Talk:Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

Problems with intro/lead section

The lead section of this article does not follow the usual format of a Wikipedia intro/lead section. Leads sections are supposed to summarize the contents of the article. This means they shouldn't include whole quotes, for example. That can be included in the main body where it belongs. Thus the lead should state what MWMF was intended to be and why, without including the long quotes. We can say something like "The founder of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, Lisa Vogel, has describe the point of the festival as place for cis-women only to gather, whom she argued shared a lived experience that constitutes its own distinct gender identity. Then when we talk about the trans-exclusionary stance of the founder, we can simply summarize it without another long quote. That means summarizing the accusations and the rebuttal, while leaving the long quote and other details for the "Controversy about transgender people" section. There is a noticeable lack of description of what exactly went on during there festival. We should summarize the activities that have occurred at the festival over the years, starting with it's creating as a women's only camping event, then it's addition of an open mike event, followed by it's transformation into a full-on music fest. We should also note notable music acts played there, as is does in the main body of the article. Finely, the last sentence in lead lacks any NPOV. It states "Throughout its history, MichFest occupied a central and powerful place in lesbian culture, embracing and creating a space for the vast diversity of female experience, or as Bonnie Morris described it: "An entire city run by and for lesbian feminists. Utopia revealed. And Eden—built by Eves."[13]". The wikipedia voice should not be used to express this clear cut opinion. If MWMF did indeed "occupied a central and powerful place in lesbian culture..." then we should be able to quote lesbian supporters of the festival sharing this view directly. Something like so and so has describe the festival as having "occupied a central and powerful place in lesbian culture", for example. The part of the sentence that goes "...embracing and creating a space for the vast diversity of female experience..." is also not NPOVC since it's debatable whether it did that, especially if you consider trans-women to real women. Then there the quote from "Bonnie Morris" at the end but it's not clear who she is or why here opinion is notable on this issue. We should explain who she is if where going to quote her, because the wikilink to the article one her is red due to no such article existing. Since she does not have her own article, we need to at least say something like "Bonnie Morris, who was a long time attendee, organizer, or what ever she is/was, was quoted as describing the festival as...". Notcharliechaplin (talk) 00:11, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Please feel free to roll up your sleeves and edit the article to comply with your observations. I just added a source that provides Bonnie Morris' recognition in the field of lesbian and feminist studies. Pyxis Solitary talk 08:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Notcharliechaplin, I agree with your concerns about the long quotes and POV language in the intro section. I put in an edit to improve it. I'd encourage you and others to review it and make additional improvements toward a well-summarized, as-neutral-as-possible intro section. Thanks! Dreamyshade (talk) 07:34, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Category

Shouldn't this article also be shown in Category:Trans-exclusionary radical feminism? Marcocapelle (talk) 12:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

No. There is nothing in the article about radical feminism; it fails WP:CATV. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:38, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Dana Rivers

Just noting that much of the content I removed today was previously discussed on Rivers' talk page. The sourcing that is available for this is sensationalistic, trying to establish a link between Rivers', Camp Trans, and Mitchfest where none was discussed or established during the trial. Not only does this seem undue, there are also WP:BLP concerns as describing her as a "mass murderer" doesn't seem to match her conviction. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

As for why this seems to be getting attention, it looks like several unreliable sources (NY Post, Daily Mail) are running stories on Rivers at the moment. No reliable sources seem to be discussing this however. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Anyone who kills 3 or more people with no cooling off period is a mass murderer. Also, if any other notorious or notable human was reported to have protested at Camp Trans, like Brad Pitt or Cher or Ted Bundy or Jimmy Carter or Cardi B, whoever, and there were literally 10 or so professional publications reporting that fact, surely it would appear on the Camp Trans and MichFest pages. Why does Rivers get special treatment? Bhdshoes2 (talk) 05:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

"No reliable sources seem to be discussing this however." — Trans Activist Convicted in Murders of Lesbian Couple and Their Son, Trudy Ring (November 28 2022), The Advocate; Transgender activist and Deviants motor club member convicted of 2016 triple murder in Oakland, Tori Gaines (January 17, 2023), KRON-TV; Dana Rivers, Convicted In 2016 Triple Murder In Oakland, Seeks New Trial, Jay Barmann (12 June 2023), SFist; ‘The most depraved crime I ever handled’: Transgender activist gets life in prison for murdering Oakland family, Nate Gartrell (June 14, 2023), The Mercury News; Dana Rivers sentenced to life in prison without parole, Emilie Raguso (June 14, 2023), The Berkeley Scanner; Biker gang 'enforcer' sentenced to life in prison for brutal murders, Madilynne Medina (June 20, 2023), SFGATE. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 12:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, let's see ... Camp Trans is mentioned in the lead and under "Exclusion controversy". Dana Rivers' article "Room for All Kinds of Womyn", published in LesbiaNation in August 2000, references Camp Trans five times, and ends with asking that Michigan Womyns Music Festival/MWMF allow "trans-womyn". This article includes mentions of trans activists Julia Serano and Red Durkin. I don't see why Rivers cannot be mentioned, too, since they were actively involved in Camp Trans. The lesbian couple Rivers murdered were frequent attendees of Michfest and there are reliable sources about Rivers at Michfest:

"A Handbook on Discussing the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival for Trans Activists and Allies", Emi Koyama (2002), pg. 44

"Trans Activist, Dana Rivers, Found Guilty of Murdering Lesbian Couple and Their Son", AJ (November 28, 2022), AfterEllen

"The shameful silence over Dana Rivers", Jo Bartosch (25 June 2023), Spiked

"Who is Dana Rivers? Outrage spikes after trans woman who murdered lesbian couple and their son is sent to female prison", Kunal Dey (June 26, 2023), Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide

"Trans-woman murders two lesbians and son, gets sent to women's prison for 'hate crime'", Alpha Tango (June 28, 2023), News Break.

Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 12:22, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the sources you've provided:

• It is very doubtful that LesbaNation is a reliable source, looking at an archived copy of the site it seemed to consist primary of purchased articles provided by a now defunct third-party e-commerce platform. There's no evidence of a fact checking or corrections policy on either LesbaNation or the site it purchased articles from. At best LesbaNation could be described as a news aggregator, which in most cases is neither reliable or unreliable, and depends on the original source for the article. However the presumed original source for the article appears to be non-reliable.
• The handbook seems to be self published, even if Emi is a subject-matter expert WP:BLPSPS would apply so this source isn't usable
• AfterEllen is not a reliable source for BLPs, and its anti-trans bias also needs to be accounted for.
• The reliability of Spiked is unclear per RSN archives, however even if it is a reliable source, this article by Bartosch is clearly an opinion piece and not factual reporting.
• Meaww is a generally unreliable source, particularly for BLP content.
• Per RSP (sorry no anchor to directly link) News Break is a deprecated source following an RfC in 2020 due to its status as an AI generated news aggregator. I cannot find an original source website for Alpha Tango, if you know it could you link it please?

So none of those sources can be used here to establish weight. You also provided another list of sources, these all appear to be reliable, taking those in order:

• While The Advocate discusses Rivers' conviction, it makes no mention of a connection between Rivers and either MitchFest or Camp Trans.
• Likewise KRON4 discusses the conviction, but no mention of MitchFest or Camp Trans
• Also true for Mercury News, no mention of MitchFest or Camp Trans.
• And the same again for Berkeley Scanner, no mention of MitchFest or Camp Trans
• And finally for SFGATE, no mention of MitchFest or Camp Trans

So again, nothing here that can be used to establish weight or imply a connection between Rivers and Camp Trans. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:44, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

From a Google news search, all of the below report on Rivers protesting MichFest:

1. MEAWW

By Kunal Dey

Jun 26, 2023

meaww.com is the website of Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide covering US news focusing on entertainment.

Dana Rivers: Outrage after trans woman who murdered ...

CHOWCHILLA, CALIFORNIA: "Dana Rivers — once a transgender activist and respected ... women-only music festival for lesbians in Michigan, known as MichFest."

2. Spiked (magazine)

The shameful silence over Dana Rivers - spiked

"In 2016, Dana Rivers, a once-feted campaigner for 'trans rights', ... opposition to a long-running feminist festival called Michigan Womyn's Music Festival..."

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/06/25/the-shameful-silence-over-dana-rivers/

3. Shore News Network

June 15, 2023

Laurel Duggan

Prominent Trans Activist Jailed For Murdering Entire Family ...

"Dana Rivers, a longtime transgender activist, was sentenced to life in ... in a pressure campaign against Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MichFest) in an..."

4. Tampa Free Press

June 15, 2023

Prominent Trans Activist Gets Life In Prison For Murdering ...

"Dana Rivers, a longtime transgender activist, was sentenced to life in prison ... against Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MichFest) to force the group,..."

https://www.tampafp.com/prominent-trans-activist-gets-life-in-prison/

5. Evie Magazine

June 19, 2023

Gina Florio. [Woman] Who Murdered Lesbian Couple And Their Son Is Placed In Women's Prison Because [She] Identifies As A Trans Woman

In 2015, [she] was active in an event called "Camp Trans," where flyers were passed around ...

6. Del Norte Triplicate

Feb 14, 2023

No Men In Women's Prisons | News | triplicate.com

"Previously, Rivers had been active in “Camp Trans,” a campaign against the rights of lesbians to hold the women-only Michigan Womyn's Music Festival,..."

7. Toronto Sun

Nov 28, 2022

Trans activist on trial in slaying of lesbian couple, son over ...

"Dana Rivers, 67, was charged with shooting Charlotte Reed, 56, ... festival ...MichFest

8. Feminist Current

June 19, 2023

What's Current: Trans activist, Dana Rivers, found guilty of triple murder.

"Rivers was also active in “Camp Trans,”

And also same periodical:

9. Nov 16, 2022 — Rivers had been active in “Camp Trans,” a campaign against Michfest's annual woman-only festival,

[There are also the following 5 sources on michfest and rivers: the press release from Camp Trans; Rivers' August 2000 Lesbian Nation publication; the AfterEllen piece, New York Post, Daily Mail.]

So that is 14 separate publications of that fact. At least. Bhdshoes2 (talk) 00:14, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The first block of sources I posted was because of your comment "it looks like several unreliable sources (NY Post, Daily Mail) are running stories on Rivers at the moment." Stories about Rivers have been running since they slaughtered Charlotte Reed, Patricia Wright, and their son Benny in 2016. Stories gained speed when the trial finally began on October 31, 2022, with subsequent conviction in November, and sentencing on June 14, 2023. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 09:56, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Regarding Rivers' association with Camp Trans and presence at Michfest: its obvious that you do not want it included in the article.
You claim that AfterEllen is not a reliable source, but this is strictly your biased opinion because AE was the subject of an RfC at WP:RSN in 2020 and the consensus was that "AfterEllen is reliable, but ... should be used with context." Therefore, the AfterEllen article about Dana Rivers at Michfest is acceptable.
As for your comment that AfterEllen has an "anti-trans bias" ... so what? PinkNews is pro-trans and I haven't seen you reject PN as a "reliable source" because of its pro-trans bias. Besides which, per WP:BIASED: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective....Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." The guideline for editing this article is not your personal opinions.
Here's another source about Rivers and Michfest:
"More than 60 gender activists from these groups [Camp Trans Planning Committee, Boston and Chicago chapters of Lesbian Avengers] plus members of Transsexual Menace, supportive attendees and renowned activist Dana Rivers gathered across the road from the Festival this year to do outreach and education on what they viewed as a discriminatory policy being unfairly applied...."
– mantilla, karla; Vogel, Lisa (October 2000). "festival: Michigan: transgender controversy… …and right-wing attacks "americans for truth" claims MWMF endangers children" (PDF). Off Our Backs. 30 (9): 8–9. ISSN 0030-0071. –(via JSTOR.)

A couple more:

"Rivers avait également été active dans « Camp Trans », une campagne contre Michfest, un festival réservé aux femmes dans le Michigan auquel Reed et Wright assistaient fréquemment."
(translation: "Rivers had also been active in "Camp Trans," a campaign against Michfest, an all-women's festival in Michigan that Reed and Wright frequently attended.")
– "L'activiste trans, Dana Rivers, reconnue coupable du meurtre d'un couple de lesbiennes et de leur fils" [Trans activist Dana Rivers found guilty of murdering lesbian couple and their son]. Gayvox (in French). 29 November 2022.

"In the US, two lesbian supporters of the long-running women-only music festival MichFest were murdered, along with their teenage son, by the trans activist Dana Rivers."
– Turner, Janice (July 7, 2023). "Lesbian tribunal win is good news for us all". The Times. Archived from the original on 8 July 2023.

Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 10:56, 1 July 2023 (UTC); edited 10:13, 22 July 2023 (UTC) ^{[two additional sources]}

I've opened a discussion about the reliability of AfterEllen over on RSN. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:54, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

to me it is very simple. If 16+ tabloid AND reputable sources reported that, say, Jimmy Carter or Caitlyn Jenner or Ted Bundy or Cardi B or any other notable person was a well-known protestor at MichFest, and there was original documentation of the same, it would obviously be in the MichFest article. Facts about the fest should not be memory-holed, and Dana Rivers shouldn't get special treatment, simply because bigots might make hay of a neutral notable fact that people researching MichFest would want to know about the fest. Bhdshoes2 (talk) 13:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, another important reason that the "Dana Rivers protested MichFest" fact should be published is that she wrote contemporaneous accounts of the protest movement. Publishing the fact would allow researchers of the history of MichFest to explore it more fully should they choose. Bhdshoes2 (talk) 15:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Before any content can be added to a Wikipedia article, it must be verifiable to a reliable source. Then we start to look into whether it is due or undue for inclusion. Unreliable sources are not counted towards either verifiability or measuring dueness of content. When it comes to adding content about living or recently deceased people the barrier for inclusion is very high, particularly with regard to reliable sources. Just so it's clear, BLP applies to biographical content on any page, anywhere on Wikipedia.

Also I would like to remind you that, we're not here to document everything about a subject, only what is considered encyclopaedic knowledge. As the policy states Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful. A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Rivers is getting no more special treatment than any other person who attended MichFest.

Leaving AfterEllen aside, as it's currently being discussed at WP:RSN to assess its reliability, many of the sources you've provided are unreliable as I've said previously. Would you be able to provide direct links to the articles from Shore News Network, Tampa Free Press, Del Norte Triplicate, and Toronto Sun please? Those might be reliable sources but I'm not able to easily find them, and it doesn't look like they've been directly linked before. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Since there has been no response to-date ... here are the direct links:
Prominent Trans Activist Jailed For Murdering Entire Family: ‘Most Depraved Crime I Ever Handled’, Shore News Network (June 17, 2023).
Prominent Trans Activist Gets Life In Prison For Murdering Lesbian Couple And Their Son, Tampa Free Press (June 15, 2023).
Column: This is a Record of Women’s Dissent, Del Norte Triplicate (December 21, 2022).
Trans activist on trial in slaying of lesbian couple, son over festival snub, Toronto Sun, (October 14, 2022). Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 07:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Taking them in order.

• The Shore News Network article is a rehosting of a piece by The Daily Caller, which is currently deprecated for publishing "false or fabricated information". So this is completely unusable.
• While the Tampa Free Press article does mention the music festival by name and Rivers participating in a "pressure campaign" against it, it stops short of actually naming Camp Trans. I'm not entirely sure we could use that here per WP:SYNTH for the content that's been proposed for adding.
• The Del Norte Triplicate piece is an opinion article by Kara Dansky. Per WP:RSOPINION this wouldn't be usable to support factual claims, nor could we use this to assess weight.
• The Toronto Sun article has two issues. First there is a factual error in its opening paragraph. It asserted that Rivers killed the Reed-Wright family because she was barred from attending a women-only festival, which was not proven or even discussed at Rivers' trial. Secondly the publication is unreliable for BLP related reporting per a discussion at RSN.

If this is all of the sourcing, I'm afraid there's pretty much nothing useable here per our policies on reliable sources and BLP content. There's certainly nothing to the level that we could assert a connection between Rivers, the music festival, and/or the killings, and actually reliable sources like those mentioned in this reply do not establish a connection at all. As things stand right now, there's no way we could add content on this either here, on Rivers' article, or on Camp Trans. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Taking the two sources added on 22 July;

• Though it's not in their comment section, The Times article is pretty clearly an opinion piece as it's written in the voice of the piece's author, ie in the last paragraph Every day I learn of feminists who have lost work, been de-platformed, dropped by publishers, denounced on company intranets, for believing sex is immutable and real. Per WP:RSOPINION we couldn't use this to cite facts or assess the weight of them.
• I'm not sure Gayvox meets our requirements to be a reliable source. Though my French is rusty, I can't find any evidence of an editorial or corrections policy published on the site, and I'm not seeing any use by others within French reliable sources. The closest I can find to a use by others is a 2022 article in le Parisien, where it was described as a dating website, and which would match with the frwiki article on Gayvox which while outdated does describe them as a dating website. I'm also not seeing any citations to it in articles on enwiki and only limited use on frwiki.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:07, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

On the face of it, I'm sceptical that "someone associated with an event that was associated with this event, later and not at either event did something" is due/appropriate in this event's article, but as Sideswipe says, it depends on sources. One extreme would be e.g. an academic book about the festival by a leading scholar devoted a whole chapter to it, which would suggest it was quite due; another extreme would be only a few minor outlets mentioning it it, suggesting it's not due (we're WP:NOTNEWS and all that). Unreliable sites aren't worth a single thing. -sche (talk) 16:42, 8 July 2023 (UTC)