In I think 2012 Pagan Spirit Gathering had a serious issue in which trans women were excluded from the Women's Ritual, a central ritual to the event. After this, the festival went to much greater lengths to make things inclusive for trans people, including a very clear policy indicating that all events that are limited to a gender must allow based on self-identity and not expression or anatomy. Since then, there have been a lot of changes made, including things like the All Gender Ritual which is inclusive to folks who are in the "both or neither" category or who do not identify with gendered rituals. I was involved in some of the very early work to get trans-inclusive things off the ground back in 2013 where there was an ad hoc meeting of trans folks and allies talking about this need, and one thing I was very clear about was that I very much wanted options for nonbinary people... but was adamant that it not be at the expense of trans women's right to women's space or trans men's right to men's space.
Because of the extra options and the clarity of policy, for the most part I think things are going great; my trans woman friends at PSG go to the Women's Ritual and other women's programming, I and my other trans masculine friends go to the Men's Ritual and programming, and those who don't identify with either of those spaces go to the All Gender ritual, and most of the issues seem to have gone away (although if anybody says they haven't, you should certainly listen to that perspective).
That said, I'm being a little nit-picky here, but there are a couple of things that I want to point out that can be improved.
First, be very careful with what language you use to indicate inclusion.
This was the program blip for the Men's Ritual this year (emphasis mine):
Calling all men, and those who identify as men! Rise Up! Join in as we come together to honor not only the divine but each other, our community, our tribe and our part(s) in it.The first sentence here is the problem... this makes a separation between "men" and "those who identify as men," which implicitly puts folks like me in the category of "non-man who identifies as man." I think it's important to acknowledge that this was clearly an attempt at making trans men aware that we were welcome in the ritual, but it used phrasing that is a very common sore point in our community. It would have been better to just say "calling all those who identify as men," which includes both cis and trans men, although a lot of people don't like the phrase "identify as..." at all.
Compare this to the program blip for the Women's Ritual, which also had a sentence at the end that is meant to be inclusive that does not make this distinction and is way better:
To Know, To Will, To Dare...and silent no more, we rise! The seat of a woman's power is in the complexity of her mind; the spiraling labyrinthine vessel of her vast and holy spirit. The Goddess has arisen! She comes in infinite forms and a thousand-thousand faces reflected in this community of women as we gather in reclamation and in celebration of the power, dignity, and witchery of sisterhood. All women in all bodies are welcome!Now, at PSG technically neither of these should be necessary with the inclusion policy written as it is, but because of the recent shitty history it makes sense that this extra clarity would be wanted... it's just important to make sure that you aren't accidentally othering us when you do it.
Recognize and accommodate the fact that dysphoria exists (in other words, don't force us to show other people our bodies!).
A long time ago for a different blog I wrote something called "how to make a bathroom that's (really) inclusive for trans people." Because people love neglecting men's restrooms, a suggestion I can't believe I had to make was "make sure your bathroom stalls have doors, and that those doors lock." I've in the past held my bladder until emergency level hoping I would be able to avoid some bullshit bar restroom that had no stall doors and a bunch of drunk guys stumbling in, worried they'd see I was trans.
Dysphoria in a trans person is discomfort with the forcibly gendered aspects of our bodies. There are multiple things that can cause dysphoria:
- An inherent sense of "wrongness," in which regardless of how others feel about our bodies, we do not like engaging with or seeing their gendered aspects. For example, there are trans people who shower in the dark to avoid seeing their bodies in the nude.
- Anxiety about how other people view our bodies or about being treated like an exhibit. Even if people know we're trans, we may very well not want people to actually see what our bodies look like.
- Anxiety about the possibility of being "outed." Many of us do not want other people to know we're trans and therefore dress in a way that prevents other people from seeing us.
So, the shower situation. I already talked about it in my last post... it was a big group shower that was all-gender, and the alternative more-private showers had their own slew of problems. The giant unisex shower was awkward enough for cis people, but when you have a body that isn't what people expect, it can be downright traumatic to be stuck in a situation where you're trying desperately to avoid other people looking at you. Seeing other trans people try to navigate these showers was actually upsetting.
I'm a nudist-wannabe... and I love the idea of being naked and representing trans bodies. But most trans people are not me, and this was not a good situation for them. The PSG organizers didn't have a hell of a lot of control over it, but I wanted to bring it up because it was A Thing.
What there was control over, though, was the Men's Ritual. Don't get me wrong: I loved the ritual, it was dramatic and powerful and honestly one of my favorite rituals ever, but it also mandated a bare chest for part of it. I had top surgery months ago, and even if I hadn't, I am still subject to that nudist-wannabe stuff I said above. I was going to go regardless, titties or no. But I did think about how I would have felt about that before hormones, or at my first PSG in 2013 when I even had a binder on the whole time despite it being extremely uncomfortable to wear it. For those of us trans people who feel very strongly called to Men's Mysteries or Women's Mysteries, these rituals are extremely important and validating, so the fact that this one was designed in a way that potentially drove away folks like pre-op and binder-wearing trans men is disappointing.
Vet your presenters for transphobia.
I believe that PSG has basically blacklisted some high-profile transphobes from attending, but I did just get word that a recent presenter (not from this year) was pushing bullshit TERF logic on his Facebook, and there was still a workshop dedicated to the work of this asshole (to be fair, this workshop takes place every year and was probably submitted long before the word vomit of the writing in question). Please be mindful of the fact that Pagan culture has a very deep thread of transmisogyny in it and plenty of very popular figures in our religion(s) have said incredibly bullshit things about trans people, usually trans women. Even with all the policies in place, having people there who we know have said extremely harmful things about us can take us out of the whole experience.
This includes stuff that you might find "iffy." Somebody who says things like "there's nothing wrong with trans women but they should have their own spaces" is promoting transmisogyny and exclusion (even if they genuinely don't think they are).
Anyway, that's it for now. Again, as far as this year is concerned with relation to myself, this is nit-picky stuff, but important stuff nonetheless.
Happy trails,
-- Setkheni-itw