This will be a quick entry to address accusations that I have been reading about in regards to events at Camp Trans 2010. I will follow with a full entry on my dissection of the events, most likely in video blog format. Gayge or Andy, you are more than welcome to post this to your blog on this subject.
I stayed the full length of Camp, leaving midday on Sunday. The events of the week brought me closer to other trans women, a small group of us amongst the small minority we were at the whole camp. After a trans female spectrum caucus was called, we decided to publicly announce that we felt the mission statement needed to be changed. This was met with extreme hostility and threats of violence.
After the bad reaction, I stayed close to those who I knew and trusted the best at camp, a small group of mostly trans women. This included Gayge and Andy. I stayed at their tent most of the night that night and stayed there all day the next day. Tensions ran high at the camp that day. That morning we watched as people filed out. Several people packed up and left, including at least one trans woman who felt unsafe in the space.
I continued to sit and talk with the sisters I trusted. We were all on edge about the community meeting that night, and as it was decided to again open up sensitive subjects, my friends decided for their safety to leave. They asked me to help them pack and I was happy to do so, but not without a few tears.
At that point I myself began feeling very unsafe. I was walking around camp armed. It’s a sad day when a trans woman can’t feel safe in a space that is supposed to center her. Perhaps my friend was right when she said the theme of the week was ‘patriarchy’. I personally feel it was ‘more radical than thou’. As if threats of violence, a pack mentality, and making people feel unsafe in their space is somehow more radical or even anarchist in the least. This sounds more like High School than a radical queer space, and it felt like it too.
So, seeing as I was in the presence of Gayge during the time she would or could have written any note or letter “snitching” on other parties, I imagine it would have been fairly difficult for her to do so. Also, wherever she left it, it wasn’t at her campsite, because I and I alone cleaned that site up for them. There simply was no note, and no time to write it.
Gayge also does not seem like the type of person to perpetrate such a betrayal. She was simply voicing her concerns, which I felt were perfectly valid, and was shouted down. Another theme for the week could be “the loudest ones win” or “the loudest ones are right”. I only just met Gayge at camp, but I can generally judge people fairly well. Gayge seems as committed to radicalism and queer radicalism as anyone I’ve ever met. I simply can’t believe that she would do something so abhorrent as turn people over to the state.
In solidarity,
Candice Rose Cartman
Taken from: http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=440484342496 with the permission of the author.
Openness and Honesty about Events Around Camp Trans 