This past weekend (July 7, 2018), London’s Pride parade was disrupted (invaded?) by a group of activists carrying banners proclaiming, “transactivism erases lesbians.” The group forced their way into the parade, initially blocking it and then were allowed to remain marching in the parade for some time. London Pride’s organizing body has officially apologized for lack of quick action and stated that they were not sanctioned to be in the parade.
While the apology is appreciated, this group should have never been allowed the opportunity to make such a statement, as they ended up leading the parade for about 10 minutes. The activists in question call themselves “Get The L Out” and were also heard shouting, “a man who says he’s a lesbian is a rapist,” referring to trans women. All of their other statements to various media outlets have been some variation of this anti-trans sentiment, regurgitating a tragically persistent view of trans women as gender imposters undeserving of inclusion into the category of “women.”
In these statements, I cannot help but hear echoes of the first time I encountered trans-exclusionary “feminist” ideology: the decades of trans women’s exclusion from Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (aka Michfest). For those unfamiliar, Michfest was an international, all women’s music festival held in the woods of Michigan from 1976 to 2015. The festival operated with a “womyn-born-womyn” policy for attendees, asserting that only those born and raised as women were allowed to attend. This strictly excluded transgender women, as well as any non-binary or genderqueer folks assigned male at birth. Essentially, if you were born male, regardless of your gender identity or transition status (as if that should even matter), you were barred from the grounds of the festival.
This policy was created and maintained under the guise of maintaining a safe space for cisgender women. The policy itself was cemented into practice after an incident in 1991, during which a transgender woman was asked to leave the grounds on the first night of the festival (despite having attended during previous years). In 2015, despite call for change by past performers and attendees, the founders and organizers chose to shut down and end the event for good.
It is important to note that the policy did not exclude transgender men or masculine of center non-binary or genderqueer folks. As long as you were born female, you were welcome on Michfest grounds. This represents the greatest hypocrisy of both this event’s policy and its motivating ideology. In this roundabout reification of the gender binary, excluding trans women but including trans men just asserts that both groups of these people should be reduced to their respective birth sex (and assumed genitalia).
In my past life as a young gay woman (I’ve inhabited several letters of the LBGTQ alphabet soup), I dreamt of attending Michfest. I imagined the festival as a feminist utopia of support and an exciting venue for some of my favorite music. However, lack of resources prevented me from ever making it in my youth. By the time I had the means of attending, I had been exposed to the realities of their trans-exclusionary policies and elected to boycott and never go – even though I would have been welcome, even as I started my transition.
Transgender women being viewed as imposters in women’s spaces is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it is frustratingly old and something that trans women consistently deal with – especially those who identify as lesbians or queer women. This is a sentiment I have heard echoed time and time again by the trans women and femme centered genderqueer folks in my own life. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes in spaces where my presence (even when I passed as male!) was never viewed as threatening. Yet, trans women represented this persistent, unspoken danger to the integrity of women focused space. In reality, it was me and my trans masculine self that was over staying my welcome and, in hindsight, I should have vacated said space to surrender my spot to my trans sisters who needed it much more. This protest group’s assertion in London, stating that transgender focused activism erases lesbian identity, is a particularly sharp (and gross) version of that type of exclusion.
In grappling with this phenomenon that, seemingly, refuses to die, I chose to revisit some writing by Julia Serano. Serano is, quite frankly, one of my queer idols. Encountering her writing as an undergraduate helped me better define myself as a feminist, as well as someone easing into a transgender identity. I recently checked out her book Excluded (2013), a collection of essays about sexism-based exclusion in feminist and queer spaces, from my University’s library. Having taken off so much time between undergrad and graduate school, there is a host of work that I have missed and am trying to catch up on. With this past weekend’s events, it is the perfect time to immerse myself in Serano’s writing once again.
Excluded contains an essay Serano wrote about her experiences attending something called Camp Trans for the first time in the summer of 2003. Camp Trans was a counter-event began as a simple four person demonstration protesting the expulsion of the aforementioned trans woman from Michfest in the summer of 1991 (amongst this original group were the legendary figures of Rikki Wilchins and Leslie Feinberg). The event grew much larger and continued on into the 2000s, up to the closing of the festival. The goal of Camp Trans was never the closing of Michfest all together; rather, it was the elimination of the trans-exclusionary policy and the opening of its grounds to all women.
In the essay, Serano chronicles her initial uneasiness and complicated feelings about the event. There were few transgender women actually in attendance and she notes a particularly confrontational encounter with a graduate student and her girlfriend who had crossed the festival fence to interview people about the camp. This ended in a blow up during which Serano finds herself having to present herself as an example as to why trans women were not a threat, using her own passing femininity as evidence that trans women were, in fact, women. However, in summating her experience, she writes:
“I realized right there at the lake what a mistake many women from Michigan make when they insist that trans women would threaten their safe space, destroying a rare place where they feel comfortable revealing their own bodies. Because there is never any safety in the erasing of difference, and no protection in the expectation that all women live up to certain physical criteria. The only true safe space is one that respects each woman for her own individual uniqueness,” (Serano 2013:32).
This is a sentiment that must not be lost in the construction of women-only (and queer-only) spaces. The continued exclusion of trans women from these spaces is not just erasure of presence but an erasure of invaluable experience. The erasure of trans women’s lived experiences is damaging to the collective stories of women found in these spaces. As Serano explains, the exclusion of these women from these spaces is a more insidious version of the sexism-based exclusion experienced by women overall that serves as the motivation for the creation of these safe spaces in the first place. To continue to assert that trans women do not belong in these spaces continues the dangerous assumption that women must be reduced to birth sex and assumed biology.
So, what should we – the collective “we” of people who claim to be allies to trans women – do when things like the “protest” in London happen? Again, I turn to Serano for the best advice. In speaking about inclusion, her essay about Camp Trans concludes:
“I am tired of lesbians and gay men who try to meet me halfway with fuzzy, psuedo trans-inclusive sentiments. Trans people are not merely a subplot within the dyke community, nor fascinating case studies for gender studies graduate theses. No, we trans people have our own issues, perspectives, and experiences. And non-trans queer people everywhere need to realize that they cannot call themselves “pro-trans” unless they fully respect our identities, and unless they are willing to call other queers out on their anti-trans bigotry,” (Serano 2013:35).
The experiences of trans people within larger gay, lesbian, and queer communities are absolutely not ‘subplots.’ For non-trans folks, as well as for trans men and masculine of center genderqueer folks like myself, it is our responsibility as allies to call out trans-misogyny and anti-trans bigotry directed toward trans women in the spaces that we have come to call home. Trans women are showing up to and in need of these spaces. It is on all of us who inhabit them to maintain their safety. That includes ensuring the erasure of trans women’s experiences ceases and the ill conceived notion that trans women’s inclusion into these spaces is somehow harmful to their safety is put to rest – for good.
In another essay, “How to Be an Ally to Trans Women,” Serano sums up the core of good ally ship into a beautifully simple sentiment: “destroy the insider/outsider myth.” She explains:
“The myth is very simple: it assumes that cis women are perpetually on the inside of queer women’s communities while trans women are perpetually on the outside trying to get in… More importantly, the insider/outsider myth ignores the fact that virtually all of us – whether cis or trans – begin our lives outside of the queer community,” (Serano 2013:100).
The centering of cis women alone in these spaces contributes to the continued marginalization of trans women and their experiences. This marginalization is what treats trans folks’ lives as ‘subplots’ within gay, lesbian, and queer space. Serano hits an important part here that all of us who find a home in a queer community or space share the experience of being outsiders ourselves to our own specific degrees. This is the point of a queer centered space: to be on the inside together in a world that treats us as outsiders.
All of us who call queer or gay or lesbian space a home must continue to work to reconstruct these spaces as safe places for trans people – especially for trans women. Each of us who want and need to find a home in these communities brings a unique and significant perspective to the space at hand, all of which are essential to the collective of experiences that make these spaces so special. Serano echoes this in the conclusion of her essay:
“I don’t believe that any one group can have all the answers, because each of us inhabits different bodies. We have different histories, different predispositions, and we each lie at the intersection of different privileges and forms of marginalization,” (Serano 2013: 103).
Each of us who need these communities and spaces brings our own intersections to the table and each contribute to the maintenance of the space at hand. We all belong and alienating trans women specifically weakens and destroys the communities we purport to be protecting through their exclusion. It is also important to remember that inclusion moves beyond simple entry into spaces. It involves active celebration and those of us who hold more privilege being constantly mindful of the space we take up because it might be taking away from those most marginalized.
We must take Serano’s words to heart and honor our different histories, bodies, and predispositions that each of us bring to the table. That is the kind of queer community and space that I want. I think that working to create those spaces will, hopefully, finally put to rest the violent attitudes espoused by groups like “Get The L Out.” Policing women’s spaces (and queer spaces) in this manner is reductionist and creates a snake eating its own tail. It doesn’t do anyone justice and it does not, in fact, erase women’s or lesbians’ experiences. Instead, it severely limits these experiences and does violence to the true diversity that creates the category of “woman.”
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All words © Jay Sorensen, 2018.
Jay Sorensen, Ph.D. Candidate 