A new Change.org petition has been launched calling on the Indigo Girls and other performers at the 2013 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival to pull out and boycott the festival until the festival adopts a policy that would allow transgender women to attend. The petition, launched this week, currently has over 1,200 signatures.
Festival founder and producer Lisa Vogel has stated previously that the Festival "has been created by and for womyn-born womyn, that is, womyn who were born as, and have lived their entire life experience as, womyn." After a transgender woman was ejected from the festival in 1991, trans people have organized multiple protests against the policy, including establishing Camp Trans outside the festival's gates.
The Indigo Girls addressed the protest in a statement posted to their blog yesterday:
"We strongly feel that the time is long overdue for a change of intention, to one that states very plainly the inclusion of Trans Womyn. To us, this change of intention is the only path to a truly 'safe space' for womyn. […] Although we are playing the festival, we honor the current protest against MWF and hope that it will help move the community towards change. Any money that we make playing the Festival will go towards Trans Activism. We will make a statement from stage at the Festival in support of Trans Inclusion. We have made it clear that this will be our last time at the Festival until MWF shows visible and concrete signs of changing their intention."
The full text of the Indigo Girls statement can be read at their website and the petition calling on performers to boycott the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's for their policy of excluding transgender women can be seen here.