The ‘womyn born womyn’ policy has been a contentious issue for decades between some elements the trans community and the feminists who created and sponsor the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.

The 35th anniversary edition of Michfest will be taking place August 3-8 in Hart, MI.

This is an open letter by Annie Danger to her feminist friends who claim they support transwomen but then surreptitiously bounce to the 650 wooded site.

The letter is very long and I’m not going to reproduce it here – definitely read the whole thing at TransGriot’s place. Here are parts, though:

To note: I do not want to start a fight. I am making a request for greater engagement with the curious politics of coalition building and alliance. I understand this is a complex-feeling issue with a lot of history. This may be a call out, but it is with a revolutionary ethic of love that I send it. In this ethic, I do my best to drive my activism and my life with a difficult and powerful combination of respect, recognition, honest and open communication, affection, commitment, and trust for all people in this world. Especially my allies.

This letter comes from trying to put my years of resent through this filter of loving: I feel hurt and I am writing because want to trust that you have my back as a transwoman. I am having a hard time separating your attendance of MWMF and your silence with me about this issue from your level of respect for me; for my body. I don’t want to feel this way and I am willing to do the work to let go of a decade of resent, but I need your help. Will you help me?

I’d heard of MichFest - in a casual, something-something-somewhere type of way and never really paid attention to it because it didn’t seem like something I’d be interested in.  So, unlike many (I guess), I have – or had - no emotional attachment or investment in it, no feelings one way or the other about it, though I understood those who did. It is unfortunate that knowledge of the festival – and its relationship with transwomen - entered my full consciousness at the same time as I became aware of the violent anti-trans rhetoric directed towards transwomen by some radical feminists, some of whom also promoted this festival and its policy of exclusion.

I’ll tell you, I was shocked. Not that transfolk were discriminated against, or were victims of physical and rhetorical violence. But that there were feminists who participated in this (the rhetoric if not the physical attacks, at least.)  My ignorance of this particular source of bigotry was a function of my cis privilege – it was not a necessity for me to know all the dangers and threats surrounding transfolk, so I was okay with just knowing a few of them and thinking myself an ally. And when I did become aware, I was so shocked and unprepared with any sort of immediate defense that my mind-files initially just sort of slotted transfolk under the “poc” label – because much of the discriminatory language sounded so, so familiar, same words and everything. And *that* I knew how to deal with.

This, too, is familiar:

So I disengaged. I became silent. There are a lot more pressing issues, in general or specifically about trans-inlcusion and the safety of transwomen, than trying to get a bunch of terrified separatists to let me pay them to camp in their woods and attend their party. And when more and more friends kept going, and when you proceeded for years to forget that it is an issue for me—to chat all about it like it was just someplace I didn’t happen to go; to tell me you wished you could get me there and never go much further than that; to discuss my absence while at the festival but not much of why—I proceeded to turn my back in small ways on you, too. Just the tiniest, most pernicious ways: silent distrusts, people held so close, but at arm’s length when it comes to recognizing and caring for my life, my struggle as a transwoman, or my body.

I think, from something else Ms. Danger says, that things are changing incrementally with MichFest and that, perhaps, barriers are being broken down. I would not attend, even if I was into stuff like this, because I’m more of a “none of us without all of us” type person – but for those who do, and who are attempting to break down walls of discrimination from within, I think Annie Danger’s last paragraph says it well:

Please do things while you’re there that show me that you really respect my body. My life. My womanhood. Please let me know about them. Please be willing to push harder. Please show me I can trust you to have my back. Please, if you’re willing: stand up, step it up, and be a louder ally. I do not want more antagonism: I am not asking you to hate MWMF. I am asking you to love me as much as you love this festival. I am asking you to love us both. Loudly.

I was going to write about something else this morning but then I made the mistake of reading the comments on a post by Tasha Fierce, on feministe. I am not actually going to link to the comment because the comment itself has little or no relation to Tasha’s post – about the “coming race war” rhetoric, which I want to write about later, and will link then – and I don’t want to derail the conversation because of an automatic trackback. Also, I am just using him as an example – this sort of language is all over the primarily White “progressive” blogosphere.

Anyway, the commenter says:

Obama hasn’t been a great president; he’s been disappointing in a lot of ways and indistinguishable from Bush on some very important issues. We still detain people without trial, we still torture, we’re still neck deep in two expensive wars with fuzzy mission parameters and increasing irrelevance, the economy is still weak, his handling of the BP situation was laughable, he’s broken every major campaign promise he made with regards to transparency and accountability, he promised health care reform and instead delivered watered down regulation and a huge corporate welfare system.

These are mostly legitimate, though arguable, points. Many people have  been disappointed with various actions (or inactions) of the Obama administration and that is only natural. I am possibly less disappointed than some because I was not so expectant – it was obvious from the beginning that, for all his soaring rhetoric, Obama was not, and likely will never be, some sort of radical leftist firebrand. I decided that I could live with a moderately left pragmatist as president because it was highly unlikely that we could elect anything but, at the moment, and that was that.

But anyway, more of the comment - he says something about how a reasoned challenge could be politically disastrous for Obama (I guess he means a challenge from reasonable Republicans? Not sure they exist, but that’s neither here nor there), and then writes:

Unfortunately, people like Beck, Brietbart, the Tea Party, and Palin manage to make even as poor a president as Obama look…well…really desirable. On the left you have a subpar president on the right you have a conversation that sounds like its moderated by David Duke and Charles Manson.

A subpar president. I wanted to make sure I understood that term so I looked it up – “Not measuring up to traditional standards of performance, value, or production.” So.

Of  course my mind winged its way back over the presidents we’ve had in just my lifetime (I was born in 1958) and I did a very quick comparison with Obama. The first president I was aware of was Kennedy, only because he was assassinated I think (I was four,) but then there was Johnson (“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”); Nixon – who, you see, was not a crook; Ford… well, you know the list. Land wars, covert wars, CIA scandals, funding anti-Communist groups, supporting vile governments, etc., etc.

Even given that all the commenters complaints were true in and of themselves, with no nuance, would that not make Obama at least on par with the “traditional standards of performance, value, or production” of past presidents? Why is his malfeasance, if that is what one believes it is, below the standard? Or why are his accomplishments, some historic by many measures if not by the measure of their adherence to an all-or-nothing political view, thought to not measure up to the standards of production or value or performance of past presidents who also may have compromised to get what they wanted – or were unable to get even a half of a loaf at all?

I came across another feminist site a couple of weeks ago, following a link from feministe. The blogger wrote a post about Obama and government, her disappointment with Obama and all that… but the first few paragraphs of the post are about South Africa, the disappointment that the ANC turned out to be, so on and so forth, and she uses this as a segue into her issues with Obama. I left a comment something to the effect that there was little difference between the set up of the blog post and the people carrying signs with Obama as a witch doctor. My comment remained unpublished, but the point still stands.

Words matter. Dog whistles matter. And make no mistake, these ARE dog whistles. Conscious and deliberate? I don’t know. Attacking minorities, including women, on what are their perceived (by mainstream or White society) weaknesses or stereotypes is so embedded in our culture that we often just do it instinctively. When you want to attack a Black person you imply (or state right out) that they are below the standard, not capable of governing or leading, easily led, weak (primarily targeted toward Black men), and all the rest. Just like you attack a woman by implying she is hysterical or weak (except that non-white woman are attacked as being strong, but in the wrong way) and all the other nonsense. It doesn’t really matter if it is deliberate, because if an unintentionally sent dog whistle reaches an even unintentionally receptive ear, the result is the same regardless of intent.

Should it be let go because it is happening on the left instead  of - or in addition to - the right? I don’t think so. I am a pessimistic optimist, so I fully believe that not too long from now (as the arc of history goes, that is) we’ll have a woman president. A gay or lesbian president. Any one of the other non-white, non-male, non-gender normative, non-Christian categories of U.S. Americans will be striding in to “Hail to the Chief” one day. Perhaps we should use this time of the “first” to practice how to react to someone “different” even when we disagree or dislike them intensely, in a ways that do not perpetuate stereotypes, do not replicate right-wing tropes, or the inequities of the past.

Not even half the stuff that is in this article occurred to me, but I wrote last year about picking up Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” from the library and the trouble I was having getting through it. I am a very fast reader and, when I put my mind to it, I can read just about anything. But this… no, it wasn’t working at all. Even just thinking about it now I can feel that sickness and dread in the pit of my stomach – I tried to talk myself around it, reminded myself what a classic it was and all of that. None of that mattered, I simply hated the book. Couldn’t get it back to the library fast enough. And no, I didn’t finish it, either (this time.)

I am 52 years old or so, and all the time I am reminded of how much I have yet to learn about listening to my own inner self, my own conscience, and not to um… conventional wisdom, I guess. Or what always was and what should be. I get really annoyed with myself when I realize that I am hesitant about not trusting myself, if I even recognize in time that that is what is happening. Age and upbringing has something to do with it, I think – I missed out on a lot of certain kinds of internal growth as a woman of color because of this, that or the other thing. I am making up for it now, as well as I can, by concentrating on what is important to me at any given point in time but still…

Not that I have been thinking about it all the time or anything but it’s taken me about a year to just come out and say, plainly, that I hated that book.

Here’s what happened:

Like I said, I needed milk and this store, being right across the street, was indeed convenient. Only, when I looked over there I saw that there were a bunch of people jammed into one of the doorways of this very small store, with more trying to get in. I knew just from that that Malik was on duty because when the owners are there no one just hangs out. Malik was well-known in the neighborhood, a youth football coach who was viewed by the kids as part father confessor, part big brother, part wise old man and all around good guy.

Anyway, this crowd – this was weird even for Malik days; usually kids hang out outside or pick up a broom and sweep the parking lot or make sure the gas nozzles are on straight, or whatever. Never had I seen them all trying to cram into the tiny store doorway at once, everyone looking in the same direction, plus these weren’t all teens – obviously something had happened and I hoped it wasn’t something bad.

Perhaps strangely, the crowd didn’t deter me or the guy who had just pulled up to the pumps in the late model Mercedes. Me, I didn’t feel like walking to the big store and he, well there were no other gas stations nearby and he was obviously in a big hurry.  Anyway, the people in the doorway somehow made room for us get through and as soon as I crossed the threshold I heard that noise people make in threes in the back of their throats; “Mmph, mmph, mmph,” then “Man, that’s a blessing.” So, Malik was okay, that was his voice – but why was everyone staring his way? And what was the good news? I snaked around shoulders and arms, listening to the echo as it moved from person to person -  “.. a blessing”, “Yeah, that’s a blessing.” Maybe someone won the lottery.

Just as I reached the back of the store and grabbed the milk someone said “26!” and the process started over again – Malik’s voice saying that’s a blessing and the echoes throughout the men in the store. I had what I came for but I was really curious now about what was going on, so I sidled on over to the car product section, because that is where I had the best view of the front door and the register, and pretended I was really interested in STP and stuff. From there I got my first real look at the crowd – had to be about 25 people, all but two younger than 40, most looked like they were in their 20s, all Black, all male, all looking toward Malik.

Some of the guys I recognized – like Old Pete who walks around with a shopping cart collecting cans and plastic and old bike parts to fix up bikes for neighborhood kids. And the kid with his sideways baseball cap, big shirt, big shorts and one sock falling down. He stomps around with a frown on his face, holding his crotch, and every time I see him I have to laugh (to myself) because he reminds me of some sort of Spanky and Our Gang character or something who has to go to the bathroom. I do not tell him this because I think he thinks he looks “tough.”

No scowl on the kid this day, though; in fact, he looks young and anxious and innocent as he stares at up at Malik – who looms over everyone because the shorter store owners have a raised floor behind the register to make them look bigger. Malik is already so big that, with his football-player build, shiny bald head and earring, even on level ground he looks like someone just coaxed out of a lamp. 

Another sends a number into the mix and gets the throat sounds and the blessing and then suddenly the kid pipes up – “16!” he says, looking if possible even more worried. Everyone turns to him, Malik looks at him – then shakes his head three times in lieu of the sound and says, “Man… that’s a blessing”. The kid’s face is luminous and gratified – his offering was accepted. There is also an illumination in my mind as I get an idea of what all this is about.  They are calling out ages. Their ages. I realized I was witnessing …what? A rite? An affirmation? A bonding? I had no idea what to call it, but it was something special so I ignored my warming milk and stayed right where I was as the ages and blessings moved through the gathering.

Finally Old Pete says “64!” and a murmur arises even before Malik strongly declares that that’s a blessing and the crowd echoes it. Another surprising offering comes – “65!” and things stop for a minute as everyone looks. I see it’s Mercedes Man, the guy who had been in such a hurry. He was still there, right next to Old Pete – it seems he, too, got caught up in the impromptu pageantry of whatever was going on, and put off whatever he had been rushing toward. All attention was focused on the two older men, Mercedes Man and Old Pete – and they looked at each other, eyes weighing and cataloging.

One in a $1000 suit, his whole being so soft and shiny and expensive he looked like he’d been run over with a floor buffer; the other in old overalls and scruffy tennis shoes, his whole being so scarred and pitted by life he just looked like he’d been run over, period. I saw the expressions flicker across everyone’s faces as they sincerely but distractedly offered their blessings – only a year separated these two in age, but life had separated them in far more than that.

After a moment things started rolling again.

I had to leave so I walked to the front, put my milk on the counter and, as a sort of sideways acknowledgement of what I had just witnessed, said “42!” I understood the kid’s anxiety now – would my offering be accepted, I wondered? Black women may die of different things, but we too tend to die early. I got my answer as Malik smiled and shook his head three times and declared my age a blessing, and as the men added theirs Malik presented an offering of his own. “I’m 32.” Then, maybe thinking he should explain the all male grouping (I was still the only female in the store, and there were still only Black people in there – both odd things) Malik started talking about how Black men, Black boys – they sometimes don’t live that long. Any age a Black man attained was a blessing; an older age, like he was, sometimes a miracle. He has a little girl, he says, five years old and the center of his life. He wants to grow old for her so he stays out of messes and away from trouble – but sometimes even that doesn’t work if you’re the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Everyone listens and nods, looking somber and determined, hopeful and a bit hopeless as some offer their stories, too, of themselves or someone they know who is gone – to disease, to prison, or, far too often, to the grave. Not all sadness or despair, of course, or even primarily – plenty of triumphs and just day-to-day eventless lives. Kids off to college, better jobs, forming families and so on. All the more shocking when often senseless tragedy strikes someone-who-could-be-me, though.

I knew all this, of course, what Black U.S. American doesn’t? But after looking at and listening to this group of men and boys who were everything – rich, poor and in-between; fat, thin, baby thugs, fathers, sons, blue collar, white collar, never had a collar in their lives, high yellow, golden brown, black as coal, very young, old young, very old – after looking and listening and accidently witnessing this… whatever it was, after this I knew all this in a very different way, to the marrow of my bones.

And I walked out of the store changed, if just a little. Even now, years later,  I sometimes pass groups of young or old Black men, or Latino, or other target groups and think – that’s a blessing.

And when I look at my three beautiful Black grandsons I see them in my mind’s eye as old men, and hope the blessings hold.

[The title of this piece is from Dwayne Betts’ wonderful, thought-provoking essay, The Tragedy of Biggie and Pac / photo of group of young men is from here]

Craig Silverman at CJR has this somewhat odd story:

Dr. Aaron Sell, a researcher at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, has been hearing from a lot of old friends and colleagues over the past couple of weeks—and he’s not happy about it.

The calls and e-mails are flowing in thanks to a January 17 article published in London’s Sunday Times that prominently featured Dr. Sell’s research. Headlined “Blonde women born to be warrior princesses,” here’s how it started:

IT really is a case of blonde ambition. Women with fair hair are more aggressive and determined to get their own way than brunettes or redheads, according to a study by the University of California.
Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way — the so-called “princess effect”.
Even those who dye their hair blonde quickly take on these attributes, experts found.

The story quotes Dr. Sell as saying, “We expected blondes to feel more entitled than other young women — this is southern California, the natural habitat of the privileged blonde. What we did not expect to find was how much more warlike they are than their peers on campus.”

Here’s the problem: Dr. Sell’s research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PDF), had nothing to do with blondes.  It dealt with attractiveness and anger, and found that women who consider themselves to be more attractive are more prone to anger, among related findings.

I’m actually not sure if the real study conclusions are much better, but it’s interesting that the reporter thought that either “attractive = blonde”, or that his readers somehow needed to believe it does.

The author of the article seems to also be a bit of a fabulist:

In regards to the Times piece, Dr. Sell told me that the paper didn’t just misinterpret his data. That quote from him about southern California being “the natural habitat of the privileged blonde”? He said it was “fabricated.”

Good grief.

Anyway, I got the Phantom Blonde comic book cover at the top from Swanshadow’s blog. Here is what he has to say about it:

As for the Blonde Phantom, she’s something of a pioneer herself.

The Blonde Phantom — in everyday life, secretary Louise Grant — was one of the "second wave" of superheroines introduced in the post-World War II era, as the mostly male heroes of the war years began to decline in popularity. Based on the physical attributes of such wartime pinup queens as Betty Grable (whom the Blonde Phantom resembles), these heroines — including Phantom Lady, the Black Canary, Venus, and Sun Girl, — were designed to appeal both to the returning servicemen and to female readers.
Most of these characters, sadly, were short-lived, though interest in many of them (especially Black Canary and Phantom Lady) has picked up in recent years. The Blonde Phantom remains largely forgotten. But you have to love a woman who could fight crime wearing a floor-length, slit-skirted red dress and high heels.

Fun stuff.

So, I decided to start dipping my toes back into poliblogging – very reluctantly, which is why there is next to nothing on here to reflect that decision – and part of that is also beginning to visit some of the bigger white feminist sites again as, of course, for me as a woman they are a large part of the political landscape.

Sigh. I bet you know where this is going, yeah?

One of my stops today was Shakesville, which is usually not quite that bad but today there is a post titled “ Obama Gives Choice A Pass”, that is just a study in interesting (or maybe infuriating) privilege.

Deeky says:

Here’s an intersting (meaning "infuriating") bit of analysis from the Guttmacher Institute. President Obama’s new budget fails to address any of the current anti-choice policies currently in place, including the Hyde Amendment.

On abortion rights, however, the president is taking a pass. There can be little doubt that the fact that health care reform legislation remains in limbo has something to do with that—with the options on an ultimate compromise on abortion coverage ranging from terrible to horrible. Also tied up in health care reform is the fate of two other key provisions: one to make it easier for states to expand eligibility for family planning under Medicaid and a second to establish new funding for home visiting programs for low-income first-time mothers. [Emphasis mine.]

More here.
Remember how we were all told we just had to vote Dem, because who else was going to protect Roe v Wade? Yeah, okay.

Well, taking the last bit first, I think the main argument used for voting Dem was that Republicans are freaking nuts and destructive, but I guess everyone had their own reasons for voting however they did.

Okay, “More here”, the post says. I clicked. I’m glad I did, because there is more there. A lot more. For example: preceding the paragraph Deeky quotes is this (my emphasis throughout):

On the domestic front, the administration’s top priority for reproductive health and rights is teen pregnancy prevention, for which the administration is recommending a significant boost in funding. With the abstinence-only-until-marriage approach of the bygone era defeated, the new initiative will emphasize an evidence-based approach to reducing teenage pregnancy and the underlying factors that put teens at risk.

Okay, so this may not be that big a deal for some people, particularly those who don’t have teens, or who live in communities where kids have many options or whatever.

However, here is the next paragraph:

On the international front, the administration has unveiled the outlines of the Global Health Initiative that the president first announced last year. Family planning and reproductive health programs and maternal and child health programs figure prominently, and the administration is recommending significant increases in both areas.

Well, that sure sounds like Obama is abandoning choice and women and is NO DIFFERENT THAN A REPUBLICAN!  to me.

Next comes the paragraph Deeky highlighted, then a few programs that are improved modestly or significantly with more funding or support (and the one that is stagnant, with no current challenge to the Hyde Amendment), but then there is this – to me, the biggie:

Maternal and Child Health Globally: A Big Leap Forward

Efforts to reduce maternal mortality and improve maternal health would gain significantly under the president’s proposal, with its new focus on maternal and newborn health. By recommending a 28% increase in funding, administration officials say they want to make up for lost time in this neglected area, especially in light of the looming deadlines to meet Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for measurable improvements in maternal health by 2015. The budget proposal notes that the maternal and child health program “will also actively invest in integrating across all health programs, particularly family planning, nutrition and infectious diseases.” A 2009 study by Guttmacher and UNFPA found that maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70% and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care.

Tell me again why we wasted our time voting for Democrats?

Yeah, yeah, I know… these are not Americans and, most likely, the vast majority of them are poor women of color in some far off (or close by) land, and their babies are not snowflakes and sure it’ll just reduce incidents of complications of pregnancy (or rape) which have been eliminated in Western nations, like fistula, and give women much needed access to family planning strategies (including abortion), and health and nutritional programs, but ….

But…. what?

You know – I understand that people are frustrated with Obama, that some can’t stand him and are even regretting their votes (if they voted for him) and all that – I certainly have issues with him myself – but this whole bit of some white feminists (many of whom know better intellectually, or at least how to mouth that they do) reverting to (stereo)type, clinging to the top of the tree of white feminism (abortion) in, apparently, the need to deny any good thing done by Obama, while ignoring everything going on below (broad, integrated family planning and health, nutrition, small and large gains for non-white, non-middle class women, stuff that can make serious, dramatic differences in women’s lives) is seriously annoying. And depressing.

Melissa says, in the comments to Deeky’s post:

“And this is exactly what I meant when I said, over and over and over again, that Roe being overturned wasn’t as serious a concern as the steady erosion of abortion rights which will ultimately render Roe an empty statute.
Sure, Obama will technically protect Roe — even as he’ll still "take a pass" on abortion rights.”

No, no, no. Actions like these are not a “steady erosion of abortion rights”. It’s acts like these, the shoring up of rights and women globally and locally, that are attempting to rebuild the eroded abortion and family planning rights. Slowly, maybe, sure. But it all goes toward it. Did he “take a pass” on Hyde? Sure, for now at least, and particularly with the health care bill on the balance as it is. But is he passing, wholesale, on abortion rights or reproductive justice? No.

Remember, to get to you, they come through us first (the “they” mainly being the Republicans, the religious right, the removers of personal rights, so on and the “us” being the non-white, non-middle class, non-Americans, non-privileged). We are not a separate, boutique issue. To get to you, they come through us first. With laws regulating privacy, allowing for the arrest of pregnant women who don’t conform to an expected set of behaviors, forced contraception, limited access to family planning or family health centers and so on.

I think the fix has to come through us as well. Primarily. There are a lot of building blocks which formerly shored up Roe – some seemingly having no connection at all – which have been being assiduously chipped away at, that need attention.

I don’t expect perfection from Obama, or anything close to it – I never have. He’s far too conservative to make me happy politically – I am basically a socialist and, despite all the howling of the Republibaggers, Obama is very far from that. But to look at that list of proposed changes in funding and only take from it that he’s “taking a pass on abortion rights” says to me that… well, might be time to check few knapsacks or something.

[Illustration of a Woman on the Top of a Mountain by Charles Courtney Curran from here]