I mean, you see the irony here, right? (well yeah, someone just made that same point). She’s defending certain groups like MichFest’s right to include or exclude whoever they want. So, another organization says, okay, in that case -we- don’t want -you,- and NOW suddenly it’s so totally unfair?

Look, we’re not all going to just get along, no matter how much some of us wish it were so or want to keep extending the olive branch. The people in that Heart thread–I’ve never seen so much ass-backward rationalization in my life. “The Lavender Menace,” well yes, in fact. Someone who kept rabbiting on about the “lavender menace” -now- who got disinvited to a feminist organization–know what? No sympathy from here. Who’s being divisive, again?

good point. i’ll have to think about this.

The Boston Dyke March’s call was to cancel the Bitch performance. Your local community might be faced with similar choices, and it’s their call. Nobody gets to say “But that performer is queer. So our call is that you have to not cancel her at your event.” It’s that community’s call who they have headlining their celebration, and it’s yours when it’s your community.

They get to decide for themselves. If some statement or connection from some artist doesn’t jive with your values to the point where you can’t feel you can support them, you don’t support them. If, on balance, you feel okay about it, support them.

What line is there to draw? You want to change the channel, change the channel. You want not to, don’t. You don’t want the person next to you on the couch to change it, you talk to them about it, you know?

Not every LGBT performer is or should be welcome in every LGBT community. Dan Savage is a gay man, but he’s said some pretty unfortunately things about bisexuals and trans people. Why should a gathering of bisexual or trans people have to treat him as “one of their own” for the sake of the LGBT political alliance? Where do they have to draw the line? Are they obligated to invite him to an event? Invite him to speak? Invite him to speak about them? Encourage each other to buy his book? Just because he’s gay?

Bitch is queer. The community that decided not to make her its headlining star in Boston is also queer. That doesn’t mean they agree on everything, or don’t have the right to make their own calls about her positions and how those positions affect them. There is no obligation to use your resources to support and endorse someone you disagree with just because you’re both “LGBT.” I draw the line making sure people are allowed to make their own decisions about who they support.

Some other community event–the Austin Dyke March, maybe, or the San Francisco Dyke March–may decide, as a group, that they have no problem with Bitch headlining for them. That’s their call, too. I’m not going to second-guess Boston’s call about what they feel is best for their own folks.

I don’t see, considering that you’ve said in the past that you support, say, Michfest’s policy to decide who they let in for themselves, how you can simultaneously have a problem with the Boston Dyke March’s deciding that they, too, can decide for themselves–and it’s not even a decision on who to let in, just who they’re going to put up front and give their resources to! How is one group’s autonomy okay, and the other’s isn’t?

I don’t see why, say, a black pride march that includes black Jews or black peole who partner with Jews should be obligated to invite Louis Farrakhan as a keynote speaker, nor a homophobic Baptist college give their commencement address to a religious-left activist from Soulforce just because they’re all Christian.

Bitch is free to go, do, and say what she likes; likewise, the makers of “The Gendercator” can promote their film however they like, and nobody’s trying to prevent other people from seeing it or destroy the film. But a community that includes folks who feel attacked by those artists–including a dyke community that has in it trans people, partners and family of trans people, and allies who simply hold the principle that our rights are important–should never be obligated to use their resources to extend a platform to them or set them up in a position where those artists represent that community.

I just don’t see the censorship there. I also don’t see the prevention of other people from seeking out those artists and engaging with their work. It’s just the community exercising its right to refrain from supporting people who they feel are doing harm to people they care about, in a specific context.

Similarly, if the Boston Dyke March had invited the Indigo Girls to headline, and then as a community determined that they felt the implicit endorsement of Sony’s other artists was problematic, they would have every right not to invite, promote, and pay a group they felt wasn’t in line with their community’s values. And folk in the community who disagreed with that ruling would also have every right to fight that decision among their fellows and try to have it changed.

It’s not just because of where she performs. Bitch has made public statements in support of the policy of trans-exclusion at Michfest. In my account of the Dyke March here i quoted a sample of what she has said:

[I]t’s not trans people being marginalized. It’s people who were born as men. The festival is for people who suffered a girlhood. That’s all it is. They’re not trying to redefine what women are. … I’m so over it. I think it’s totally the patriarchy and it’s complete ageism. … If my elders want to say for these six days only these kinds of women can come, then I need to respect that. It is so against our nature to respect women for having boundaries. I think that’s exactly what’s happening.

this is an interview with bitch during which she speaks of her position.

As for the Indigo Girls, I don’t BUY their music . I support the musicians by going to shows, since that’s where they make the majority of their money.

I guess if both sides stopped exchanging barbs and realized how we’re all in this together, then things woul dbe better. Till then, there will always be those opinionated people who want to exclude others.