Transfeminisms
From December 5 to 7 the Feminist Days were held in Granada, Spain. "Thirty years later: here we are". This event celebrates the II State Conference of Women, organized by the State Coordinator of feminist organizations in 1979. The Coordinator is a network of groups of women who work in assemblies and are open to the variety of feminist groups; through this we exchange experiences and activities. It promotes discussions on relevant topics to the groups participating in it. The Women's Assembly of Granada which was founded in 1975, was the organizer of this event with other groups that took their impetus from the First Feminists Meeting held underground in Madrid, in those years.
Four thousand participants attended in 2009, that involved women, lesbians, well known feminists, feminist novice, heterosexual, foreign, Spanish, transgenders, transsexuals, transvestites and historical figures of all identities. Due to the momentum of the group "fuzzy sets", in which there are several members who were part of the Women's Assembly of Granada and that also includes trans activist and academic Kim Perez, referring indubitable trans movement and trans activist Astrid Suess , who organized several thematic tables on non-binary transfeminist in the workshop this year.
Astrid Suess comes from the queer movement, but now she is more foccused in the politics of identity, assuming it as trans not binary. The participation in these Conferences as a speaker and organizer of several tables has been invaluable to discuss and advance the inclusion of the topic of non-binary gender. The aim of "fuzzy sets" is to create an experiential space for debate, not just theoretical, which make visible the various non-binary ways of being and living the sexuality, gender and desire, in a established and vindicated way.
Other groups at the conference that were very important: "Frony Sidewalk" with Alire Juana Ramos Araneta, "Guerrilla Travolaka" with Miguel Missé, "Medeak of Donosti" and "MassMedeak" Bilbao. We need to mention the presence of Laura Bugalho, Galician activist with a long background of working on the immigration issue; Belissa Andia, ILGA-World Trans Secretariat, and Elizabeth Vazquez, Transgender Project Ecuador.
In the opening speech during the parody of Lola Van Guardia, a reference was made to trans issues through dialogues, holding a feminist mother and trans son. The workshops included several tables full of trans topics. The round table "(Des) sexual and gender identities" in the afternoon the first day opened the debate with the participation of Juan Ramos "Searching the lost essence: identities from a transdisciplinary perspective," Elvira Burgos Transdesiring: the adventure of identity "and Gracia Trujillo" Identities, strategies, resistance ".
Trans lesbian women also contributed to the debate, with the presentation "Lesbianism and other diverse trans desires" by Juana Ramos. In the table, "Building multiple genres and bodies", we had a luxury presence of Kim Perez (Fuzzy Sets) and Elisabeth Vasquez Blanco (Transgender Project). In the discussion of non binarism, we listened to Kim Perez, Belissa Andia Perez, Miguel Misse (Guerrilla Travolaka) and Miriam Sola (Collective Medusa). We also discussed about the despathologization and autonomy of bodies, networks and actions against transphobia and the right to identity in the context of the recent Stop campaign against the gender identity pathologization.
It is pleasant to see how the transfeminism attracted the attention of feminists to the point there was also the complaint that they have had too much attention, but this topic is not new in the Workshops of Granada. It has been discussed by pioneers since 1993 and that's an incentive to continue fighting.
The big question raised in these conferences is who is the subject of feminism, that is to say who develops the feminism, "women?, women in their variety?," Other related subjects? Of course, any subject, through the process of gender liberation initiated by women two hundred years ago, can be the subject of feminism, many of these individuals may not define ourselves as women or as men, but perhaps as trans, in a very open sense, or as intersex or androgynous in a long list that takes our reality, as Kim said Perez.
We are very pleased with the high influx into the spaces that were presented on transfeminism tables, because of the great emotion that was displayed and the support of feminists and other women that were not labeled. This is a good corollary to the debate on the inclusion of trans identity in feminism that was also discussed at the XI Latin American and the Caribbean Feminist Meeting, in Mexico, in March 2009. We know that the inclusion of the topic was not always easy, but the result obtained in Granada gives us strength to continue fighting to strengthen alliances with various social sectors, mainly the youth sector in which the subject has had a tremendous receptivity. At this point our general sense is no longer possible to challenge the entry of people into trans feminist space and this brings us joy and strength.
Fuzzy Sets: panel discussion on the non-binary
XI Feminist Transvestites Statement EFLAC
