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Crossing the Border Freely

clear, unambiguous boundaries are the problem

Forum: Strap-on.org
Date: 12/24/2001

<< in response to the discussion about who should be welcomed into Michigan Womyn's Music Festival >>

i oppose any attempt to create or endorse one definition of "women" as the official one. i prefer to leave it ambiguous so as to leave a room for multiple interpretations. i will continue to oppose the policy even if they changed it to "everyone who identifies as a woman" - to me, the issue is not just *where* the line is drawn, but also the fact that they insist on drawing a clear and unambiguous boundary where there cannot possibly be one.

for example, i am concerned that "everyone who identifies as a woman" policy would exclude people on the ftm continuum who locate themselves in *both* ftm *and* queer women's communities - this *does* happen. i do not know of very many ftm trans-identified people who would want to go to michigan anyway, but i believe that it should be *their* choice, not the event organizers'.

if the society insists on creating services and spaces under the faulty binary view of genders, those who are marginalized and erased by the same faulty binary system have the *right* to be on whichever side of the line they want to be at any given time in order to maximize their safety and comfort. this is just like how i believe that if we insist on drawing the national boundaries along the rio grande, dividing the region into the u.s. southwest and mexico, the people who have come from this region have the right to cross the borders freely at any time.

emigrl

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