Susan Haugh; Renaissance City Women’s Choir
Chris Stanton; Indianapolis Women’s Chorus
Gabrielle Calkins; Grand Rapids Women’s Chorus
Sharon Marrell;Windsong
Lois Shegog; MUSE
Catherine Roma;MUSE
Pam Blevins Hinkle; Women’s Chorus
The purpose of this meeting was to let women know what happened in the SSN business meetings at the festival in Grand Rapids. This did not happen because all of the women present were at the festival.
1) We moved into discussing issues of putting a festival together; questions were asked by the women from Indianapolis.
2) When they were finished asking questions we moved into a discussion about transgender issues. Indianapolis has had several transgender members. They have spent many hours talking, thinking and being educated about transgender people and have come to a place of great acceptance in their choir. We discussed gender identity and how we deal with people and with ourselves in terms of our gender identity.
3) This led to the discussion of having a SSN event in Indianapolis. The accompanist for Indy women’s choir is a transgender female-to-male. He would play with that choir. Men would be on stage. The Indianapolis organization has both a women and men’s choir. The choirs help each other with performances and men have periodically been on the stage. It is also likely the some men would be behind the scenes helping with registration, sound, etc. This may be an issue for the some people in SSN.
4) Discussion then came back to the Grand Rapids Festival. Some women felt that the atmosphere was hostile toward straight women. The festival was “overtly lesbian”. Women discussed how they handled their feelings.