion that she was transsexual. Then the festival first announced its “womyn-born womyn only” policy. The next year, activists began doing outreach to fest-goers — [this became] Camp Trans, the annual protest against the policy. Artists Nomy Lamm and Rachel Carns have also drawn up a petition demanding an end to the exclusion of trans women from the fest. It’s been signed by over a thousand people.
Why protest the policy?
It doesn’t make sense to me why a woman’s trans status would disqualify her from any women’s community. Michigan is held up as an example of how wonderful women-only space can be; their policy sets a standard. It adds to the attitude that oppressing trans women is acceptable, or even feminist. Trans women are turned away from domestic-violence shelters and rape-crisis centers every day — that’s not feminist.
How are trans women who manage to get onto festival land treated?
Trans women have been screamed at, intimidated, and had all sorts of horrible things said to them. A recent festival handout asked fest attendees to please not question the gender of any woman on the land. They did that because nontrans women were being harassed if other attendees suspected they were trans. If it’s bad enough that non-trans women need to be protected from harassment, the space [is] obviously unsafe for trans women, too.
Some performers have pulled out of the festival over this policy. Melissa Ferrick has pulled out. … Jill Sobule was pretty shocked when we approached her — she’d never heard about the controversy and was disappointed to hear about the policy. Of the performers who support the policy, like the Butchies and Bitch and Animal, supportive bands have declined playing with them, and several venues have stopped booking them for shows. The Butchies and Le Tigre didn’t play the fest this year.
See http://www.strap-on.org and http://www.eminism.org/michigan for more information. |
