Privilege and Obliviousness
trans activism re-creating lesbian separatism?
Below is a series of postings to Strap-on.org message board, in which Emi discusses whether or not musicians who play with other musicians who support Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (with its anti-trans policy) should be boycotted.
Forum: Strap-on.org
Date: 03/07/2002
while i'm not gonna protest folks who play with someone who plays at MWMF, i'm certainly not gonna give them money. > Like I wouldn't give money to a band that played with a band that supported any other -ism, i gotta think, if a band is willing to play with another band and just over look their transphobia, well.... what does that say about them...
now this is getting into a tricky area... so, would you say you would not shop at any businesses owned by people who attend mwmf and by doing so financially supporting the transphobic institution? and any other businesses that have business relationships with those businesses?
emigrl
Forum: Strap-on.org
Date: 03/07/2002
"and any other businesses that have business relationships with those businesses?" > This is apples and oranges. There is a big difference between the little old lesbian down the street who owns the coffee shop down the block going to MWMF and hanging out with her friends and the BIG HUGE DYKE BAND (tm) who goes and plays to 6000 people and draws people to the festival. > I know if I was in a band I wouldn't play a show with folks who played MWMF.
That's fine as a personal choice - that is, if you don't want to play with them just because you don't feel comfortable. But you seem to be suggesting that this is not a personal choice, but the only political position for trans allies - that you expect anyone who is a true trans-ally to not perform with other musicians who perform at MWMF.
The fact is that I work with racists, sexists, homophobes, and yes transphobes (among other things) every day, even as I am repelled by (and pushed to confront them for) their racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. because the alternative is puritanism, just like the lesbian separatism (and here I'm not talking about everyone who calls herself a lesbian separatist, but the lesbian separatist political/theoretical position).
Lesbian separatism demanded its members to purify themselves of Patriarchal influences through cutting off ties first to men, and then to straight women, bisexual women, sex workers, S/M practitioners, and anyone else who were viewed as being manipulated by the Patriarchy into having false consciousness. In doing so, lesbian separatism. In 1977, Combahee River Collective criticized this kind of puritanism and wrote: "Although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand... We reject the stance of lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us."
Emigrl
Forum: Strap-on.org
Date: 03/07/2002
It's beyond a personal choice. When you are in a band, your appearance at a show lends legitimacy to all the other bands there. What you are saying is "Hi, this is not a bunch of kids fucking around in their basement, we're a real band." > Just like I wouldn't work for a company that had racist, sexist, homophobic practices (like, say working for the some right wing washington think tank) I also wouldn't date a person who did either. > Do you see what I'm driving at?
I know exactly where you are going, and I'm criticizing it.
You can perhaps choose to work for a company that is less racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. than others, but you just can't remove yourself from racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. system entirely - unless, of course, you are extremely privileged and did not need to make any compromises. Anyone who desires to politically purify themselves is not only indulging fantasy, but also reinforcing social hierarchies of power and privilege by blaming those, like members of Combahee River Collective, cannot afford to entertain such a fantasy.
Old lefty expression goes, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." I think this frame of thinking is problematic, because it neglects ways in which we are all part of the problem whether or not we like it, and no matter how much we work toward the solution we simply cannot escape some complicity in this racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. system. The ability to remain oblivious to our own complicity in an oppressive system or pretend as if we can completely eliminate it is a form of privilege.
Emigrl