People keep asking me why I refuse to participate in Millennium March On Washington (MMOW) until Robin Tyler is removed from the organizing committee. It's a good question.
It's a long story. The summary is that she is an assimilationist hell-bent on destorying our movement... and I'm not. Well, that summarizes it to the point of being useless. Here's the full story:
She did a lot of dirty tricks during the MoW87, MoW93, and Stonewall25, many of which were directed at bisexuals, people of color (POC) and other minorities within our movement. She may say she is "in favor of inclusion" but isn't willing permit the grassroots involvement that lets true inclusion happen.
A lot of these dirty tricks directly affect me or happened while I was in the room! Now the lead planner for MMOW (March On the Millennium). Many people and organizations are not participating in MMOW until she is removed. We feel similarly about Elizabeth Birch, leader of HRC. However, seeing that HRC is the main sponsor of MMOW, it will be difficult to not have her involved.
The entire MMOW (Millennium March On Washington) has been Robin Tyler design. Many organizations are not participating because, well, because she kicked us out when we started asking about gender and racial parity. The people she invited to talk about these issues were litterally locked out of the meeting room when they arrived!
Here's a little history about Robin:
The funny thing about all this is that she was the "producer" (in theater terminology) of what happened on the stage at the rally at our movements biggest events: MoW87, MoW93, and Stonewall25. I was involved in planning the last two. Once burned, twice shy.
While planning MoW93 she begged forgiveness and promised to change her ways. We believed her. Then, during the rally, she ignored policies that had been made by consensus at planning meetings. She tried to prevent the token bisexual speaker from getting on stage at all. She brought onto the stage people that weren't on the agreed upon schedule, squeezing out people that were at the end of the schedule. The some of the board of directors wanted to call the police to have her removed from the event! It was a bad situation!
While planning for SW25 many of the MoW'93 veterans decided that we must not repeat the mistakes of the previous MoW's. At the meeting where the stage producer was selected Robin showed up with enough people to force the vote her way. At that point, many of us, including luninaries such as Steve Ault and others withdrew their support from the SW25 Organizing Committee. You can guess what happened when the SW25 celebration began... Robin made sure there were zero bisexuals and very few POC on the stage. We had taken a step backwards. Things were worse than with MoW'93!
Before EBAH was officially announced, Robin realized she was unemployeed and, gosh, wouldn't it be great if there was a march coming up that she could be paid to produce it! Her idea was to "fix" the problems of previous years when the grass roots mucked things up by demanding gender and racial parity, wanted bi and tg inclusion, and permitted people in front of the cameras that weren't the Leave It To Beaver models of perfection that she thinks activists should show America. To achieve this goal, this march would be different. There would be no march! Just a stage show with a single set of cameras on the stage. She'll control them and give a video feed to the TV networks. That way the organizers could carefully control the image that America sees. No CNN cameras aimed at a march where real GLBT people might be seen. No POC, no Pagans, no drag queens, no nudists, and nothing that she doesn't approve of.
She first took this idea to NGLTF. They were appalled! They were planning the yet-unannounced EBAH to change the entire movement to be more focused towards the grassroots and here was someone proposing the exact opposite! They turned down her plan.
Then she went to HRC. HRC had just decided that they need to have a million members so they can be like the Radical Right and boast to congress how many members they have. Robin's timing was right on. HRC saw her MMOW proposal as a way to reach their goal of a million members. They signed on and got one other "big name" organization to sign on.
HRC then called all the grassroots organizations and told them that MMOW would be announced in 24 hours, call if they want their name on the signatories. Many asked, "What about parity?" "Will the grass roots be involved?" "Why are you detracting from EBAH?" "Why are you selecting a date rather than permitting the grassroots to select it?" "How can you ask us to sign on before the 'political demands' of the march are agreed to? You've already decided that they will be? How dare you?!?"
Then the announcement went out.
Then the reaction from the grassroots came in.
Then the grassroots representatives were granted a meeting, and locked out of it.
Many organizations have decided not to sign on. Many people are just plain not participating. My feeling is that organizations should not sign on, but use the event to do their own organizing. For example, BiNet/USA will not sign on but will have events around the same weekend in D.C. for bisexuals and our allies to educate, etc.
There is a TV show called Babylon 5 about aliens from various planets at war and at peace. There is a race called the Narn who were once slaves of the Centari who freed themselves. A couple years into the show a new Emperor of Centari goes mad and decides to attack the Narn. At a meeting of, well, the planetary equivalent of the United Nations the Ambassador from Narn hears the news of the invasion and discovers that none of the other alien races are willing to get involved. He cries, "It's happening again! Don't you see it?" but is ignored.
As I see MMOW go though its planning stages I feel like I'm in that room shouting "Don't you see it?"