Women Taking Over the World

By Lee Lynch

The National Women’s Music Festival (wiaonline.org/nwmf/) was 32 years old this summer. I had the honor of being invited to its Writers’ Series, organized by lesbian dynamo Mary Byrne and sprightly Tammara Tracy, which has traditionally been part of the festival. Together they operate Out Word Bound Books in Indianapolis (outwordbound.com)This was my fourth visit over a twenty year time span and, as always, I came away excited and energized.

Headliners in the Writers’ Series this year were Radclyffe, who has written 25 lesbian novels and anthologies, and Ellen Hart, who has published 23 mysteries. Kim Baldwin and I rounded out the writer’s marquee. Is it just Midwestern women, or are lesbians everywhere as passionate about the chroniclers of their culture? Every workshop turned into a conversation between these avid readers, beginning writers and the presenters. The sessions were more like gatherings of old friends than lectures and readings.

Spirits were high, especially at the erotic readings, when Radclyffe discussed the differences between erotica and writing about sex as a part of general fiction. Radclyffe, who is also the publisher of Bold Strokes Books, has a wonderfully clear vision of current lesbian literature and an unusual respect for those who preceded her.

At the workshop I gave (“Femme-Butch Writing: So Last Generation?”) I was delighted that two of the participants – Jeanne Arnold and Barbara Lindquist -- were the founders of Mother Courage Press, one of the early lesbian publishing companies. To have old wave Mother Courage and new wave Bold Strokes Books in the same room was an historic event.

“Back in the Day: Older Butch Culture” was another lively session. Kai Philippi, Ph.D, was the moderator. I just love it when dykes have respectable titles. It feels like a form of thumbing our noses at the het establishment. In the workshop, some of us told stories of life before gay lib, and others described the future we could not have imagined. Once you were femme, kiki or butch; now there are concepts like “androdyke” and “polyamorous” and, rather than bisexual, “biattractional.” One of the participants used the term “exploded labels” to explain what happened to the old language and stereotypes.

Now there are women and men who view themselves as nothing so old-fashioned as transgendered, but as gender queer. I never had a chance to ask what the word “boi” means or to discuss whether the popularity of gender reassignment could, for some butches, be another form of the closet. A gay youth counselor in the group told us that some professionals are encouraging gender changes in gay people, and asked whether this was another way of enforcing the two-gendered binary status quo. If most butches had sex changes and their femmes married the new men, lesbians could once again become members of a despised and hunted underground for refusing to be anything but what we are, women who love women. At what point would gender reassignment become compulsory? If it was involuntary, would it be any different than genital mutilation? What would a young butch have to agree to in order to escape that fate?

Obviously, some intense thinking went on at this festival, which also included spirituality, film and animal lovers’ series. General workshops had titles like “How Women’s Music Saved My Life,” “Free Spirit Drumming and Expressive Arts,” “Living Under the Swastika,” and “Adoptions and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.”

Of course the music was a continual joy. Just to know Linda Tillery is still singing, much less be able to hear her mellow voice, was a thrill. Jamie Anderson just gets better. Ferron gave a four-hour intensive workshop on song writing, while Ubaka Hill, whose drum was lost by an airline, soldiered on with a borrowed drum.

A major highlight of this festival for me was spending time with Ellen Hart, who is as warm, funny and engaging as her books. Rachel Spangler, a handsome young author whose novel Learning Curve will be released in 2008, squired a bunch of us to dinner. The cuisine in Normal, Illinois, is exceptional.

As always, it was the festival crew who most made me want to return to National. Producer Jane Weldon seemed to have one purpose in life: to make the performers’ time there easy and enjoyable. Manager Ann Arvidson was a wizard at rounding up volunteers, sometimes her own daughters, to move mountains – or in my case a bed – to accommodate presenters. Bonnie Zwiebel, head of security, was also the transport dyke. In her big red van and leather cowboy hat, she met planes and trains with a smile and even, much to my pleasure, reunited me with my sweetheart, who flew in unexpectedly in the middle of the lost drum crisis.

For someone who has always disliked travel and making appearances, I know I will return to be with these dykes who, by occasional contact and a shared love of lesbian culture, have become my friends. Why, with such talent, drive and expertise, women like these don’t take over the world and run it right, I don’t have a clue.





Copyright Lee Lynch 2007