SEPTEMBER 2, 1994 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

3

Transsexuals allowed into Michigan festival for the first time

Continued from page 1.

protesters, Riki Anne Wilchins, and lesbian musician Alix Dobkin, a supporter of the festival's exclusionary policy. The statement met with largely positive response from festival-goers.

Wilchins, who is a member of the New York City chapter of the Lesbian Avengers, was invited by Lesbian Avengers inside the festival to attend their scheduled meeting on Saturday, August 13. She agreed to attempt to enter the festival as an openly transsexual woman in order to attend the meeting if the Lesbian Avengers would provide a contingent to escort her, which they agreed to do.

On Saturday morning, in an attempt to obtain clarification of the "womyn born womyn" policy, Camp Trans protesters met with festival communications coordinators Lucy Tatman and Sue Doerfer. They asked whether Leslie Feinberg, James Green, and Kodi Hendrix would be permitted to buy tickets without violating festival policy.

Leslie Feinberg introduced herself as a person who was born anatomically female but who passes and lives as a man and has a driver's license showing her sex as male. She asked whether she would be welcome to enter the festival. Tatman said that "the festival would prefer not," a statement she retracted after Feinberg declared that she would tell audiences on her upcoming book tour that she had received confirmation that she "is not welcome at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival."

Kodi Hendrix then told Tatman and Doerfer that he was born with both male and female genitalia and asked whether "only half of [him] could come in."

James Green said that he had no desire to enter the festival, and was only there "in support of [his] transsexual sisters," but wanted to know if he, as a female-to-male

transsexual, would be considered a woman by the festival owners using the same logic by which they consider male-to-female transsexuals to be men even after sex-change surgery.

Tatman and Doerfer were unable to provide answers to either of these questions. The protesters then requested clarification of the policy regarding these three individuals from festival owners Lisa Vogel and Barbara Price.

Less than an hour later, Tatman and Doerfer delivered a message from the festival owners declining to further clarify the term “womynborn womyn" and stating that it is up to each individual to decide whether or not she is included in that definition.

Tatman and Doerfer also assured the protesters that no one attempting to purchase a ticket would be harassed and that none of them would be asked by security to leave the festival, because it was "no longer a security issue."

The Camp Trans group decided to attempt to buy tickets when the Lesbian Avengers sent their contingent out to accompany Wilchins inside for their meeting. Feinberg, who had previously stated that she would not enter the festival until her transsexual sisters were allowed to attend, decided to enter if the transsexual women were also allowed to enter.

The contingent of protesters presented a statement to the box office staff declaring that their group consisted of transsexual women, nontranssexual women, an intersex person, and transgendered women, and that each of them interpreted the term “womyn born womyn" to include them.

None of the protesters were refused tickets or asked questions regarding their medical history or their commitment to uphold festival policy. The protesters were then surrounded by the contingent of Lesbian Aveng-

ers and escorted to the scheduled meeting, with a number of other festival participants joining the contingent along the way.

After the meeting, the protesters, again surrounded by Lesbian Avengers and joined by numerous other festival participants, conducted a parade through the festival grounds chanting "Support Our Policy: All Women Welcome!" As promised, no one in the Camp Trans contingent was asked by security to leave the festival.

Following their return to Camp Trans, the group decided to to strike camp because of impending severe thunderstorms and fore-

casts of rain throughout the night and into the following day, and because it was felt that the protest action had been highly successful. However, protesters still feel that the "womyn-born womyn" policy remains unclear and that it is still uncertain whether openly transsexual women will be allowed to attend the festival without fear of expulsion in the future.

Unless there is further clarification of these issues in the interim and the festival abolishes its "womyn-born womyn" only policy, activists say they will continue their protests next year.

Study finds 'gay elite' is a myth

Continued from page 1

General Social Survey, an annual survey on public attitudes conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

The survey included random sampling of 4,426 people. Badgett selected 1,680 responses, which represented people employed full-time. Five percent of those responses were from homosexuals, amounting to 47 gay men and 34 lesbians.

Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey, said the small sample size makes the findings questionable.

"Tentative and suggestive would be the strongest words to use for these findings,' Smith said. "This is a small sample and it would have a very large margin of error."

Badgett acknowledged that the sample size was very small, but said the information was important for future research.

Badgett said the notion of a gay elite has been fostered by advertising agencies and

marketing companies.

"They are trying to convince companies that lesbians and gays are affluent so they will advertise their products," Badgett said. "There certainly are some wealthy gay people, but there are a lot who are middle class and some that are poor too."

Recently, the idea of the gay elite has been used by anti-gay groups to fight laws that protect gays from discrimination, said Robin Kane, spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a Washington-based group with 30,000 members.

This was particularly evident in recent anti-gay initiatives launched in Idaho, Oregon and Colorado, Kane said.

"This is a myth that is being perpetuated throughout the radical right to ostracize gay and lesbian people and to reason that gay and lesbian people are not deserving of civil rights,” said Kane.

"They have repeated it so often that the reputation gained momentum and became a pseudo-fact," she said.

Slammers

Help the Gay People's Chronicle and Slammers

Celebrate a One Year Anniversary!!

Join us at Slammers on Thursday Night, September 8 at 7pm for Fun, Food and Entertainment!!

Entertainment by:

David Wood and Danse Wrapture

Skits by Reality Theater The Chronicle will be giving away trial subscriptions and personals! The Human Rights Campaign Fund will have a booth.

No Cover at the Door!

Call Slammers at 614/469-SLAM