The debate over women's spaces and inclusion in LGBT communities is hardly new, but a recent controversy may be reopening old wounds.
Two California-based organizations for butch-identified people are facing off over the meaning of "butch" and safe spaces at a time when more people in their shared community are coming out as transgender.
Butch Voices, an organization for "masculine of center" women and transgender people, splintered in July when a group of organizers left to start their own organization, Butch Nation.
The split, said Butch Nation organizers, was the result of the removal of the word "butch" from the Butch Voices mission statement, among other things.
Many have since argued that the disagreement strikes to the heart of a debate about feminist spaces.
Butch Nation wants to maintain women-led spaces. Butch Voices says distinctions based solely on gender are exclusionary.
"We're trying to be more about inclusion and not about favoritism," said Joe LeBlanc, founder of Butch Voices.
LeBlanc argues that the mission of Butch Voices has remained the same from the start, and that activists who left the organization to start Butch Nation knew all along that the organization was inclusive of different genders.
In place of "butch" this year, the organization opted for "masculine of center." That phrase refers mainly to women and gender-variant people, organizers said. However, the group could theoretically be open to non-transgender men as well.
Jeanne Cordova, a veteran activist who founded Butch Nation, argues that Butch Voices has abandoned the community it was created to serve in removing the word "butch" from its mission statement.
"I've heard a lot of sentiments that we don't want to be erased," Cordova said. "Butch women didn't feel we belonged under that umbrella [ of masculine of center ] ."
The argument is fraught with negative feelings and inter-organizational disputes. Cordova, who was on the board of Butch Voices, quarreled with that organization for 18 months before she was asked to leave. Several others involved in Butch Voices also left to join her in starting the new organization.
The division between the two organizations comes at a time when college "women's studies" programs are increasingly becoming "gender studies" programs and women's organizations must revise their mission statements to include their transgender members.
Where women once created separate spaces in a male-dominated society, many must now accept that such spaces are often painted as exclusionary by trans rights groups. For some, it calls into question the very idea of what "feminist" means.
Feminist communities hit a major road bump in 1994 when a transgender woman was ejected from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. The "Womyn-born-Womyn only" policy became a point of protest for transgender communities, who argued that the policy aimed to delegitimize transgender women as women.
Organizers, in turn, said the few places for "womyn-born-womyn" remained and that the distinction was important for their one event. The sides never reconciled, and transgender activists continue to camp across from the festival in protest of the policy.
However, while Cordova is clear that Butch Nation will "be leaning in the butch female direction," she said she disagrees with the Michfest policy, which some initially equated with Butch Nation's mission.
"We're not anxious to draw any sort of line here," Cordova said. "We're not anti-trans. We're pro-women-identified butch."
Still, she said, it remains to be seen if a transgender person could serve as president of Butch Nation.
The disagreement sometimes borders on "Gender 101," said Krys Freeman, president of Butch Voices.
Freeman feels that part of the issue boils down to an association by some of the word "butch" with a "white elder perspective." In keeping the word "butch" in the organization's name but removing it from the mission statement, organizers aimed to acknowledge both gender and racial diversity, she said.
"What we were trying to do this year was to expand the language so that we could explain who we are without creating a laundry list," she said.
Cordova remains steadfast that "butch" identity be placed at the forefront of the struggle, and she believes that the birth of Butch Nation signals a revival of butch identity that has been swallowed up by other struggles.
"It signifies a historic change because butch women are speaking up and holding," she said.
Freeman may not agree, but for now at least, the two sides are opting for amicability. Both want to push past the differences and support each other.
"We share a community," Freeman said. "So there's no way we can't work together."
Photos by Sarah Deragon
