4/15/13

Lisa Vogel Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: Dogs Welcome But Not Trans People


Lisa Vogel's letter to her community never once mentioned the greater trans community's concerns about being excluded from a woman's only space, i.e. public accommodations. Vogel was pissed off about the boycott petition and the subsequent decision by Andrea Gibson to cancel her appearance and the future boycotts announced by Sick of Sarah on facebook and the Indigo Girls in their letter to our community.

*Visiting michfest.com you will find information on accommodating your dogs.
*It has been pointed out this post's title may only be half right since Trans Men are welcome. Lisa Vogel's 2006 press release "set it straight' validates that observation.
"From its inception the Festival has been home to womyn who could be considered gender outlaws, either because of their sexual orientation (lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, etc.) or their gender presentation(butch, bearded, androgynous, femme - and everything in between).


April 11, 2013

Letter to the Community

On March 28, an activist named Red Durkin posted a petition on Change.org asking artists and attendees to boycott the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival until organizers fully and openly welcome all self-identified women. This petition has intensified a long-running debate about and within the Festival, a debate that has often included intense misrepresentations about the political heart of this gathering. There is no doubt that complex political debate is healthy and necessary within our communities; however, a boycott, within this context, fails to advance resolution and only seeks to exact damage. As the Festival’s producer for her full 38 years, I write today to clarify the festival's herstory, intention and my desire for understanding within our communities, as well as to clarify where I stand on these issues.

I have listened, I have talked, I have struggled, and I will continue to do so. I do not fear our differences. But I do fear the harm being done to the space held so dear by so many – the space known around the world as “Michigan” – by the way this conflict is playing out. And thus I hope you will consider what I have to say with an open heart and open mind, as I pledge to continue to listen to the diversity of voices in this struggle.

Why We Gather
The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival is a soulful gathering of womyn from all over the world, created 38 years ago during the height of feminist organizing. Built from the ground up by womyn’s innovation and womyn’s labor, filled with art, performance, play and discourse – we live together for a week in the woods and create community as we know it in no other form. There’s freedom on that land that womyn living under patriarchy rarely touch; freedom to walk in the woods at night alone without fear; to be clothed or not clothed depending solely on comfort and personal style and without judgment; to move and work and play and love without the socio-cultural constraints that uniquely push down on all womyn, all the time. For these reasons, Michigan remains vital and vibrant even though countless other institutions from that burst of consciousness are gone. For these reasons, there’s no real debate about the value of the Festival – it is precisely why passions run so strong on all sides of this issue.

When we started Festival 38 years ago, we did so to make a home and a space where we could grow our own definition of female identity. At the time, the mere idea of a female identity autonomous of male identity was revolutionary. Over the course of nearly four decades, we have continued to discover, (re)define and live out what it means to be womon-identified and to recognize and honor diverse gender expression among womyn. Every August we do the work of growing into a community inclusive and meaningful for womyn from diverse class and cultural experiences, different abilities and ages - a community alive with a value system grown from the core of radical feminism. Over time, some clear collective values have emerged: communal cooperation; a willingness to show up and listen; an ethos of love, compassion, and active care for others; an undercurrent of strength and fierce resiliency; and a commitment to remain teachable. These values are the foundation of the Michigan community. These values reflect the intention of the space.

About the Intention
The Festival, for a single precious week, is intended for womyn who at birth were deemed female, who were raised as girls, and who identify as womyn. I believe that womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a lived experience that constitutes its own distinct gender identity.

As we struggle around the question of inclusion of trans womyn at the festival, we use the word intention very deliberately. Michigan holds this particular lived experience of womanhood as honorable, meaningful, unique and rich. Our intention has always been coupled with the radical commitment to never question any womon’s gender. We ask the greater community to respect this intention, and to value the complexity and validity of every gender identity, including that of WBW. The onus is on each individual to choose whether or how to respect that intention.

Rejecting Transphobia
I reject the assertion that creating a time and place for WBW to gather is inherently transphobic. This is a false dichotomy and one that prevents progress and understanding. I believe in the integrity of autonomous space used to gather and celebrate for any group, whether that autonomous space is defined by age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, gender, class or any other identity. Whatever spaces we carve out in our community to encourage healing and rejuvenation should be accepted, and we should support each other in this endeavor. Nobody should be asked to erase the need for autonomous spaces to demonstrate that they are sisters in struggle.

Clearly, our community struggles with the wide-ranging opinions that have formed around this question. Womyn who love the Festival deeply have intense feelings on all sides of this issue. There have been a great many good, loving and smart discussions between womyn who profoundly disagree, and there have been disrespectful and dehumanizing behaviors on both sides of the debate that demean all of our feminist political ideals. We all must stand up against hate speech, harassment and threats in any form, against any individual and against all of our communities.

I passionately believe the healing in our community will occur when we unconditionally accept trans womyn as womyn while not dismissing or disavowing the lived experience and realities of the WBW gender identity. Sadly, the extreme voices on this issue have driven much of the discussion, and the aggressive rhetoric leaves little room for building the alliances that are critical to everyone’s survival, growth and integrity.

We must find ways to be allies in this discussion. I know that for some, WBW space seems flatly incompatible with honoring and supporting trans womyn within the larger womyn’s communities. Regardless, we must listen to those who believe in the power of every womon’s voice, and commit to stay in a process with open hearts, open minds, and abiding respect even when that conversation gets incredibly hard. Space for WBW and a true solidarity with the trans community can and does co-exist.

Our Commitment to Each Other, My Commitment to You

The extreme positions being repeated, stoked, and disseminated on the internet do not represent the complex wholeness of the Festival voice, and they overshadow the more measured communication that will heal this divide. I call to each one of us to approach this issue in the purest example of sisterhood, to wrestle with the extremely difficult questions of our relationships with one another, and to do so always with compassion and abiding respect.

I commit to promote, foster and participate in continuing discussion on and off the land in hopes that we can all move towards greater understanding of each other’s perspectives. I will, however, turn my focus away from the destructive voices that do not seek progress, but only stoke division. As Festival works to survive and thrive into her fifth decade, I will do everything in my power to ensure that she continues as something beautiful, more complex than ever and yet true to the principles that spurred me to start this celebration in the first place.

I invite you to join me on this ongoing journey.

Lisa Vogel
MWMF founder



4/14/13

The "Mexican Hockey League" Video Parody of Fallon Fox: Offensive Or Just a Pathetic man Trying To Be Funny?

This video appeared in my daily google 'tranny' alerts along with the inevitable 'tranny' xxx porn placing it at the very bottom of the whatever list. I think the video is supposed to be satire, but it's just to well researched and hurtful to be amusing to me. The topic of trans athletes competing with our own gender is a especially sensitive subject right now.

As a transgender athlete I will confirm after 7 years on HRT I am not capable of anything near what I used to be. Today I did my first five miler of the season and it was all I could do to run half of it. I used to easily run half marathons pre transition with far less training.


Ultimate Fighter 18 Audition - Tranny Cari Cox
Meet the future of women's MMA - transsexual terror Cari Cox. Follow Cari as she trains for The Ultimate Fighter 18, talks about her biggest challenge as a transgendered fighter, and sends a message to Ronda Rousey, Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos, and the rest of the UFC's 135-pound division.

and gay people out here's something for you from them..





On Leaving TransAction ConVergence Two (TAC2)

Well, I finally did it. I am no longer a admin of the Facebook page "Transaction Two". I have been antagonizing over this for far too long now. A few years ago I invited Stephanie Stevens to be a admin on the original 5000 member group "TransAction ConVergence", which Facebook greedily "Archived" along with most all other large groups.

So after consulting with Stephanie I decided we needed a clean break and began the page "TransAction ConVergence Two" (TAC2) and Invited Stephanie Stevens to become a admin which she accepted.

Why I left TAC2.

I have always had a problem getting planetransgender articles published by Stephanie in the Yahoo Group "Trans News". The reason that I was given was they had 'editorial standards".

 Be it as it may, I have published many quality articles which present  unique views and observations from the trans perspective. Sadly, even those were ignored by Trans News. Since 2007 I have continued to work at becoming the journalist I know one day I will be, hoping one day I would see my article published with the regularity some of the other trans writers are. There were other reasons I was not published by Trans News but I will not expound on that for the sake of the unity of the trans community.

Trans News continues to be my main source of transgender news but I have learned to diversify my media outlet resources and I would invite others to do that as well.

I will continue to publish planetransgender despite being nearly totally ignored by Trans News. I have learned to use other media outlets to increase readership which in the world of google page ranking transforms our opinions into fact by simple multiplication.

I wish all the best to Stephanie Stevens with TranAction ConVergence Two.

If you wish you can 'like' planetransgender on facebook and our articles will appear in your news feed.

planetransgender won't just survive, the planet will thrive.

Thanks for being you,
kelli Anne Busey



4/13/13

Buxom Trans Woman Busted For "Indecent Exposure"

Transgender woman Ashley Del Valle while on vaction in Savanna Georgia was arrested for "indecent Exposure" for allegedly baring her breasts. Del Valle Contends she was wearing a sheer top.


Del Valle was held in segragation for the first two days. On the third day she was moved to a cell surrounded by men.

Filed under: What gender am I?

Del Valle told Wasv.com that "after being taken to the jail, the nurse examined her and after realizing she still has male genitalia, she was put in a holding cell. She spent two days there. She told us some jail personnel were rude and referred to her as "a thing".

"They were banging on walls, calling me names and I was afraid, I was afraid for my life,"


De Valle is considering legal actions.



World's First Successful Uterus Transplant Recipient Is Pregnant

This has huge implications for transgender woman and our partners who wish to give birth to children. Via Raw Story:
"The first woman ever to receive a uterus from a deceased donor, is two-weeks pregnant following a successful embryo transplant, her doctors said on Friday.

22-year-old Derya Sert was revealed to be almost two-weeks pregnant in preliminary results after in vitro fertilisation at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya, her doctor Mustafa Unal said in a written statement.

“She is doing just fine at the moment,” Unal said.

Sert was described as a “medical miracle” when she became the first woman in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a dead donor in August 2011 at the same Antalya hospital.

The groundbreaking news of her pregnancy will rekindle hopes for thousands of childless women across the world who are unable to bear their own babies."
More at Raw Story

There's a lot of folks who are doubtful we will ever see a trans woman have a child in our lifetime. It was just two years ago this was seen as a distant event by most of the medical community except a couple visionary doctors and one transgender woman. Sarah Luiz was among those visionaries when she became the first transgender uterine transplant candidate.

Sadly, Derya Sert lost her baby at 8 weeks but there is still hope as Swedish doctors have transplanted nine uterus's.



4/12/13

Idaho Transgender Shopper Denied Public Accommodations, Given No Trespass Orders For Using The Bathroom


Ally Robledo a Transgender Woman from Lewiston ID was shopping for groceries and nature called. Seems ordinary enough. But her shopping trip ended suddenly as was given a no trespass order after two cisgender woman complained to management about a 'man' in the bathroom.

Ally wasn't bothering anyone, the cisgender woman recognized her as transgender and used that knowledge to hurt her.

Robledo was given a no trespass order Monday night shortly after exiting the Rosauer's grocery store location in Lewiston according to KlewTV "A male subject who was using the female restroom, and that made some women customers uncomfortable because of the appearance that a male was using their restroom," said Lewiston Police Captain Roger Lanier.

“So when I use the female restroom, I feel more comfortable, I feel like a lady," Robledo told North West Public Radio. "I don't invade anybody's privacy and for them to bring that out in a no trespassing order is just humiliating.”

The 25-year-old trans woman claims the Spokane-based grocery chain violated her civil rights, and she’s looking into a lawsuit. Idaho law does not outright prevent businesses from denying service to someone based on gender identity or sexual orientation.