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This first interview was conducted sitting on the ground in a circle out in the public space of the festival, an area referred to as "Festi-land". It was mainly intended to present one of the perspectives coming out of Camp Trans and to challenge the "women born women only" policy at Michigan. We had several folks drop by to listen, but they were 7 of us that did the talking. Some of us are still working out how we stand on this issue but feel that it is important to take a hard look at it.

Amy R. What are your names and what do you do?

Jessica Snodgrass, I'm the on-land organizer from Camp Trans.

Carrie Schrader, I'm a worker at the festival and a feminist filmmaker.

Brian Burgess, I'm a worker at the festival and also a trans activist.

Angelyn Anastasia (could not verify spelling), I'm a musician from Illinois State University.

Katie Bishop, I'm an abortion clinic worker from Cleveland.

Brandie Taylor, I'm a worker at the festival

Amy R. How long has this incarnation of Camp Trans been going on? Someone told me there were an original Camp Trans and a later Camp Trans, is that true?

Jessica S. Well what originally happened was in 1991 there was a woman, Nancy, who came to the fest. She was a post-operative transsexual woman. She'd been to the fest before, I think it was her second year, and she loved it. Got along really well with everyone here, really found this space to be amazing. And so she came back, 1990 was her first year, and she came back in 1991. And this is all very clear in my mind cause she just came to Camp Trans yesterday for the first time in almost a decade and we spent a lot of time talking, and going over her history.

So she and her friend were down at the gate, waiting for a friend to get in on a shuttle from the airport and she was having a conversation with someone, and I guess apparently, she said something that sort of tipped this person off to the fact that she might be a transsexual. And as a result, she was evicted from the festival. She wasn't allowed to go to her campsite and get her stuff. Her friend had to go and get it. And she was put up in a motel and bought a plane ticket home the next day. She was told that there is a "no transsexual" policy here-it's women-born women only. But at that point the "women-born women only" policy was like an unwritten rule, was what she was told. Like it wasn't in any of the festival material that anyone received. As far as anything she'd ever heard, it didn't exist. And so, to just be thrown out, for this rule that she didn't even know existed, was kind of disheartening, and really disempowering, especially since she'd been to the fest before and knew what an amazing space it was.

And so the next year, one of her friends stayed in the fest and spent a lot of time talking to people. Like, "Do you know what happened to my friend Nancy?" "Do you know why this happened?" "Do you agree that this is OK or do you think that this is a problem in our community?" You know, starting those conversations. And then the next year was the first official Camp Trans, 1992. They maintain that it was a group of transsexual women, some non-trans women, very few trans men; Les Feinberg was there, Pat Califia, Minnie Bruce Pratt, you know, people like that, and that lasted until, I believe 1994. I think it just becomes really hard to go protest something in the woods all the time. So it kind of died out or went away for a couple years, and then in 1999, the Chicago Lesbian Avengers heard about it and picked it back up. And that was when Camp Trans was sort of revived. Since then, you know in the past five years, it's been in the process of becoming more organized and working on having a concrete message. And opening this discussion so that we can all get to a point where we can talk about it and resolve it.

AR. Right.

JS. You know, in a way that's best for our communities, for our festival, for our selves.

AR. Someone told me that there was a time when there were workshops given by transsexuals at the festival. You know, people didn't bring attention to it. And at some point, there became this resistance and attention was brought to it, and then it became a political issue. And I didn't know if that was true or not.

JS. I don't think that I know anything about that. Which is not to say that it's not true or didn't happen. Of course the fact of the matter is, in any women's community there are transsexual women there. You know, they've always been there; they're always going to be there. It's mostly a matter of to what degree they're accepted, and how warmly they're welcomed, and what they're treated like when they're there. And you know, there are probably transsexual women in the festival right now. The thing about the policy is that it makes it so that transsexual women can't say, "I'm a transsexual woman," for fear of being kicked out. It's, you know, a "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy, which, of course, is what the US military has, and I mean, just like where I'm sitting as, like, a young feminist, like, goddamn we can do better than that. You know?

AR. Is Camp Trans asking Michigan because they see Michigan as the most probable ally to the trans community in general? And I mean "M to F's" and "F to M's" as well, you know the whole trans community. You know, seeing themselves as part of the queer community at large, which they feel that Michigan is some part of. Or is it just an issue about "M to F" inclusion in Michigan mostly?

JS. Camp Trans' mission is to change the policy from "women-born, women only" to "all self-identified women."

AR. So what about an "F to M" who doesn't identify as a woman anymore?

JS. I feel like that's definitely something that we as a women's community need to address, but that's not what Camp Trans is working on.

AR. OK.

JS. What we're working on is women's space and women.

AR. OK.

JS. If that's something that other people want to talk about, other people want to work on, that's fine. And definitely there are a lot of "F to M's" and gender-variant, female-assigned, masculine-identified people – wherever they're falling on the spectrum – who are at Michigan, who are at Camp Trans, who are incredible trans allies, who are vital parts of women's spaces.

Carrie S. And they're here. The policy as it's stated now, you know, there's sort of three ingredients that make it up. I feel like there's a part of it that means that female-to-male trans can self-identify, and make a choice, and say, "Some part of me still feels like a woman. I want to go to a space where that's celebrated, so I'm going to go to the festival."

AR. So Camp Trans is focusing more on "M-to-F" issues, really. Even though what is talked about a lot in my community is F-to...

JS. ...F-to-M issues.

AR. Which is interesting.

Brian B. I feel like it's important...there are two separate but related conversations, and I really appreciate that Camp Trans has really clearly articulated it's mission this year, because I think...

JS. ...it has caused a lot of message confusion.

BB. Yeah, yeah. And I think that the F-to-M conversation is one that has to happen within the festival because it's something that's already playing out here; whereas, the M-to-F conversation is completely different because there is a locked door.

CS. Right. And the F-to-M conversation is happening here all the time. And, at least in Worker Ville, I'll say, it's happening in Worker Ville, and it was a big part of the workshop this year.

JS. Well that's definitely something that's inside of here, you know, and that's something that has to be dealt with in here. What I and Camp Trans are concerned with are male-to-female transsexuals, because, the policy says "women-born, women only." And who's a woman-identified person who wasn't born a woman? The only class of people that fall into that category is transsexual women. So, which I mean, is another sort of linguistic thing that we could go on with...who's really born a woman? I'm an infant-born infant when I'm born and I grow up and become a woman. And I feel like how I became a woman, and the kind of woman that I've become...to say that's what I was at birth, that kind of erases a lot of my experiences and how I got here. Like, I'm not a woman because a doctor looked at me and said, "badda bing, badda boom...female!" You know, that's not what makes me a girl. I'm a girl because of how I walk down the street and how I interact with people, and how people treat me, and you know, what it's like to get shit from the sausage party at my job, and you know, like my relationship with my mother...like there are all of these things that make me a woman, and so very little of that has to do with what was between my legs when I was born.

AR. But the discussion on the other side gets into something about male privilege. So it's like do you think that society has some kind of reaction to what they think you are because of your sexual organs. And so a man, even if he, his whole life, up 'til the point he's like, let's say 20 years old, even though he feels like he's inhabiting the wrong body before he has a sex change to become a woman, or becomes a woman with out a sex change, he's still...is he still treated with privilege as a man? Or is he not, because he's seen...

JS. ...as a freak...

AR. ...walking differently, you know. And is that the issue...? Do you think this person never did enjoy male privilege the way we talk about male privilege?

JS. I mean, definitely all transsexuals have unique experiences, the way all women have unique experiences. And I don't want to say anything like, "all transsexuals feel that," or "all transsexuals have gone through..." so I want to just lay that out. I will tell you that, the transsexual women who I know, who are in my everyday life, and in my feminist and women's communities outside of Michigan, had a different kind of girlhood. And, one that I can't imagine because I'm not a transsexual woman, but one that I can relate to because I still grew up a girl. You know. And I feel like the conversation about male privilege, you know like when we talk about systems of oppression, they don't just affect the oppressed, they also affect the oppressors. And it's something that goes back and forth. And it's definitely this fucked up institutionalized relationship that has to do with equating power with one side of this dynamic that exists. Right? Like male or female. I know a lot of butch women, who have for, you know, fucking survivalist reasons, had to sometimes move through the world as men, you know, just because, they were very butch, and to be a butch woman, does not mean you get to walk down the street unharrassed, or not get killed, or beat up at the bar. And so I feel like when a butch woman has to, or feels like she should take on a male name or male pronouns, or you know, whatever...just to get through the world, like that's actually oppression, like that's denying her the ability to express her womanhood in the way that she would like to. But it's like a rock and a hard place, because do you want to get your ass kicked every day, or do you want to just, you know, know who you are and believe that you're being as true to yourself as you can be just to exist. And that's like an example of what may seem like some sort of male privilege being given to a butch woman moving through the world that way, but in reality it's oppression because she's being denied claiming her own gender and expressing that, and really having that respected. In the same way, I feel like transsexual women who are forced to move through the world as men for however many years. You know, until you can get out of your parents' house, or until your parents throw you out, or until whatever, you know that's like a survival mechanism. You have to walk this way, and you have to talk this way, and you have to put up with this shit, even though you know that it's not you, and you're being denied a fundamental core of yourself, your gender identity. But it's that, or your dad kicks your ass every day, or your parents throw you out and you end up on the street, and we all know that it's not great for a thirteen-year-old tranny girl to be on the street alone. Transsexual women are a very, very endangered class of women. It's not like there's a tremendously huge number of them. And in the United States, on average, they're killed, as a result of transphobia, like once a month. Which is an incredibly high rate for such a small community.

One woman was trying to hail a taxi in New York and had her throat slit by the cab driver and a lot of other cabbies stood around and watched her bleed to death. And when the paramedics came, and found out she was a transsexual, they sat and laughed and watched, until it was too late. You know, that's fucked up. And my feminism doesn't allow anyone to treat women like that. I can't fragment my feminism like that. The more diversity of women's experiences that we can get in touch with, the stronger we are as women. The more types of women we can welcome into our lives and share our lives with, the stronger our communities are. And, I don't feel like I can pick and choose which women I leave out in the cold.

AR. Yeah.

JS. ...and which women I let get killed, once a month, and, you know, which women I allow to not have access to rape crisis shelters, and you know, like, to me that's not OK. To say that any woman should not have access to women's resources, because some fucked up gender system decided that, you know, she couldn't be who she wanted to be from the get go. And maybe for a couple years, or 20 years, or 40 years, you know, whatever, however long, lived within that as a survival mechanism, like that's not, that's not really fair, you know? However long she may have lived as a man, as a man in air quotes, you know, like being forced into that role, doesn't fucking stop her from getting her throat slit on the street, you know?

AR. Right.

BB. And also think it's important to think about privilege, and how it already plays out in the festival, and that it's something that, in order to make this festival run the way that it does, is something that we already have to address on a frequent basis. So, we're already dealing with privilege based on race or class, or so many other factors. And to be inclusive to all kinds of women, it's necessary that we can deal with that. And I don't think that bringing in somebody who may have experienced a certain kind of privilege at some point in their life, that maybe that comes in as another part of privilege that we have to interact with, but I think that's a fine thing to do if it means that this festival can be inclusive of all women.

CS. And finding the places like, OK I can be empowered when I talk to women who have a like experience. I can be empowered when I talk to women who don't, and learn from that.

CS. I was talking to a woman in the festival...this is a woman, who considers herself an "F to M," but also still holds onto a part of her womanhood and comes here every year to celebrate it, and is a big activist... she was saying, as women, we are constantly having to take care of men and masculinity. It's literally from the minute we're born. The doctor looks at our pussy, and says, "you have a pussy, therefore you take care of men," and, you know, of course, whatever... And says, "You know, I decided that I'm a radical lesbian feminist and what that means to me is that I'm saying no to the male community and saying that I will not take care of you again. And even though you were born in the wrong body, that's not my job to take care of you. You have, you were born with a penis, and that means something, it means that you were told things from a certain age, no matter how painful it is. Like I was told things from a certain age with a pussy. And, we'll support you, we'll take care of you, but in this instance, this is for us to have a place to come to where we do not have to take care of men and their gender." So she said, "why aren't we asking the male community to say, you expand your definition of gender – you include men in your community, you include women in your community who were born as men." So then that gets to the whole pussy and cock, argument, right? (laughs)

AR. But if you're a trans, though, aren't you leaving your male hood behind? You never really had it to begin with because you didn't feel right in your body.

JS. But wouldn't we say it to FTM's, you're leaving your womanhood behind?

AR. I think Michigan is saying, you can't leave anything behind - once a man, always a man; once a woman, always a woman.

CS. No, I think they're saying, you can leave it behind, but the truth is, it doesn't matter, because if you've ever tasted having a dick, that's what it comes down to. If you've ever tasted having a penis, you have a privilege we never will and therefore you cannot come in. And that's when it gets really confusing. But it just doesn't fit anymore, I mean, I think 20 years ago the penis was the ultimate representation of the patriarchy. You know it was, when I first came on the land and I started selling sex toys, I would be like, OK well, would you like a cock? Which one would you like? And the women would be, like, (screams). And I didn't even, I didn't get it, coming from my generation, that a dildo, you know I had never even called it a dildo, I called them dicks or cocks, and it was OK with me. So, I don't know how that relates to the point in the beginning, but what I feel like now, is that it's a similar thing. We all have tastes of privilege; we all have tastes of privilege because of our gender, even...

AR. And our race, depending on what our race is.

CS. There are plenty of women on the land who have misogyny and so much internalized misogyny, and have tons of privilege in different ways. And, a trans woman's experience, I mean, at first I think I was afraid. I was like, well, am I going to feel those same feelings that I feel around men if I'm with a trans woman at a workshop and she's speaking from 40 years of male privilege? You know, the last 10 being a woman, but, really, 40 years before that of knowing what it's like to be male and having that privilege. First I was frightened, but now I'm like, I'd love to know.

AR. But is it really male privilege? That's the Jess's point. It's not really male privilege if it's somebody who has been treated like a freak for their whole life.

JS. Yeah, I mean it's, from the outside looking in, as someone who's examining this person's experience, I can understand how it looks like male privilege. But, if you allow people to self-identify, and ask them what it's like for their gender – ask them how their gender developed – ask them what it's like to live in that gender – you find that it's a completely different story. And how you experience your gender, and how society experiences your gender, is ultimately what makes up how you experience gender privilege. So, you know, if you are forced to or for whatever reason, live as the gender you were assigned for 20 years, and every moment of that is painful, and every moment of that is a struggle to identify yourself and to be able to claim and celebrate your womanhood, and get in touch with other women, and talk about being women. And like, you're completely denied that at every corner, based on this thing that you have no control over, by the people who could be helping you the most – the radical feminist lesbian communities – which, you know a lot of trans women come to because it's a fucking important community. And for a community like that to also reject you, and it's not just the frat-guy at the bar who wants to kick your ass, and it's not just the taxi driver, and it's not just the landlord that won't rent to you, and the boss that won't hire you, and your parents that won't talk to you, and your partner that left you. But it's also these women who have this legacy and this reputation, who are saying, "oh, hold on, when we said women, we didn't mean you." We are a community that has so much to give, especially to a very marginalized, endangered class of women. And, to choose to withhold that, based on an outsider's-looking-in sort of perspective, saying, what you experienced as male privilege, even when these women are telling us, no, that wasn't male privilege, that was fucking hell, and you've been there, you know what it's like to be a woman in a man's world. Why won't you listen to me? Why won't you help me? Why can't we do this together? I have a lot to bring to the table.

CS. But there are trans women that I know, that freely admit their access to male privilege. I mean they say, yes, of course, I felt this every day of my life. I didn't want it. And so they have observations based on that that are incredibly interesting. They have a deconstruction of the whole identity around it that is fascinating, and it's so worth hearing, and could be so powerful for other women.

AR. What is the relationship between the F-to M community and M-to-F community in this struggle?

JS. In the situation of Camp Trans, F-to-M's are acting as allies to M-to-F's. Of course, you know, coming from a transgender community, you know, they are often frequently aligned, and working together on the same issues, like legal rights, housing rights, adoption rights, marriage rights. So because of that it is sort of a natural ally, but in this situation F-to-M's are acting as allies to M-to-F's.

BB. I think it's important being a trans activist here, and this is coming from the perspective of being a trans-masculine person within the festival, and acknowledging that how the festival interacts with trans masculine people is something that has to really be discussed as a community, but I see that as a completely separate issue. When I think about doing trans activism here, it's around M-to-F experiences and inclusion. I think it's important.

JS. And this year with the movement to sort of clarify the Camp Trans message, and sort of like redefine our focus, I think it's been an incredibly smooth transition, you know, between F-to-M's and M-to-F's in the Camp Trans community, in the organizing community, in the attendee community. Because ultimately I think that we're actually now saying what we meant to be saying all along. And we're saying it very clearly. You know, like, for example, we're not here to destroy the festival. It never crossed my mind. I don't want to see Michigan end. I would like to bring my children here.

AR. So you don't expect people to not come to Michigan as a support of the Transgender Community? You're not asking people to boycott Michigan? 'Cause that has been a discussion, you know for a long time, about 5 years.

JS. As far as Camp Trans...?

AR. Coming out of Camp Trans, or supposedly. I remember, you know, when the Butchies played here one year, there was a lot of discussion about how everyone should boycott Michigan Womyn's Festival and musicians shouldn't play at Michigan because they don't have a trans-inclusive policy. And that carried on for years, when I would talk to people from the transgender community they would say, you know, I go to Michigan, but I keep it secret because my community does not support me if I go.

JS. Right.

AR. So I think it's important if Camp Trans is saying, "You know what? We're trying to change the festival, we want it to exist, we want it to survive, and we don't expect you to boycott it. We expect you to go to it and try to change it."

JS. Definitely over the years, Camp Trans' mission and message has gotten mixed up, especially because it's so hard to talk from across the road to in here. It's so hard to make that connection, and there are so many in-between people and so much stuff that gets confused and lost, that I think there has been a lot of confusion. Also, you have to understand it's not a monolithic voice.

AR. Right, OK.

JS. It's a lot of people who feel a lot of different ways. The reason we come together as Camp Trans is because we agree that M-to-F women should be allowed into Michigan Womyn's Music Festival because they are women, because they identify as women, live as women, and, you know, the other 51 weeks of the year they live in this community, too. They come to your feminist rock shows, they go to your feminist book store, they go to your feminist coffee shops, they go to the other feminist music festivals, they buy the books, they buy the CD's.

We want the policy to change. The policy doesn't change from across the road. The policy changes here. This is where the decisions are made. And, that's why I'm in here. I'm an on-land organizer. I was sent by Camp Trans.

AR. So if someone was trying to decide whether or not to play at Michigan, and wanted to be an ally to the trans community, what would be the right thing to do? Would it be to come play and talk about it? Or would it be to say, we won't play until you change this policy?

JS. There are a variety of different things that they could do and if a musician were to come play or was trying to figure out if they could come play; it really depends on where they're coming from and what they want to accomplish. And definitely Camp Trans has been open to dialoguing with a lot of artists. We've talked with a lot of artists. Like, you know, do you want to play the festival? Is this something that you feel like you want to support? If so, you know, what kinds of support are you willing to show for trans inclusion on the land? You know, do you want to talk about it from the stage? Do you want to donate a lot of money to Camp Trans? There are a million different things, because we're all activists here and we all do activism differently.

Some artists do choose not to play because they don't feel like it's something that they could support. And that's another complicated issue because I'm a 22-year-old, hip, young, radical-feminist dyke, like that's where I live. You know, I live in a lot of women-only spaces, you know, this is where I'm coming from. And women my generation, don't come to the festival. I know very few people who come to this festival anymore.

AR. Why?

JS. Because of the "women-born, women-only" policy.

JS. I could get 500 women my age to fill out registration forms to come to the festival. They would bring their partners, they would bring their friends, they would bring their families. You know, but they're not going to come until the policy changes, because it really has become a divisive issue in this community. And it's gotten to the point where the people who are making the decisions and the people who are in control of whether or not this policy is going to change, or even going to be discussed, are absolutely not responding to us at all.

AR. So when you go to Lisa Vogel, and try to have a conversation with her, what happens?

JS. I've never talked to Lisa Vogel; I've never met her,

AR. Do you ask her?

JS. We've sent emails over the years. She did receive a letter this year in the mail from our strategy coordinator. And there have been attempts to contact her. I don't know what the best way is, honestly. I feel like it's a hard situation for me, as like someone sitting where I am, to know how to get in touch with Lisa. I would love to talk to her.

BB. I think, and this brings in the last question, looking at this in kind of an overview kind of a way, this is an activist movement, this is a social change movement, right, I mean in a microcosm situation. But historically social change happens at a variety of levels. And, you know, one direction towards change is never really effective. It's a multiple direction approach that tends to work really well. I actually was able to sit down and have coffee with Lisa Vogel this year because I'm in here and I come from a community in which I get a lot of hostility for coming in here, and my roommate calls me a "scab" and won't talk to me for a week before I come here, because I make the decision to come here. And yet, I can be in here and talk Lisa Vogel into coming out for coffee with me. And sit down and talk about things, and, no, not change the policy overnight, but, like, start to really carve out some ground, and start to really make those alliances. And so then going back to the idea of playing here, and what's most effective for an artist, I mean, I do think it's up to the individual artist or groups of artists, but I think that, I think that there's a lot of constructive change that can happen inside the festival. And there's so much that comes from someone standing on stage and saying, "Well great, I'm glad you enjoyed my set, thank you for all this applause. Now let's talk." You know, and I think that's enormously powerful in here. And what I'm feeling is that that approach over the past couple of years, that approach is being taken a lot, you know more recently by Camp Trans, and definitely for the past few years by activists within the festival. And it's gotten to the point now, where most folks that I'm running into, who, a couple of years ago, would have said "no this is scary, I don't want to deal with it," are now saying "you know what...yeah, this is confusing and this is scary, but this has to be dealt with, so let's talk"

CS. Well, it's changing. I mean, even being a worker here, you know the change is coming, it's just a matter of time, really, you can feel it. It has to. It's the evolution.

Angelyn A. Can we ask a question? How do you draw the line? Like where is this line, this gender line, where are we going to draw it? That's what I can't reconcile.

CS. It would be self-identified. And I think that's something that so many of the lesbians I know might say they're most afraid of. If an individual comes in, and it is a man dressed in women's clothes, how do you tell that? And they're just afraid that basically, it's going to be infiltrated by men. So saying this is a function of your fear and panic, from being oppressed by men for so long, it's a valid fear that everything we have created is going to be taken away by masculinity and by men. It's OK, let's see what happens anyway.

Katie B. I get the fear, I really do, and at the same time, we think, 5000 women and one guy out here in the woods are some kind of match? I mean why are we so...? I do believe in women's only space. I think it's very important, and I really believe in the festival, but I think we can handle it, I really do.

CS. You have to be able to convince a woman who's been coming here for 30 years, whose job was to stand on the front line, and ask men to leave the land, who got beat up year, after year, after year. Twenty years, you know, five years ago, men coming on the land in groups.

AR. Did that happen? Men tried to come on? For what reason, just to harass?

CS. To beat up, to harass. The Christian right, infiltrating with men.

BB. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I've heard some of that history, and it's a totally valid fear. But I think the other thing that's always important to think about is that harassment is harassment, and this is a self-policing community, and we know harassment when we see it. And when something's going on, like obviously, I'd rather see someone be expelled from the land for their actions than for their identity. So if we assume safe space, I think we should learn to recognize what's not safe when we see it and deal with actions rather than identities.

JS. And also to deal with the idea that safe space isn't just something that exists when you isolate part of a community...you know, like safe space doesn't just exist when you say no men allowed, it's only women. 'Cause women hurt other women. And you have to recognize that safe space is an act, a work in progress. It's something that we all do every day to take care of each other and ourselves. It's not just something that exists, it's something that we create every time we leave our tents or our houses or wake up.

KB. You were talking about the line. And I think that's a really interesting point. I was in this gender workshop yesterday where they were talking about gender binary, and that the binary itself is a patriarchal concept. And I believe that that's true. And she was saying that you can either, when you're faced with being gender-variant, or an un-womanly woman in this culture, you can either be a radical feminist, or you can be trans. And she was saying, we all make deals, basically, so people that are trans have copped out. And I thought, first of all, that's a really unfair characterization. I think "we make deals" is not a good way to talk about somebody who's making a major transition in their life, like, you haven't thought about this. The other part is that it doesn't seem to me that trans folks buy into the binary, it seems that these are the people that are teaching us about exploding the binary, that that's the whole point of that. And so, isn't it a very patriarchal concept to think we have a line? And that there is a clear line. And it matches for everybody. You can be on this, or this. When there are so many folks, I mean intersex books are a really good example, of people that just are ambiguous. And you know, being able to embrace the ambiguity of gender seems to me, a feminist concept.

JS. I did want to speak to this earlier point before I completely forget it, of this fear of, if we allow transsexual women on the land that men will come in and men will take over. I want to make it really clear that when I'm having this conversation, I'm only talking about women. Like, I'm not talking about men. Really, when it comes to women's space, I'm not concerned with men, I'm concerned with women. And I'm concerned with women that are denied women-only space, you know as result, a function of, some variance in womenhood. I was in a workshop the other day where they were talking about trans-inclusion in women-only spaces. And one woman, I guess she ran, or was involved with working at a domestic violence shelter, like some women-only space, like a crisis shelter. And she said that they had changed their policy to include self-identified women, not just like people-with-a-pussy or women-born-women, or creatures-with-cunts, or whatever, but self-identified women. If you're living as a woman, if you feel like a woman, and you need help from a women's resource center, you're welcome here. And she said that since they'd made this change in the policy, not one man had tried to come in. And I think that this is sort of like a red herring that's thrown out to avoid the whole conversation altogether.

AR. It's a generational thing, though. It didn't happen, the trans discussion didn't happen on this level 20 years ago...

JS. No, definitely, it's a whole other conversation.

AR. I think it's an evolution of the community.

JS. And the world.

AR. So women are scared, because their reality is, you know, women who have been coming here for 20 years, and maybe even younger women are scared, because their reality is: you may be talking about women when you speak about transsexuals, but they're thinking, what if it's a pre-op transsexual, there's still a penis. You know, there's this fear, because there's not...

JS. Because there's not an understanding...

AR. ...right, but that takes time.

JS. That's why we have these little flyers. It's entitled "Because Trans-Women's Voices Are Silenced At Michigan." And the first thing is, of course: "the women-born-women only" policy doesn't keep out trans women. Some trans women can and do attend, the policy excludes trans women's voices, it silences us. I mean this is a conversation that we're having about women who aren't even allowed to talk here. You know, like one of the most amazing speakers I know on this topic isn't allowed in the gate. So that, to me, is really frustrating.

AR. Yeah, it's frustrating, but I guess I'm trying to say that I think that it is important, though, to recognize that the fear is happening, Some women who have been coming to Michigan for 20 or 30 years don't have the understanding that you have, because in their world... they didn't have the same level of articulation of transgender. Their experience of men trying to come on the land or harassing them is a valid source of concern.

JS. I do. I definitely, I accept the fear. And I know like, the other day, a woman was telling me about being on the line, fighting with guys who would line up and harass the women. And I know that legacy is there. BB. It needs to be heard, and absolutely needs to be validated. And the conversation can continue after that validation, there can be so much education, but without that validation, that conversation's going nowhere.

KB. Right now, my biggest concern is that if the policy changed today, I don't feel safe for trans women on the land. I worry about how it's going to be for them when they're included.

AR. Oh, for their safety...for their own safety?

JS. Can I please speak to that, quickly? I know that there is a policy on the land for no gender checks, no panty checks...whatever it's called. This policy wasn't to protect trans women on the land who maybe were being harassed for looking too much like a man. This policy was created because there were butch women on the land who were being harassed for looking like too much of a man. Now, it is allowed, OK, and encouraged for butch women to come here. If they feel so harassed about their gender that there has to be a policy that says it's OK for a butch woman to be here and, quote, "look like a man." She's a woman, she's a woman, accept her. If that sort of attitude is so pervasive that it's not safe for a gender-variant, you know - woman, like a butch woman on the land, I cannot imagine what it would be like for a transsexual woman. Like that's a policy made to protect someone who's already in here from this rampant fear of men on the land. And if that's how bad it is for women who've been here since the beginning, I do fear for, if the policy changed tomorrow, what would it be like for my friends to come over here.

Brandie T. Here's my struggle. I can't wrap my brain around how a private festival, on a land that is owned by a very small community, can effect change on the levels you're speaking of.

JS. That's a really great question and I'm really glad that you brought that up. To me, that is one of the most important things about Michigan and this particular issue. It's at the core of all of this. Michigan Women's Music Festival has been around for 29 years. So we're talking about a legacy and an institution in radical feminist communities. It was started as this amazing, progressive space where incredible shit happened. When this festival was founded, there was nothing like it anywhere else in the world and as a result, the women in feminist communities across the country and from around the world come here. It's absolutely unique, and it's incredibly amazing. And so many women come here to find solace, to find support, empowerment, to heal, all of these things. And the women who come here are the women who run the rape-crisis shelters in their hometowns, they're the women who run the domestic violence shelters in their hometowns, they're the women who own the bookstores, they're the women who make the hiring decisions in women-only companies, you know, they're the women who are lawyers who take on women's issues cases. I don't even have words to express how important Michigan is to so many women. You know how vital it is and how huge of an influence it is in women's communities. And so when these amazing women doing all of this incredible work, come on their feminist vacation for the year, they come to like, the holy mother of like, magic, feminist, revolutionary...I don't even have words for it, this is where they come. And they walk in the gates, and this is a place where it's OK to exclude women based on their transsexual status, and they take that home. And that's why like 90% of the domestic violence shelters in California that are women-only don't allow transsexual women. You know, that's where it comes from. It's not 6 days a year; it's 365 days a year. We're all living in this community all the time. It doesn't stop at the gate. We all take what we get here, and we take it home, and we share it with our communities. And that is fucking important. That's why the festival matters.

CS. And we come here to learn how to run businesses. I know I came here, and there was no model in the world for me of how a women-run business works. So I came here and that's how I learned.

JS. You know, this is the source of so much inspiration and learning and growing for so many women. And, yeah, there are transsexual women who would come here, if the policy were changed, but to me, that's you know, six days, like that's not the only thing we're talking about. We're talking about asking the festival to be aware of the enormous influence it has in feminist and women's communities, and really do something constructive and progressive with that power and that influence. And, to be a source of inspiration for trans inclusion, and to be a source of encouragement for women who want to make their spaces trans-inclusive. And they can come to Michigan and see how amazing it is to have the diversity of trans women in the festival. And to see all that trans women bring to the table, and the conversation about feminism and male privilege, and what it's like to fucking be a woman in the world. And take that home, and integrate that into their women-run businesses, and all of the stuff that they do, because the women here are amazing, and they get a lot from this festival. And I want everything they get from this festival to be something that's constructive every day of the year, for all women.

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