Life In Print

The Advocate, theadvocate.com, is a web publication for the queer community that functions as a space of celebration, connection, and information. The page is attractive, reminiscent of the Times web edition, and informs its upwardly-mobile audience with ads for 'gay European hotspots' as well as a little history and current mainstream events affecting the GLBT community; there are headlines concerning politics, youth, music, many on television, human rights, film , drugs, international news, equal rights, and activism. The publication is the community's equivalent of Newsweek- information and entertainment. It contains no editorials on the queer experience, nor does it offer legal advice or face the censorship and harassment gsy and lesbian newsources of the past we re subject- this is due to an overall exercise of freedom of speech, as well as a cultural shift.

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

There is a sensitive discussion around this event, http://www.michfest.org/. The festival's director Lisa Vogel states that it is to be open to womyn-born- womyn only, and not to any who identify as transgendered. A vote taken at the festival to determine ticket-buyer's opinion resulted in 3/4 support for letting transgensder people in. However, the popular vote in the United States didn't serve womyn's interest until 100 years after its founding, so to rely upon it as an accurate measure of "right" is irresponsible, whether the majority favored inclusion or not. The real issue is the point brought up at the festival's inception, whether or not to allow a transgendered womyn to perform, and the argument for her validity was anounced as

"the DOB newspaper Sisters walked out and offered this statement: "We are disgusted that any lesbian has the audacity to judge the sexuality of another sister. And so we resign." In Los Angeles, Jeanne Cordova wrote an editorial in the Lesbian Tide about this. She said, "Those who vote 'no' tonight vote with our oppressors, Those who vote 'yes' recognize that none of us is free unless all of us are free." http://camp-trans.org/pages/ct-history.html

Even boys as young as 5 are not allowed on the main festival grounds, spending their time at a special camp on site, Brother Sun. If their gender is the only reason for this- which is the only explanation I could find on the site- this is sad, because the festival is a chance to celebrate womyn and to teach the future generation of boys that womyn should be celebrated, not marginalized, or discounted, and that is true equality- a world where womyn feel safe and repected, and loved, everywhere.

Queer Visibilty and Activism

The annual L.A. Dyke March is an event to celebrate and make visible the lesbian community as they work toward equality and human rights, per their manifesto. The participants vary in dress and expression, but don't appear to be dressing differently from any other day in the life. They all seem content, suppported, celebrated and comfortable, and their largest march had 40,000-100,000 participants so they were definitely seen! In regards to political and social goals historically sought out by the movement, events such as these definitely foster solidarity and provide community, as for larger aims, such as laws, freedoms, and dissolving prejudice, it's hard to tell...they are empowering, exciting, a little shocking at times depemding on costume, dress, or lack therof. Micheal Warner, in his piece "What's Wrong With Normal?"seeks to connect with like-minded individuals, gain rights, & protect freedoms, but also to be accepted/celebrated by larger society, easily categorized as freaks as they challenge the 'stigmaphobe' of normalcy with honest expression. He finds two camps of participation, that of sex radical and the other assimilationist. Apparently Chellew is the latter in her article "The Naked Truth", but perhaps not, as she seems to represent those willing to sacrifice image, appearance, and visibilty for real change in rights' legislation, acceptance, and harmony. She might agree that outward expressions that place too much emphasis on sexuality leaves onlookers of these parades with a sense of participants' imbalance, or ill-health.
To gather and march is to celebrate, to encourage, to be seen. How much, or what side we should show is a question only answered by a deliberation of what activism is, whether one is an activist or not.