"Sisters Together": Antiracist Activism and the Fight for Trans Inclusion at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (Michfest), an annual lesbian feminist cultural event, held its last gathering in 2015 after forty years of existence. The festival's closure was rumored to be connected to ongoing conflicts over its infamous "womyn-born-womyn" attendance policy, which first becam...
| Publicado en: | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 865 - 890 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Chicago Press
Summer2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=185841010&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 185841010 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00979740 SIG jtl: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society issn: 00979740 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2025 vid: 50 iid: 4 pid: 415 pub: University of Chicago Press artinfo: ui: 185841010 10.1086/734685 ppf: 865 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 185841010 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 185841010 tig: atl: "Sisters Together": Antiracist Activism and the Fight for Trans Inclusion at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. aug: au: Pruett, Jessica affil: Gender and Sexuality Studies. Kenyon College su: Trans women Transgender people Institutional racism Women of color Rumor Music festivals sug: subj: Trans women Transgender people Institutional racism Women of color Rumor Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events with Facilities Live theatres and other performing arts presenters with facilities Festivals without facilities Music festivals ab: The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (Michfest), an annual lesbian feminist cultural event, held its last gathering in 2015 after forty years of existence. The festival's closure was rumored to be connected to ongoing conflicts over its infamous "womyn-born-womyn" attendance policy, which first became a subject of controversy in 1991 and effectively banned trans women from the weeklong festival. Michfest now occupies a troubled space in feminist scholarship, where it is largely cited as the definitive example of lesbian feminist transphobia. This study analyzes Michfest's archive in order to trace the connections between the womyn-born-womyn policy and the festival's racial politics, complicating existing narratives of the festival by foregrounding its understudied histories of trans and antiracist activism. Writing alongside other queer and trans theorists who have argued against an interpretation of lesbian feminism as the exclusive domain of white, cisgender women, I highlight the range of tactics used by women of color and trans people to challenge the festival's policies and power structure. I argue that while the festival was shaped at the structural level by racism and transphobia, its foundation in the premise of collective ownership also made it a significant site of trans and antiracist activism and community building. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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