Scholarships

We recognize that for trans women attendance of the festival, though it can have positive aspects, does not always come without challenges and risks: we want to ease the burden of deciding to come. For this reason, we feel a need to address the monetary cost of attendance as we invite trans women to join us at Michfest and we are raising money to provide ticket scholarships for them for the 2012 festival. Last year we were able to provide five scholarships. We welcome constructive feedback about our process as we move forward.

We recognize that simply getting trans women to the festival is only the first step. At the festival we are organizing a trans woman-specific safe space/chill tent as well as flags that allies can post at their campsites to indicate welcoming spaces throughout the land. We are in the process of contacting DART and the WOC tent organizers to ask for support in this project.Spread the word! We can't wait to see you at Fest!

To apply for a scholarship, please e-mail the following information to transwomenbelonghere@gmail.com with "scholarship" in the subject line:

♦Your name.
♦ The city you will be traveling from.
♦ Specific days you would like to attend (festival dates are August 7-12).
♦ Scholarship needs: Full or partial (If you are able to supplement your scholarship, we will put the additional funds towards the purchase of another ticket). Six day tickets are around $500 and descend in cost to $80 for one day. Please see the Michfest website for a full chart of prices.
♦ Any travel help you might need: Logistic and/or financial.
♦ If you are a woman of color, please let us know. We are operating on a first-come, first-served model that prioritizes women of color.
♦ A brief paragraph indicating your interest in attending, eg. why you would like to attend, your interest in women's space, how you might benefit from attending, how others might benefit by your attending, etc. Whatever you would like to share with us.

We will send you an e-mail confirming receipt of your application and let you know what we can do for you. Should the applications outnumber the funds, we might contact you to see if you are willing to come for a couple less days so someone else can also attend. Again, we don't know how our funds will match up with fund requests so we may have to get creative.