Michigan: two camps face off over trans inclusion

Controversy shadows music festival while hopefuls work to change from inside

By R.J. Grubb
August 28, 2003
The Bay Windows (Mass.)

With only a mile of dirt road between them, campers at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) and Camp Trans pitched their tents for another aching feud in northern Michigan earlier this month. Stuck in a stalemate, both sides headed home without resolution. 

Peace is a painful work in progress. Nearing a decade old, the feud between those who support Michigan's controversial "womyn-born-womyn" (WBW) admission policy and those who argue that it excludes and demeans trans women has not lost its ardor with age. With heated debates and ongoing protests, it's become a symbol of an enduring and tumultuous conflict between the lesbian and transgender community. 

"It's not about one week in the woods," said Sadie Crabtree, strategic organizer at Camp Trans. "It's about the ripple effect that impacts feminist and women's and lesbian communities across the country." 

Although celebrating its twenty-eighth year with a concoction of music, community and female empowerment, MWMF again found itself overshadowed by what's known as the "trans controversy." Across its pastoral 650 acres - called "The Land" - people talked on the downlow about low attendance and how the performer lineup felt weak. Some gathered to commiserate about being ostracized back home for attending. Others openly feared for the festival's future. If one asked festival workers where Camp Trans was located, some gave a polite answer. Others glared at you like you were an asshole. 

But there were also people - like Ami Puri - who shined hope. Wedged into a painful gray middle, a growing number of people are coming out as respecting the origin of the festival and its feminist principles while pushing for Michigan to adapt and change. Working from "inside" the fest, they hope to influence a collective shift in attitudes that hasn't been accomplished by confrontational protests and boycotts. Like accidental ambassadors, their appeals ask people to reconsider their judgments and expand their sympathies. 

"I don't support the policy but I choose to be here at this point and talk about it inside even though it's very stressful for me and I'm not sure it's the right way to support change," said Puri, a festival artisan who sold belts and metal bracelets crafted from old bike cogs and chains. "But this is where I want to be and this is how I want to do it."

Puri's decision is not popular. As Bryan Burgess, a Michigan worker, explained, "If you're a person in a trans community, you don't say you're going to Michigan. It doesn't fly well." 

Associating with both camps, Puri, who identifies as gender queer, gets heat from both sides. When Puri arrived at Michigan to unload with his girlfriend Seda Rhodes, they were too late to enter the gates at Michigan. Puri drove up the road and stopped at Camp Trans to park for the night. With few campers present, he thought it would be fine. But restricted to Camp Trans attendees only, they asked the couple to leave. With a nod of irony, Puri said, "I felt super rejected." 

Nonetheless, at his booth called Byketrash, Puri posted a schedule of Camp Trans and provided fliers on the trans controversy that he eventually took from the camp. Throughout the festival, people grabbed the information and asked questions. "It seems like they know something is going on and they know something is up but they don't feel like they even know what trans folks are or they don't even know what the policy is," said Puri. "They want to ask what I'm doing here and if I've been hassled." 

Last year, Puri was hassled. Back then, while in line to wash dishes after dinner, Puri was "attacked" by festival security. Unable to see Puri's wristband since he was wearing it on his ankle, security wanted Puri to leave. Quick mediation diffused the situation. Afterward, security apologized. 

But this year proved more encouraging. While presenting a festival sanctioned workshop on bicycle repair, Puri wore a T-shirt that read: "Trans bodies are gorgeous." People reacted positively. "I only got great comments," he said. "People asked where I got it and stayed after to talk about trans stuff in a positive way." 

Dichotomies are ever-present in this debate. Male/female. Pro-Michigan/Pro-trans. The sense is you can't be both. Yet to build bridges, it's necessary to straddle. 

"So many people say that the only way to affect change is to boycott completely and I don't believe that," said Rhodes. "I think it's really important to be creating connections and bridges and not have it be like 'this side' and 'that side'." 

A place of privilege 

Though the tranquil backdrop of tangled trees and unpaved roads remains the same, Michigan's festies hardly resemble politically correct Birkenstock feminists. Sure, the women - mostly lesbians - still popped their tops en masse. But festies now include many bearded women, people who no longer identify as female, and presumably people taking T. As a whole, Michigan looked like a mushrooming gender queer community. 

"I really love how gender queer this festival is despite the fact that it's supposed to be all women," said Puri. "I come to this place and pronouns get totally thrown out the window more than anywhere else I've hung out, except trans places. That's been a shocker for me and other people." 

It's a visual paradox. For some, it imparts hope for change. For others, it's a thorny dynamic that presents a smokescreen of revolution. As Crabtree, explained, "If you're saying that trans guys are still dykes, then you're saying that trans women are not. That's hurtful to the inclusion of trans women in lesbian and women communities." 

Exasperating dialogue about the festival's apparent inconsistencies is that Michigan reeks of calm. Lulled by the quietness of the space, author/poet Michelle Tea admitted that she once tried working from the inside but took a reality check. 

"I have always been against the policy but for a while I thought I could work from the inside and still attend the festival," she said. "I stopped because I felt like I wasn't actually making a difference. It was way too easy to be lulled by the peacefulness of 'The Land', the feeling of community, not wanting to deal with the problem." 

This year, Tea spent three days at Camp Trans covering the camp as a reporter for Dave Eggers' magazine The Believer. Though she "misses Michigan", she refuses to enter "The Land" until the policy is changed. 

Amazon rising and falling 

It's no coincidence that Michigan - however slowly - appears to be making an identity shift at the same time that transgender activists call for it to adapt or fold. Hard transitions have hit every '70s feminist-born establishment in the country. In Boston, for instance, New Words bookstore and Sojourner newspaper were forced to close after three decades of economic and social change.

Post-feminism, the fest has arguably lost its bite. Yet ever since transwoman Nancy Jean Burkholder was kicked out of Michigan in 1992, "The Land" has never been the same. Though the festival's organizer Lisa Vogel issued a public statement in the publication "Lesbian Connection", workers and festies have largely taken the matter into their own hands. As such, Michigan has adopted an implicit "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Don't Show" policy toward trans women. In protest, Camp Trans opened a rustic educational camp a mile away in 1994 that runs simultaneously with MWMF. 

Today, Camp Trans fends off its own critics. With only six trans women among attendees last year, people quip that it's become "Camp Tranny Boy." Plus, advancing its own exclusionist policy, Camp Trans has designated spaces that are off limits to people with Michigan wristbands. 

"It sends a message that Camp Trans is not a suburb of Michigan," explained Crabtree. "It wasn't to stigmatize people who go to the festival, but to help them think a little more critically about what it means to give hundreds of dollars to a transphobic organization in exchange for the permission to do activism inside, and what it means to speak in a space where other voices are not allowed, and what it's like to have a space that specifically excludes you." 

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for Camp Trans to transcend is the festival's sense of sacredness. In fact, asking long-time festies to talk about the controversy met with a wall of impenetrable purity. Many preferred to focus on how radical the festival remains. And it's true. Equipped with 700 workers, the festival produced a seamless affair for its roughly 4000 campers this year. Considering the coordination from staging to lighting to cooking three meals a day, it's an awesome accomplishment. 

Then there's the personal testimony. One worker, who has attended for the past seventeen years said, "When I get here one of the amazing things is that I forget that I'm a woman. I feel more like a person." Many people described it as "a rite of passage." People spoke of it as a "safe space." A path to define oneself as female and as a woman, which does not exist elsewhere. It's also common to see people in wheelchairs happily climb hills and rocks for the opportunity to camp. With sign language interpreters for each performance, a contingent of deaf women smiled in the front rows at riveting musical performances. And adolescent girls described it as "the best part of their year." 

"Really amazing stuff happens here," said Burgess. "It's a place worth preserving and a place of so much hope." 

More telling was how one woman flatly told this reporter, "This is your issue. Not mine." The evasion gave the sense that after fighting the festival's various internal fights - from separatism to SM - this woman was tired. Perhaps she didn't even have the language to talk about it. 

Gender 101 

While attending a Michigan workshop on gender last year, Bonnie Fenton realized that something fundamental was missing. "We weren't even talking the same language," she said. "It became real clear to me that if you're not doing that, then how do you even start the conversation?" 

Four years ago, Fenton, 58, came to Michigan for the first time. At the time, she had ended a long marriage and fell in love with a woman. She described herself as a "late in life lesbian." 

This year, along with Bryan Burgess, 26, Fenton co-led an intergenerational workshop called Gender 101. Expecting 20 people, 120 showed. Fenton and Burgess looked overwhelmed by the nonstop flow of people into the workshop. Astutely, one woman remarked, "Maybe you hit the nail on the head." 

Designed as a way for women in their 50s and 60s to talk with women in their 20s and 30s, the workshop shaped itself as a conversation; not a debate. But before the end, the dialogue delicately wrapped itself around the controversy. 

Having just read Kate Bornstein's "Gender Outlaw", Fenton has recently begun familiarizing herself with gender theory and transgenderism. Burgess, on the other hand, who identifies as gender queer, has been immersed in the boon of gender theory. Yet, Fenton acknowledged, she never questioned gender. Only with the help of her 27-year-old daughter's eyes did she begin to look at gender differently. 

Burgess, however, came to the workshop as a means to encourage people to talk and progress to a solution. "My motivation came from being here last year and having this conversation over and over again ad nauseam and realizing that the conversation was at a complete stalemate," said Burgess.

Though a couple people criticized the workshop for having an agenda, many more approached Fenton afterward and thanked her. Buoyed by the positive feedback, both are planning to pitch an intensive gender workshop next year.

Of course a next year without trans inclusion runs contrary to the aims of Camp Trans. But even Crabtree acknowledged that the problem isn't going away soon. Instead Crabtree is busy building a reliable base of committed activists and devising ways to improve Camp Trans. Michigan, presumably, is taking a vacation before inviting performers for its next festival. 

It seems safe to say that, come next August, with only a mile of dirt road between them, MWMF and Camp Trans will pitch their tents for another aching feud in northern Michigan.

RJ Grubb is a staff writer at Bay Windows. Her e-mail address is rjgrubb@baywindows.com .

Comments, criticism or praise regarding this article or writer -- or just about any other subject of interest to the lesbian and gay community -- are always welcome.