Michigan Womyn's Festival

Jo Read

Another summer, another contentious Michigan Womyn's Festival debate... For more than a decade now a storm has been brewing over the land of the Michigan fest. The 'mother' of all women's festivals, which has represented the importance of public women-only-space since 1976, has been under heavy [organised] fire since 1994. Articles about Michigan no longer talk about the freedom and positive experiences the fest provides for women; the goalposts have moved and have taken MWF and its organisers to the realms of bigots, anti-liberals, and short-sighted traditionalists. Quite an accomplishment for '70s radical feminists.

The controversy at Michigan revolves around an original policy from the '70s that maintains the fest's all-female space through admitting "womyn-born womyn only"[WBW]. Transsexual and genderqueer activists began to raise awareness of 'the gender prejudices inherent in the policy' in 1991, after a male-born attendee, Nancy Burkholder, came out in a workshop as a transwoman and was evicted from the festival, e.g., asked to respect the policy. In 1994, a group known as 'Camp Trans' set up across the road from the festival's main gates and have retained a yearly presence since, leafleting and protesting for a revised policy that includes all self-identified women.

While the fight over trans inclusion at the festival began between organisers and male-to-female transsexuals [MTFs] who wanted to take part, it has since become a rallying point among the 'liberal' and 'queer' communities. Groups at the centre of the dispute now include FTMs, intersex folk, and 'genderqueers' who identify as neither men nor women. There is not one element of the historic struggles at the fest which is not problematic. How far are the organisers prepared to let the policy be taken? Why do non-WBW wish to attend this festival? What use does the policy serve? How far is the policy supported by attendees? These murky waters are further mystified by the vast expanse of grey area between the policy and its execution. For example, while the policy says that there are many gender identities at Michigan, including people who identify as transgendered, individuals who 'come out' as trans will be asked to leave the premises. However, festival founder/organiser Lisa Vogel has pledged there will never be questioning of somebody's gender. The debate centres around the organisers' flexibility in implementing the policy, and the refusal of activists to accept anything other than a fully revised policy.

Michigan and the problems within it can't be addressed without looking at everything Michigan has been historically. It was founded primarily by gay women, people who had no safe spaces. Now that such a space has been created, they are understandably reluctant to let it go. As with so many of feminism's debates, the problems at Michigan revolve around principles and privilege. Organisers and attendees alike place trust in people to respect the 'womyn-born-womyn' policy. Equally, whilst people of many identities are free to attend [though they may feel discomforted by womyn's unofficial reactions to them] their presence is dependent upon whether their own principles dictate that they need to 'come out' as trans, etc. And why are men excluded from the festival? To avoid the problems women find in society, e.g., safety, dismissal of issues important to women, which result from oppression by a group who hold social privilege [men].

Opposition to Michigan has publicised the problems that the fest holds for non-attendees. The policy at Michigan revolves around the comfort of 'the group'. It puts the responsibility on a minority group who are excluded and asked to respect this exclusion, rather than questioning the entitlement of the dominant group to be able to remove what makes them uncomfortable. When Vogel says women-born-women, she means non-transsexual women, and that is a privilege: being non-transsexual in a society that excludes transsexuals. As Michigan continues through the Twenty-first century, the WBW-only policy might either represent the continued need for a space for women, outside society's changing definitions of gender and womanhood, or feminism's uncompromising and frightened core that cannot risk reassessing its ideas. Or maybe it's both. Feminists have always argued that the people in the dominant group need to feel uncomfortable for social change to progress. That when men, or whites, or able-bodied people feel uncomfortable, perhaps marginalized people will feel safer. We can but wait to see how uncomfortable things will become.