Michfest: The Bigotry Continues
As the Michigan Women’s Transphobia Festival comes to a close for yet another year, we see that for all our community’s so-called “solidarity”, there are still strongholds of hatred and bigotry not only in existence in heterosexual society, but also full endorsed and supported within our own community.
Any woman who might even think of calling herself a feminist knows that a bio-determinist policy, such as the “womyn born womyn” policy, which has been symbolically softened from refusal of admittance to transwomen to being willing to sell transwomen tickets to enter but still officially banning transsexual women, is an antiquated anathema to feminism’s most basic tenets.
It continues to amaze me how some women attendees and performers both, seem perfectly comfortable playing both sides if the fence, saying they’re against the WBW policy but are still willing to support the event with their participation. From my perspective, when I hear women talking about how positive and how freeing Michfest is, I feel roughly about the same as if I were listening to people talking about what a wonderful time they had at the last KKK Barbecue. And yes, before you ask, it is comparable.
We speak out against Beenie Man and his hateful music, why should the equally hateful policies of Michfest get a pass? Why should those who attend or perform at such an event be excused from their own responsibility in helping anti-transgender bigotry and discrimination to flourish within our own community?
Those who attend Michfest and then come back and tell you they support transgender equality are either liars or deluding themselves. Their attendance and support of this event validates it and ensures its continuance, along with its policies and the bigotry behind them.
You can’t spend a week in a land that welcomes some but excludes others for bigoted reasons and then come back and try to tell me it’s a positive thing. Michfest attendees and performers help hate and bigotry grow within our community. You can dress it up anyway you want, but the reality is that the organizers choose to identify the land as women-only space, identify who they consider women, and completely invalidate transgender identity. In other words, Michfest draws its own identity not by who it includes but by who it excludes, by who it defines as women and who it does not. It is base anti-transgender and anti-feminist bigotry of the first order.
You cannot attend or perform at Michfest and claim you support transpeople any more than you can attend that KKK BBQ and claim you support African-Americans. It’s only when people stand up and refuse to tacitly endorse hate with their participation in such events that real change finally occurs.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I agree wholeheartedly… It makes me deeply sad that an organisation born out of oppression feels it has the right to oppress others. I wish they’d try to step outside of their bigoted preconceptions to think what it is like to live the life we do.
I can only hope that had I the luck to be born as a natal woman and not as a transsexual woman, I would have a great deal more empathy and openness than they do.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I was thinking in the recent past that the concerns of the MWMF organizers was over safety and security concerns. After all, we do have men in this world who would try anything to harm women, and I think we all know individuals who “think” they are transgendered, but who actually are either fetishists or have mental health issues totally unrelated to transgenderism.
However, after doing a bit of research, I have no choice but to conclude that such issues are secondary to the organizers of this and similar events which exclude us. Such people, like the religious extremists and other hate groups, consider ANYONE born with a Y chromosome to be male and having “benefited at least in part from patriarchal privilege, and hence male.” This policy includes all transgendered children raised female, intersexed persons such as myself, etc. It does NOT include trans-men, even the most misogynistic and chauvinistic ones, who are welcomed with open arms. Trnsmen, however, are accepted as women, not men, an extension of the transphobic policies.
This is nothing but bigotry, based not upon rational arguements or genuine concerns, but upon hatred, fear, and intolerance. They barely tolerate the male children of attendees, and keep them segregated from the “women only” events and areas.
You are correct. We should not support those who participate in such exclusionary events in any way, shape, or form. Whether sponsors, performers, friends, etc., we need to make our feelings known that participation in any activity or support of any organization that practices any form of bigotry will not be tolerated, even a little bit. I have a zero tolerance policy towards bigotry, as do my friends. The MWMF, and in particular the organizers and sponsors, should be treated just as any other hate group is treated.
September 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I heard a rumor that Michfest is now accepting all women including trans women. I’m a bio girl who has never been to the festival, in part because of their exclusion of trans women. IF that has in fact changed, I might consider going next year. Can anyone enlighten me as to what’s going on?
egret