Doug Henwood Talks

From: National Center for Transgender Equality
[mailto:ncte@nctequality.org] Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 5:55 PM Subject: Womyn’s Fest tells transgender women to ban themselves

Advocates Celebrate End of Policy Barring Ticket Sales to Transgender
Women August 24, 2006

But Management of Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival Insists Transwomen Should Choose Not to Attend

Washington, DC — After an openly transgender woman was allowed to
purchase a ticket at this summer’s Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival,
Camp Trans organizers released a statement on August 21 celebrating
the end of a 15-year old, anachronistic, divisive policy that served
to police women’s bodies and exclude transwomen from attending the
Festival. Camp Trans is an annual gathering of people dedicated to
promoting inclusion of all women at women-only events. However, the
celebration of this news was short-lived as management of We Want The
Music Company (WWTMC), a for-profit corporation that runs the
festival, issued a press release the next day reaffirming their
belief that transgender women should police themselves and not attend
the Festival.

While the Festival box office will now sell tickets to transwomen,
according to WWTMC’s Lisa Vogel, the only people welcome are “womyn
who were born as and have lived their entire life experience as
womyn.” Vogel’s statement continues, “If a transwoman purchased a
ticket, it represents nothing more than that womon choosing to
disrespect the stated intention of this Festival.”

While trying to cloak WWTMC’s rhetoric in window dressing by calling
transwomen “sisters in struggle,” Vogel erroneously continued to
assert that it is not transphobic to ask transgender women not to
attend the long-running Festival. In a disturbing twist of logic,
Vogel acknowledges that transgender women will now be able to
purchase tickets, but she stands behind the spirit of company’s
recently retired policy, calling transwomen disrespectful if they
choose to attend the Festival.

“All women should feel welcomed in women-only space,” said Mara
Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender
Equality. “It’s just sad to see this company continuing to police the
validity women’s identities and experiences. WWTMC’s rhetoric echoes
the language of other oppressors. We expect better of those who
should know the pain of oppression. We’d like to see Vogel’s company
get up to speed with the attitudes of the feminist community and with
the vast majority of festival workers and attendees.”

While WWTMC has dug in its heels regarding which women it deems fit
to welcome to the Festival, the attitudes of festival-goers and
workers have definitely shifted since 1991 when a transwoman was
forcibly ejected from the event. The feminist community
overwhelmingly embraces the diversity of women’s experiences, from
butch lesbians to genderqueer dykes to transwomen.

Camp Trans organizers continue to educate WWTMC’s management around
the divisiveness of their position.

To learn more about Camp Trans, please visit: http://www.camp-trans.org To learn more about the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, please visit: http://www.michfest.com

National Center for Transgender Equality email: ncte@nctequality.org phone: 202-903-0112 web: http://www.nctequality.org

NCTE | 1325 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Suite 700 | Washington | DC | 20005

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