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Meh, OITNB's DeLaria Won't Attend Trans Exclusionary Music Fest (article)
Since this has become a point of some contention, I thought I'd post this particular viewpoint on a particular topic from a Trans woman.
Okay, I know what you're asking right now: how is it possible that someone such as myself would take such a cavalier attitude? I'm a trans woman. I have serious issues with trans exclusionary policies in women's spaces, and so do my cisgender women friends (and cisgender girlfriends/partners). Those women are precisely why I am not worried. The answer to the question about my attitude is actually surprisingly simple: Young cisgender women are voting with their feet, and they're voting against attending.
The numbers at Fest are declining each and every year at the same time as big names refuse to perform or refuse to continue to perform. Dawn Kirby, a long time Fest-goer had this to say:
This year there were more than 3,000 women on the land. I think the biggest year was 1985, the 10-year anniversary, when there were 10,000 women. It's been declining since then. About 98 percent of the women at festival are lesbian. There's a sense that because we're so much more visible these days that festival isn't necessary. Very few of my friends who went in the early days go anymore; they think that it's a lot of work.
Some, perhaps many, both cis and trans, may be tempted to say, "good" and post an accompanying picture of GrumpyCat, but I won't go that far. About all I can really manage is a barely verbalised, "meh." I think MichFest is increasing irrelevant. It's old. It's a dinosaur. It's not that women's spaces are no longer necessary (they are!), especially those that cater specifically (if not exclusively) to queer oriented women (again, Japan's Dyke Weekend and Women's Weekend), but rather there has been a general change in philosophy amongst those younger cisgender women MichFest would look to in order to continue on. Kirby mentions the visibility of lesbians—but it's not just that. There's more to it.
In my own experiences and circles, I see young cisgender queer women increasingly reject the idea of male socialisation as so encompassing, so all-powerful that trans women are incapable of rejecting it or escaping it. My friends, my peers, and my acquaintances both Japanese and Western, who are early thirties or younger—they simply don't buy the argument MichFest is selling, and neither are the women I attended graduate school with at a woman's university. They don't want the product being sold because they find the product out of touch with their values as members of the nebulous identities of "woman" and "lesbian" and "queer" and "feminist."
The numbers at Fest are declining each and every year at the same time as big names refuse to perform or refuse to continue to perform. Dawn Kirby, a long time Fest-goer had this to say:
This year there were more than 3,000 women on the land. I think the biggest year was 1985, the 10-year anniversary, when there were 10,000 women. It's been declining since then. About 98 percent of the women at festival are lesbian. There's a sense that because we're so much more visible these days that festival isn't necessary. Very few of my friends who went in the early days go anymore; they think that it's a lot of work.
Some, perhaps many, both cis and trans, may be tempted to say, "good" and post an accompanying picture of GrumpyCat, but I won't go that far. About all I can really manage is a barely verbalised, "meh." I think MichFest is increasing irrelevant. It's old. It's a dinosaur. It's not that women's spaces are no longer necessary (they are!), especially those that cater specifically (if not exclusively) to queer oriented women (again, Japan's Dyke Weekend and Women's Weekend), but rather there has been a general change in philosophy amongst those younger cisgender women MichFest would look to in order to continue on. Kirby mentions the visibility of lesbians—but it's not just that. There's more to it.
In my own experiences and circles, I see young cisgender queer women increasingly reject the idea of male socialisation as so encompassing, so all-powerful that trans women are incapable of rejecting it or escaping it. My friends, my peers, and my acquaintances both Japanese and Western, who are early thirties or younger—they simply don't buy the argument MichFest is selling, and neither are the women I attended graduate school with at a woman's university. They don't want the product being sold because they find the product out of touch with their values as members of the nebulous identities of "woman" and "lesbian" and "queer" and "feminist."
http://roygbiv.jezebel.com/meh-oitnbs-delaria-wont-attend-trans-exclusionary-musi-1573232463/+burtreynoldsismyspiritguide1
