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Delayed Critique: on Being Feminist, Time and Time Again

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Delayed Critique: on Being Feminist, Time and Time Again Delayed Critique: On Being Feminist, Time and Time Again In “On Being in Time with Feminism,” Robyn Emma McKenna is a Ph.D. candidate in English and Wiegman (2004) supports my contention that history, Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She is the au- theory, and pedagogy are central to thinking through thor of “‘Freedom to Choose”: Neoliberalism, Femi- the problems internal to feminism when she asks: “… nism, and Childcare in Canada.” what learning will ever be final?” (165) Positioning fem- inism as neither “an antidote to [n]or an ethical stance Abstract toward otherness,” Wiegman argues that “feminism it- In this article, I argue for a systematic critique of trans- self is our most challenging other” (164). I want to take phobia in feminism, advocating for a reconciling of seriously this claim in order to consider how feminism trans and feminist politics in community, pedagogy, is a kind of political intimacy that binds a subject to the and criticism. I claim that this critique is both delayed desire for an “Other-wise” (Thobani 2007). The content and productive. Using the Michigan Womyn’s Music of this “otherwise” is as varied as the projects that femi- Festival as a cultural archive of gender essentialism, I nism is called on to justify. In this paper, I consider the consider how rereading and revising politics might be marginalization of trans-feminism across mainstream, what is “essential” to feminism. lesbian feminist, and academic feminisms. Part of my interest in this analysis is the influence of the temporal Résumé on the way in which certain kinds of feminism are given Dans cet article, je défends l’idée d’une critique systéma- primacy in the representation of feminism. Following tique de la transphobie dans le féminisme, en préconi- the work of Clare Hemmings (2011), I want to inter- sant une réconciliation des politiques transgenres et vene in the kinds of stories that are being told about féministes dans la collectivité, la pédagogie et la cri- feminism; I want to contribute to a less partial narrative, tique. Je soutiens que cette critique est à la fois tardive one where the feminisms included do not simply repro- et productive. En utilisant le Festival Michigan Womyn duce histories of belonging for some women. At stake in Music comme archive culturelle de l’essentialisme de this paper is a willingness to risk my own unintelligibili- genre, j’envisage comment la relecture et la révision des ty, to admit—if even temporarily—to not knowing how politiques pourraient être ce qui est « essentiel » pour le to think together all of the tensions that the theoretical féminisme. project of feminism raises. In what follows, I will argue that trans-feminism has been a structuring aspect of much contemporary feminist thinking on gender and sexuality. Simultane- ously, I will examine some of the conditions that have excluded trans1 subjects and trans issues from feminist cultural, material, and discursive spaces. In particular, I will consider the politics of trans-exclusion in the en- trance policy of Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival as a case study and connect this to other exclusions in fem- inism. I argue that the persistence of these trans-exclu- sions needs to be evaluated in relation to the ongoing forms of resistance by trans scholars, trans activists, and trans allies. Encouraged by the belief that feminist 184 Atlantis 37.2 (2), 2016 www.msvu.ca/atlantis theory, activism, and pedagogy can lead to a disruption closing its doors in 2015, MWMF was peculiarly out of of hegemonic relations, I am hopeful that the margin- time with itself, an anachronism that was intentional, alization of trans-feminism is losing currency. More- produced, and revered as such. Through a range of cul- over, I am interested in how feminism, as a politic of tural practices, the most obvious being the trans-exclu- critique, can be routed toward self-reflexivity in order sive entrance policy, MWMF presented itself as a kind to re-imagine itself. To conclude my analysis, I will en- of impermeable time capsule of second-wave cultural gage in a personal practice of “recitation” (Hemmings feminism, an insular and insulating refusal to change 2011) and “reparative reading” (Sedgwick 2003). In this in order to preserve its attachments to the presumption exercise, I aim to signify how feminist political subjec- of violence inherent in a specifically sexualized gender tivity is a process of becoming, but also of return, with binary. However, the festival’s “womyn-born-womyn compassion, to a moment of my own opacity around only” admission policy, which functioned to exclude trans politics in order to read it differently for the pres- trans women and undermine trans men, performed its ent and hopefully for the future. This analysis, then, is own kind of discursive and material violence in the de- about how feminism is a timely project; it is a system marcation of whose bodies count as women. As a fes- of making sense of, valuing, and structuring politics as tival grounded in feminist principles and attended by well as the projection of an image that is outside of, but feminist participants, the festival also asserted which pivots on, the self. The shape of this project, I suggest, feminist subjects counted as the worthy subjects of fem- takes and makes time. inism. The expulsion of two trans women from the fes- Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival tival in 1991 resulted in the formalization of the “wom- The origins of this paper began with my insis- yn-born-womyn policy” in 1993, and, significantly, in tence that Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (MWMF) the establishment of the protest movement Camp Trans was out of time with contemporary feminisms. At the that same year (Sreedhar and Hand 2006, 161). Each time, MWMF was still hosting an annual “womyn-on- year thereafter, Camp Trans was mobilized as a tempo- ly” music and cultural festival in Michigan, USA. Re- rary site of trans politicization and community build- sponding to misogyny, homophobia, and racism, ing, occupying land adjacent to the MWMF grounds MWMF was created in 1976 to provide a place for wom- (camp-trans.org). Despite this and other highly visible en where their “difference” would be celebrated and not forms of dissent and critique over the following two de- vilified, protected and not threatened. The majority of cades, the exclusive policy persisted and, as recently as the festival participants have historically been lesbian 2013, the director of MWMF defended its necessity as feminists (Kirby 2013). For the duration of the festival a way to preserve women’s space (Hurst 2013). Despite years, known colloquially as “Fest,” “Michfest,” or just the exclusivity of the policy which targeted the barring “Michigan,” festival attendees camped out for a week on of certain women, the festival nonetheless sustained a what was described as “women’s land”2 and participated significant place in the life of many feminist subjects. in community-building through anti-oppression and Why and how was it justifiable that safe space for some self-empowerment workshops, volunteer work, and women pivoted on the formal exclusion of trans wom- communal eating and showering. In May 2015, MWMF en, especially when trans women are so often the recipi- released a statement that it would be closing its doors ents—not perpetrators—of violence? That this violence that summer, in its 39th festival year (Merlan 2015). The is often at the hands of other women is perhaps not sur- closure of this iconic festival no doubt elicited a range prising, as feminist theory has made clear the ways in of reactions across disparate feminist communities, in- which symbolic violence materializes in everyday prac- cluding disappointment, ambivalence, and satisfaction. tices and actions. I chose MWMF as a case study through which MWMF’s trans-exclusive policy demonstrated to analyze the ongoingness of transphobia within fem- explicit transphobia and reified an essentialist gender inism precisely because of the lengthy duration of both ideology, where gender is both biologically and socially the festival and its trans-exclusive entrance policy, the constructed, in order to secure an imagined (festival) “womyn-born-womyn policy.” I suggest that, prior to culture of (liberated) female victims and (distanced) 185 Atlantis 37.2 (2), 2016 www.msvu.ca/atlantis male perpetrators. Through sustaining this binary, “being female” might mean were not as clearly demar- MWMF cast itself as a utopic “womyn’s space” that op- cated as some MWMF organizers and attendees would erated outside of the very oppression it insists upon. In have liked to believe. The double-edged insistence on my view, those who attended MWMF colluded with sustaining the kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” gender in- transphobia, benefited from it, and sought to preserve junction alongside an explicit request for trans people transphobia as an inevitable aspect of feminist culture not to attend (Sreedhar and Hand 2006, 162-163) re- and therefore feminist politics, activism, and theory. vealed that festival organizers were aware that the poli- Furthermore, MWMF perpetuated a division between cy—and, by implication, the festival itself—was fright- cisgender3 women and trans women by insisting on the eningly precarious, capable of being undone or upheld incompatibility between “women’s spaces” and trans by a wide range of “female-bodied” subjects at any given spaces (Nicki 2006, 159), women’s issues and trans is- moment. The desire to contain “female bodies” at the sues, and feminist politics and trans politics. I actively festival was as much an effort to celebrate, empower, write against these distinctions. That transphobia—and and liberate “womyn” as it was to categorize, discipline, its attendant avowals and disavowals—needs first to be and police them as such.
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