Boston Lesbian Avengers To Join Camp Trans In Michigan Butch Dyke Boy Productions - www.butchdykeboy.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact Information: Gunner Montgomery-Scott Boston Lesbian Avengers Tel: 617/524-1063 boston_avengers@hotmail.com www.lesbianavengers.org Adrian Brune Wired Public Relations Tel: 617.227.3893 BOSTON LESBIAN AVENGERS TO JOIN CAMP TRANS IN MICHIGAN Activist group will protest the Michigan Women's Music Festival ban on transgender women Boston, MA: (August 4, 2000) The Lesbian Avengers of Boston today announced its trip to Hart, Michigan to once again attend Camp Trans outside the gates of the Michigan Women's Music Festival (MWMF) taking place August 5-13, in order to protest the festival's policy on allowing women born women only into the festival. This will mark the Boston Lesbian Avengers second trip to Camp Trans to fight for the rights of transgender women. At least 20 members of the Boston chapter will attend Camp Trans, a loosely organized mini-festival outside the 25-year-old music festival intended to call attention to the festival's policies of excluding transgender women. The Boston Avengers will join activists from around the nation at Camp Trans, held since 1994, including members of Transexual Menace and otherchapters of the Lesbian Avengers. Camp Trans festival will also feature a series of workshops on understanding transgender, women-to-woman violence, as well as "Gender Crash", a show of spoken word and musical performances to be held the evening of August 11. "The Boston Lesbian Avengers support the inclusion of transgender women in women's space and the rights of transgender people to self identify. We join activist everywhere in calling for full, clear, and safe policies of transgender inclusion not only at Michigan Women's Music Festival, but also at the Cambridge Women's Center in Cambridge, MA, in all domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, and any where else that people are excluded for being transgender. Who is deciding who is a women-born women and who is not, are there now gender police?" said Gunner, one of the Boston Avengers organizing the trip to Camp Trans. The current policy of the MWMF prohibits ransgender women because the festival is held for women born women only. Transgender women attending the festival in past years have been asked to leave by festival security and have been subject to degrading checks to determine their gender orientation. The original Camp Trans was held in August of 1994, two years after MWMF attendee Nancy Jean Burkholder was forcibly expelled from the event by festival security for being transgender. Subsequently, festival owners announced the women born women only policy, barring trans-identified women from attending. "This trip is an important gesture of solidarity among transgender women and non-transgender women," Gunner said. Transgender women remain a highly isolated community, widely excluded from greater women communities. The Boston Lesbian Avengers have worked to end transgender oppression, and to support those whom do not adhere to binary male-female gender laws. The Avengers believe that no women are truly free until all women are safe from gender discrimination. About the Lesbian Avengers of Boston The Lesbian Avengers of Boston is the local chapter of the nationwide of Lesbian Avengers. The Lesbian Avengers was formed in 1990 as an outlet for lesbians everywhere to participate in activism designed to stimulate change in the issues of gay and lesbian rights, women's rights and the rights of all parties subject to discrimination. The Lesbian Avengers of Boston is a grassroots direct-action group committed to queer women's visibility and working toward social justice/social change. For more information,contact www.lesbianavengers.org. About The Michigan Women's Music Festival The Michigan Women's Music Festival is the largest and longest-running women's festival in the United States. The weeklong camping event in Northern Michigan celebrates women's culture,community and ingenuity, with more than 6,000 women attending annually from every U.S. State, Canadian province and 30 other countries. For 25 years, the Michigan Women's Music Festival has celebrated the diversity of women-born-women through music, art and an environment for women's discussion.