The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival alias MWMF or MichFest, was a feminist women's music festival. This fest was held every year without fail. It is interesting to note that this fest stated its intention very clearly right from the start, it being "womyn-born womyn" meaning only women born with female genitals were permitted to attend this event every year. This means that transgenders/transexuals (MTF) were not permitted to attend this event as they were felt to have a sort of a "male energy". The organisers for this event were trying to create a safe space for the women. However, during the time when they were feeling motivated towards taking this step further, the core values were being ignored gradually (the core value being emanating message of feminism). A community that has been fighting and surviving to be recognised as "real" were further marginalised with this feminist (some say pseudo) aspiration.
"Camp Trans" was the name of the annual demonstration and event outside the MichFest in Oceana County, Michigan. This protest was held by the transgender women and their allies for the exclusion of transgender women from one of the world's most biggest celebratory events that offers privilege to the cis-sexual very blindly or maybe even intentionally.
The attendees to this event were blindsided and did not pay much heed to the fact that the transwomen were being excluded (a good segment of the community) and the existing heteronormative system that already failed to recognise the underlying struggling nuances within the transgender community, the lesbian and the bisexual community had also failed to recognise the aspect of realness with the women of the century.
The most critical aspect of "feminism" is that there MUST be inclusion of all. To be more precise 'there must be inclusion of all voices including women, LGBT+ community, activists, allies and men should be able to amplify these voices further'.
This very inclusion has been bigoted here. These women could not include transwomen when they needed this the most. Studies and research has shown that transwomen are not any more violent or harmful than the cis-women out there. The issue of safety should not even be of concern.
Transwomen have procured more knowledge on the subject of feminism over time. They have been able to transcend between two lives and actually live two lives in one single human life. They are the ones who can compare the life of a woman and the life of a man without being biased as they have lived both and struggled through both. It would be unfair to shun them off as they are the ones who have utmost knowledge and experience than any of us cis-sexual folks.
Things are changing. Thoughts are streamlining better but is this really progress? Or did we go back in time for a second and coming back to present again?
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