Inclusion and Exclusion on the Gender Binary

I confess I've never wanted to attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. I thought about it briefly once and then learned there were group showers--I haven't had to deal with that experience since high school gym class and I was not about to sign up for it again. So this is from an outsider's perspective.

Apparently someone has a petition going to call for a musician boycott of the festival because the event is not trans-inclusive. The organizers are adamant that the festival is intentionally a space for "women born women."

I find this interesting for several reasons and there are several issues all tangled up:

Freedom of association (and not just as related to Congress)
On the one hand, I think people should be free to associate with whomever they like. Personally, if integration had required me to go to school with hostile people--or (say what?) send my precious child into such an environment--it would not have happened.  I have no desire to give my time, energy, or money to anyone who doesn't appreciate my humanity. There's a fiercely proud slice of my personality that believes that any space that doesn't welcome me, doesn't deserve me.

Freedom of speech (and not just as related to Congress)
At the same time, people should also be free to boycott or protest their exclusion, as they like. Particularly in cases when perhaps simply raising awareness of an issue would change how it's viewed. Until I read the organizer's letter on the topic, I hadn't known that trans women weren't considered "womyn" and part of the target audience of the festival.

"Women born women" as a Gender Identity
This idea is new to me. My gut reaction is that I was not born a woman, I was born female and I matured into my womanhood. Odd label aside, I'm not sure I'd consider this a "unique gender identity." And this is perhaps because these days I find myself in more spaces where the distinction is more likely to be femme/stud and not woman/man. So I now tend to think of gender expression as a huge component of gender identity and then I falter at how to read "women born women" other than as a way to tell trans women they are not "really" women who belong in women's spaces. Indeed many of the comments I read seemed very much related to the typical concerns that get trotted out in discussion of who gets to use what restroom.

Call it what it is
I wonder why the organization don't just rename the festival. Instead of saying it in footnotes (or actually: having the discussion in facebook pages outside of the main one), why not just call the festival Michigan Female-born Womyn's Music Festival? Then they could simply point to the sign and redirect those women who thought, as women, they might be long at the gathering. This would clarify: unless you were born with a vagina, this isn't your space. And then maybe supporters could stop attacking self-identified women,  calling them "men" and "he" and "him," simply because they want to participate in a so-called "women's event."

Privilege
I don't necessary have the highest levels of privilege and power in this society. But I am very aware of the privilege that comes with being cis-gendered/gender-conforming or whatever you want to call being born with a vagina and identifying as a "woman." Here's just a few:

• No one has ever challenged my right to use the women's bathroom
• I never had to think about when/if to reveal to anyone what genitalia I was born with or what genitalia I had. Or worry what would happen if they found out without my telling them.
• No one (okay, no reasonable person) will consider my not conforming to feminine ideals/stereotypes as valid reason to consider me not a woman.
• I can be rude/aggressive/just mean and no one is going to take that as proof that I'm not really a woman and am just proving my stored "male privilege."
• New revelations of about what genitalia I have now/had a birth is not going to lead to the loss of my housing or employment.

Here's a long list of privileges.

While I think, as I wrote, that people are free to associate with whomever they like, if we want to be conscious and connected, it is important for us to think about we are excluding and why--particularly in cases in which we are in the position of power and privilege (however unusual that may feel for us).

Defining Women

What is a woman?

That was the question up for discussion. And I was stumped. I had nothing to say, because I didn't have an answer. A woman isn't one thing, can't be summed up in a single phrase. Women can be strong and can be weak. We can be brave and we can be cowardly. We can be loving and we can be spiteful. Women can be whole and we can be broken. Women are so, so, so many things. Woman can manifest every possible form of human expression. We aren't one thing.

Then, of course, the question for me would be that if I truly believed that why was I there? What in me needed sisterhood, needed a community of women if I couldn't even define what a woman was? And that question was easier for me to understand and wrap my head around.

For me, women have been my nurturers. Women have cooked for me. They have sent me home with leftovers when they worried I would spend too much time studying and not enough in the kitchen. They invited me to holidays with their families and then cooked vegetarian baked beans for me…because even though my not eating meat didn't make any sense to them, they wanted me to be nourished in their homes. They have combed my hair. And while, yes, sometimes that was attacking my kinks with a vicious hot comb, it was also me sitting between knees as gentle fingers massaged my scalp and adorned my head with braids. Women have held me, soothed me, and moved me.

I enjoy the company of women, though I may not quite be able to tell you what a woman is.

Most of the other women at the table had many descriptions of women. And for nearly every one, I wanted to amend with a "sometimes." And, as often happens when self-identified gay and bi women get together, the conversation turned toward femininity and femme and stud and roles. That conversation followed a fairly predictable path, with one group decrying the reenactment of heterosexual male/female roles while another group  expressed how labels are a convenient way to help us understand each other and that to pretend they don't is to hide reality. And then there was my favorite group…those who welcomed everyone to take or reject whatever labels/roles/behaviors they wanted--and asked that their own choices, different though they might be, be just as respected. They spoke for themselves, shared of themselves, defined themselves, all without permission and without apology, just with an honest attempt to be heard and understood.

I do so love the company of women.