Pride weekend kicked off in earnest on Saturday evening with the 20th annual New York City Dyke March along Fifth Avenue. Some 20,000 lesbians—plus supportive gay boys, trans folk and heteros—took to the streets as marchers carried placards, shouted chants, ate fire and reminded us that the fight is far from over. Unlike the official Pride procession on Sunday, the Dyke March is a protest action, not a parade, and doesn’t get official sanction from the city.
“We recognize that we must organize amongst ourselves to fight for our rights, our safety, and for visibility,” say organizers. “Thousands of dykes take over the streets every year in celebration of LBTQ women and to protest against ongoing discrimination, harassment, and anti-LBTQ violence in schools, on the job, in our families, and on the streets.”
Click through for more images from the 2012 NYC Dyke March. And submit your own Pride photos in the GayCities Pride Photo Challenge to win great prizes. Photos: The Dusty Rebel
MikeUK
Silly womyn.
Clay
@Dustin:
Did you even read the text? It’s not Lesbian exclusive by any means (see the gay men and mtf trans persons that are in some of the pictures).
So we should bunch the whole of issues and interests of all non-heterosexuals into one gay parade (which lez be honest, is usually a sausage fest)? NY city is big enough to have multiple seperate voices to more specific issues. If 20,000 Lesbians can organize every year, they deserve to have their own deal.
JT
Lesbians do not deserve to have their own parade. A token MTF doesn’t count as most lesbians are highly transphobic and biphobic.
Nicole
Lesbians deserve the march they organize and attend every year.
Marshals and organizers do not tell participants how they identify, don’t impose their ideas or assume that marchers are male or female or bi or trans, and don’t kick people out of the march. This bi/transphobia is a complete misconception that is easily dispelled by attending the march, or as Dustin notes, just viewing this slideshow. Say what you like about the march; it has brought joy to lesbians and all kinds of people for the last 20 years.
Lesbians are awesome and so is this march.
R.A.
I don’t blame them.
Trying to compete for attention with drag queens is a bitch.
Clay
@JT:
-_- Again, not a lesbian exclusive thing, Again 20,000 people. You might as well say there shouldn’t be a St. Patricks Day parade, because Irish people don’t deserve special treatment. Nahhhh, let’s just have one big parade for all caucasian ethnic groups.
You’re stereotyping lesbians, and discounting evidence that goes against your view. It would quite a thing, if the photographer happened to snap a shot of the single “token” trans person in the entire parade. It’s not like the supreme council of lesbianism decided to let a lone trans person, a lone gay man, and a lone straight person march with some 19,997 lesbians. The march is varied and is not a display of lesbian secession from the queer community.
Mimi
@Dustin: Yea, so transphobic they have a Free Cece sign.
ChrisSF
Transphobia at Lesbian march: http://vimeo.com/44796073
Brandon
Mimi-That’s nice that they want to support a murderer. Cece belongs in prison and should be there since her actions are those of a murderer and went way beyond self defense.