transgender

The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, also known as “Wombfest” or simply “Michigan,” has been held annually in early August in a northern Michigan forest since 1976 (“General… Information”).The festival’s central goal has been to create a woman-centered atmosphere where women can celebrate being women in an area free of male presence and patriarchy (“Out and About“). Although Michigan is not the first festival to celebrate women (“A… History“) , it is the longest running, looking to celebrate its thirty-second anniversary in August 2008 (“Rebuttal… Straight”).

I've been researching the controversy between Michfest and Camp Trans lately, because I read somewhere that Bitch and Animal weren't going to be allowed to perform because Animal is transgendered. This really upset me.

Michfest holds that it is open to only "womyn-born-womyn" who have lived their whole lives as womyn. I get what they're aiming for with the principle of creating a solely womyn oriented space, but by not allowing transgendered people to attend... it's a little too exclusionary for my taste. I was planning on attending Michfest this year, but when I read about all of this controversy, I was totally turned off. I was looking forward to a womyn only space as an exhilerating and life-changing experience... I still would like to experience it, but I'm turned off by the fact that they won't allow womyn to attend if they haven't been womyn their whole lives.