InYourFace Post-CampTrans '99 Press Release
Editor: Clare Howell, clare@gpac.org 

'NO PENISES ON THE LAND': MICHIGAN WOMYN'S MUSIC FESTIVAL EXPANDS 
POLICY"

[Hart, MI: 18 Aug 99] IN FOUR DAYS OF INTENSE confrontation, dialog, 
and negotiation, a dozen gender activists from Transexual Menace, the 
Lesbian Avengers, and Transgender Officers Protect & Serve (TOPS) last 
weekend successfully challenged the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's 
(MWMF) exclusionary entrance policy of 'womyn-born-womyn-only.' 

MWMF, the nation's largest festival of its kind and the second oldest, 
adopted the policy in 1991 to exclude transexual women. It was first 
used to eject Nancy Jean Burkholder eight years ago. The first Camp 
Trans was held in 1994 as an educational event across the road from 
the festival's main entrance to protest the policy. Thirty activists 
staged two dozen workshops for festival-goers, hundreds of whom came 
out to hear speakers including Leslie Feinberg, Jamison Green, and 
Minnie Bruce Pratt. 

At this years event, 4 openly trans-identified activists approached 
the main gate Friday morning, identified themselves, and asked to 
enter. All were sold tickets, and 3 MTFs and one FTM entered the 
festival. Faced with pre- operative transexuals and at least one post-
op FTM, festival coordinators enhanced their vague "womyn-born-womyn 
only" policy to include "no penises on the land," and the FTM and MTF 
voluntarily left. To the festival's credit, owner Lisa Vogel put out a 
statement saying that there would be no "panty checks" to enforce the 
policy, and encouraged attendees not to question any women's right to 
be there. 

But the stars of Camp Trans this year were the Chicago Lesbian 
Avengers who, in support of an inclusive MWMF went toe-to-toe with 
angry lesbian-separatists intent on harassing the trans-contingent out 
of the festival grounds. The Avengers provided moral and physical 
support of the activists, escorting them through the grounds and 
engaging in group shouting matches with indignant separatists. 

Said Camp Trans organizer and attendee Riki Wilchins, "The big change 
was that five years ago at the original Camp Trans, it was transexuals 
struggling with the Festival. But this year it was young, radical 
lesbians struggling with other lesbians. After one shouting match, I 
thanked one of them for her outspoken support, and she responded, 'I 
wasn't supporting you. If you're not welcome, I'm not safe here 
either. This is my issue, too.'" Her sentiment was echoed by a growing 
chorus of women who took up the cause as their own. 

There were no fewer than four different interactions. The first, an 
intense, spontaneous 3-hour confrontation in the packed food service 
area Friday at supper-time began with the Avengers surrounded by angry 
separatists and ended well after dark. This was followed by a meeting 
of festival staff and gender activists at Camp Trans Saturday morning, 
an impromptu workshop Saturday noon, scheduled on-the-fly, which drew 
over 200 women, and finally a workshop held in Camp Trans by the 
popular young lesbian punk-rock group Tribe-8, whose members are 
renowned for cutting up dildos and openly identifying as gender-queer 
during their stage act. 

In a broad show of support, over four dozen festival attendees donned 
black Transexual Menace tee-shirts, wearing them all over the 
festival. Many were verbally harassed by separatists who assumed they 
were transexuals. On the last day, three young festival employees were 
fired by management for wearing their Menace Ts while on duty at the 
main gate. 

For an in-depth interview with Ms. Wilchins on Camp Trans and this 
year's event, see http://www.camptrans.com/interview.html