Womyn-born womyn

Womyn-born-womyn (WBW) is a term developed during second-wave feminism to designate spaces for, by, and about women who were identified as female at birth, were raised as girls, and identify as women.

Events and organizations that have womyn-born-womyn-only policies bar access to any persons who were assigned male at birth, including trans women and the young children of attendees. According to Michigan Womyn's Music Festival co-founder Lisa Vogel during a Bitch magazine roundup, "What womyn-born womyn means to us is women who were born as women, who have lived their entire experience as women, and who identify as women."[1][2]

History

The term gained usage and popularity during the second wave feminist movement. In 1978, the Lesbian Organization of Toronto adopted a womyn-born womyn only policy in response to a request for admittance by a transgender woman who identified as lesbian. Womyn-born-womyn policies focused on the unique nature of the feminine experience over the course of a lifetime, and that could only be experienced by someone experienced life presenting as a woman.[3] The intent to create a safe space for only women was defined as women not by identity, but of experience, resulting in the exclusion of transgender women (as well as the inclusion, upon interest, of transgender men).[4]

Second-wave feminism

The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond

Second-wave feminism is a period in the feminist movement lasting from the 1960s until around the 1980s.[5] Some feminists of the period such as Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, and Sheila Jeffreys, were proponents of womyn-born womyn policies. The controversy has sparked scholarly discussion, and brought opposition to the idea.

Raymond's The Transsexual Empire is often seen as the characterizing work of this movement. It is famous for its view of trans women as privileged men who didn't previously live in the oppression of the patriarchy, stating, "We know who we are. We know that we are women who are born with female chromosomes and anatomy, and that whether or not we were socialised to be so-called normal women, patriarchy has treated and will treat us like women. Transsexuals have not had this same history."[3]

Jeffreys was similarly outspoken in her criticisms of trans women, arguing that the feminine characteristics they are adopting are simply those that women must adopt to avoid punishment from the patriarchy. She believed the stereotypical attributes that trans women adopt enforced the patriarchy and were political signifiers of the oppression of women.[4]

Judith Butler, despite being opposed to womyn-born-womyn policies, is often used as an argument for them by modern second-wave feminists. Butler's Gender Trouble was released in 1990, sparking the idea of performativity versus performance, whereas trans women could be excluded because their performativity through repetition of gender norms, and is "real only to the extent that it is performed", which was used as a separator from experience.[6]

Olivia Records, a feminist music collective, was an exception to this policy, employing transgender employees such as Sandy Stone.[7] In response to this, Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's primary owner in 1977, Lisa Vogel, issued a letter to the music collective along with other second wave feminists:

Dear Olivia:

We are writing concerning your decision to employ Sandy Stone as your recording engineer and sound technician. We feel that it was and is irresponsible of you to have presented this person as a woman to the women’s community when in fact he is a post-operative transsexual.

Given the narrow options available to us, it is also likely that many of us would have to work with Stone. Some of us have already done so without the knowledge that this person was not a woman. When we did discover the truth about Stone and tried to discuss this with you, we were told that you considered him very much a woman, a lesbian, and that you trusted him more than middle class, heterosexual women. This was very painful to hear and indicated a great lack of respect and love for women and our struggle. We do not believe that a man without a penis is a woman any more than we would accept a white woman with dyed skin as a Black woman.[7]

Women-only spaces

Although transgender and intersex people have been present in women-only spaces for decades (often closeted), the term garnered wider attention in response to the exclusion of trans women from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.[8] The festival has publicly declared that it is intended for womyn-born womyn. Music festivals, specifically those geared at lesbians, were widely used to enact womyn-born womynyn policies throughout the latter quarter of the twentieth century.

With the advent of third-wave feminism, the festivals started to disappear, and there were more protestations to womyn-born womyn policies. The twenty-first century brought with it much opposition to womyn-born womyn musical festivals. RadFem Fest continues to have womyn-born womyn policies, albeit expressed in different ways to address outrage over the policy, as seen in social media outbursts and protests in the modern era.[9] The policy for the 2015 conference is rephrased in explanatory form, reading "RadFems Resist is a women only, feminist event...We welcome all women who were raised and socialized as girls to join us. We are gender abolitionists who have been raised and socialized as girls and women *because of our female bodies* in the context of patriarchy. Women who view gender differently, as a benign spectrum of self expression rather than a human created power hierarchy, will find other events where they can organise with like minded people."[10] In 1992, a gender survey was taken at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.[11] It asked, "Do you think male-to-female transsexuals should be welcome at Michigan?"[11] Out of the 633 women surveyed, 73.1% responded yes and 22.6% responded no, signaling a shift in feminist thought.[11] Other once popular festivals have since closed. The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival was closed in 2015 due to backlash over the policy and diminishing attendance.[12]

Feminist opposition

The feminist sex wars signaled a divide in second-wave feminism on issues of sex expression, pornography, sexuality, and gender identity. It led to many trans-affirming feminist views, and more criticism toward the womyn-born womyn culture that thrived in radical feminism. With the rise of third-wave feminism, the radical feminism that supports womyn-born womyn policies and agendas became less prevalent.

Third-wave feminism

Judith Butler was characteristic in her approach to third-wave feminist opposition of womyn-born womyn politics. The fluidity in gender, a more modern adaptation in feminist thought, is reflected in her views, "We form ourselves within the vocabularies that we did not choose, and sometimes we have to reject those vocabularies, or actively develop new ones. For instance, gender assignment is a 'construction' and yet many genderqueer and trans people refuse those assignments in part or in full. That refusal opens the way for a more radical form of self-determination, one that happens in solidarity with others who are undergoing a similar struggle."[13] This is in response to claims by Jeffreys and others of the time who believed that those born womyn embodied true patriarchal struggle, while transgender women still benefited from the patriarchy. In a more direct reaction from Butler, she states, "The feminist police comes along to expose the construction and dispute a trans person's sense of their lived reality. I oppose this use of social construction absolutely, and consider it to be a false, misleading, and oppressive use of the theory."[13] Some prominent figures in the second wave also readjusted views when presented with changing times, such as Gloria Steinem, who previously referred to transgender women as men with mutilated bodies in the late 1970s.[14] She has since revised her beliefs, as stated in a 2013 opinion piece, "I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned."[14]

Transfeminism

Transfeminism symbol

The understanding of gender, gender politics, and trans politics has changed over the latter half of the twentieth century. It has led to more LGBTQ-led opposition to womyn-born womyn policies and the music festivals that tend to employ them. In 1992, LGBTQ protesters, specifically transgender women, decided to create Camp Trans, a protest outside of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Transgender activists passed out flyers and staged protests in opposition to the womyn-born womyn policies that excluded transgender women. Transgender activist Julia Serano believed the festival to be insensitive and ignorant, believing, "[The] idea that the femaleness of my mind, personality, lived experiences, and the rest of my body can somehow be trumped by the mere presence of a penis can only be described as phallocentric."[15]

Kelsie Brynn Jones, a noted transgender woman and journalist, writes, "In [radical feminists'] words, a transgender woman is a nothing but a "self loathing gay man" and they claim that trans women are gay men who, rather than stand up and come out as gay, would rather "hide" by being transgender, as if it makes things more palatable for friends, family and co-workers. The reverse is unfortunately the truth."[16] Activists fighting for transgender-inclusionary policies often refer to those who promote womyn-born womyn policies as TERF feminists, standing for Trans-excluding radical feminism.[17]

Camp trans

Nancy Burkholder was thrown out of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in 1991 because she is transgender because she’s a trans woman.[18] With protection and support from the Lesbian Avengers, she and others against the womyn-born womyn policy formed Camp Trans. It was originally a small group of transgender women who handed out leaflets to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival attendees and held workshops across the road from the festival.[18]

Activist Riki Wilchins noted that Camp Trans "was the first time that significant numbers of the hard-core lesbian feminist community backed us”.[19]

Camp Trans kept appearing as a protest event noncontinuously for the next two decades.

Examples

There have been several instances where transgender women have been denied access to or even been evicted from women's spaces.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hayes 2010, p. 159.
  2. ↑ Smith, Gwen (2006-09-01). "Kiss and make up, womyn". Washington Blade. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
  3. 1 2 Raymond, Janice (1994). The Transsexual Empire. p. 114. ISBN 0807021644.
  4. 1 2 Jeffreys, Sheila (1990). Anticlimax: a feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. London: Women's Press. ISBN 9780704342033.
  5. ↑ Sarah Gamble, ed. The Routledge companion to feminism and postfeminism (2001) p. 25
  6. ↑ Case 1990.
  7. 1 2 Vogel, Lisa (1977). "Sister, June 1977 Letter" (PDF). Eminism Archives.
  8. ↑ Vitello, Paul (August 20, 2006). The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack. The New York Times
  9. ↑ "Radical feminists are acting like a cult". The Guardian. 2012-05-25. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  10. ↑ "RadFems Resist 2015". RadFem Collective. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  11. 1 2 3 Burkholder, Nancy (1992). "Results of 1992 Gender Survey at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival". Eminism Archives.
  12. ↑ "This Year's Michigan Womyn's Music Festival Will Be the Last | Advocate.com". www.advocate.com. 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  13. 1 2 Admin. "Judith Butler addresses TERFs and the work of Sheila Jeffreys and Janice Raymond". The TERFs. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  14. 1 2 "Op-ed: On Working Together Over Time | Advocate.com". www.advocate.com. 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  15. ↑ Serano, Julia (2007). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press. ISBN 9781580051545.
  16. ↑ "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism: What Exactly Is It, And Why Does It Hurt?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  17. ↑ Admin. "The TERFs". The TERFs. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  18. 1 2 Taormino, Tristan. "Trouble in Utopia". Village Voice. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  19. ↑ Trans Bodies, Trans Selves : A Resource for the Transgender Community, Laura Eriskson-Schroth, editor. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0199325351

Works cited

External links

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