2009 Statement
At the San Francisco Dyke March, we gather to experience and celebrate our collected energies, to acknowledge our many communities, to learn from our incredible diversity, to respect each other, and to create new ways to share our resources. We have pride for good reason: Dykes participate in every aspect of political, social and artistic institutions, illuminating issues of social justice wherever we are.
Today in California and around the globe Dykes are up in arms about living in violent, woman-hating cultures, we protest the denial of full rights of citizenship, we oppose being lied to by politicians, and we reject the denial of our humanity and the humanity of our friends, families, allies around the world. Dyke rights are human rights!
We also reject the notion that a deeply personal and basic right can be put to a popular vote. The recent passage of Proposition 8 declared that our relationships – indeed that we – are and should remain, by definition, second-class citizens. We're angry at the courts that accepted the tortured logic of creating unequal categories of citizens. Loving whoever and however we choose is a human right. Committing to any chosen relationship is a human right.
We reject the view of humanity being helped by expanding the prison industrial complex. LGBT youth, often among the kids living on the streets, are subject to longer and harsher prison sentences under California’s newly enacted Proposition 6. Families of incarcerated people saw their dreams of early release and alternatives to incarceration eradicated by the passage of Proposition 9. The real crime is the amount of money spent on prisons! Prison reform is about human rights.
Undocumented immigrants live in fear in the shadows of our cities and towns. Many are subjected to armed militias, renegade police and state-enforced patrols, which often tear children and parents apart. Immigration policies keep LGBT internationals from joining their partners in the US, creating years of heartbreak and economic stress. No one has the right to legislate how we will love. We reject as irrational and baseless the idea that undocumented immigrants pose a threat to our borders and national survival. Immigrant rights are human rights!
Our dyke sisters Renata Hill and Patreese Johnson are still in prison for defending themselves against homophobic and misogynist violence in New York. The family and friends of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, the first black man to be killed in 2009, are grieving his loss at the hands of transit police in Oakland, California. Each of us has the right to live and be free from the terror of renegade law enforcement. The right to live is a human right!
Our sister, Jane Doe in Richmond, California, copes with the aftermath of a homophobic gang rape last December. Statistically, crime is down this year in Oakland in every area except rape. Daily we learn of atrocities committed against women's bodies all over the world. Reproductive health clinics are under increasing assault, and are being told by police that it's their fault, for providing legal abortions. Women's rights to our bodies are human rights!
For more than six years, as a matter of United States policy, both US and international prisoners have been subjected to unimaginable horrors, terrifying torture, removal from their families, and the denial of their most basic rights. We reject torture in every form and demand that the US and all countries comply with international standards of fairness and due process. Freedom from torture is a human right!
While bankers and executives get trillions of tax dollars to spend on bonuses, homeowners and tenants are being tossed out of their homes. Three million workers have lost jobs in the last year. Insurance companies and politicians are once again colluding to deny us universal health care. We reject this blatant indifference to the urgent needs of average people. We demand quality health care and housing for every dyke and every person!
The U.S’s 40 billion in government-to-government arms sales this year is outrageous! Our taxes fund militaristic support of repressive regimes around the world. We reject war! We reject the empty promise that peace can be achieved through murder, and the imaginary borders that allow one group to murder another. War is a violation of human rights. While we do not want our dyke and gay sisters and brothers hounded out of the military for their sexual orientation, neither do we support the existence of the military. Dyke Rights = No Wars and No Armies.
As dykes, and as a part of every community, we feel each of these injuries keenly. We know that our identities cannot be fragmented. Dyke rights are human rights. Dykes cannot be free until we bust through all the prison walls and until we create communities to hold and heal and cherish the people among us who have been damaged by drugs and poverty and violence. Dykes cannot be free while there is a death penalty, in this country or anywhere on the planet. Dykes cannot be free while 40% of the world’s people have no access to clean drinking water, or while native land is stolen and torn up for uranium mining. Dyke rights are human rights.
We recall that the LGBT liberation movement in the US grew out of the African American civil rights movement, the movement in opposition to the Vietnam War, and the women’s movement. We, the San Francisco Dyke March, continue the rich legacy of that activism when we demand something better than following heteropatriarchy. We insist that ALL our relationships be cherished and acknowledged, not just the ones most like heterosexual marriages. We embrace the freedom to explore all types of loving, all types of consensual sexuality, all types of gender identity.
There were many lesbian activists among groups like the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH) and the Combahee River Collective, which demanded a new paradigm for thinking about caretaking, housework and children. We honor this herstory when we honor children as are our collective responsibility and future. Community is a human right!
As we come together at the San Francisco Dyke March to celebrate our creativity and our unity, we commit ourselves to always looking critically at the choices our flawed society offers. We commit ourselves to dreaming a world where all freedoms are realized and justice is our passion.
With justice comes peace.
The right to full citizenship is a dyke right!
The right to live without fear of governments is a dyke right!
The right to define our communities is a dyke right!
The right to define our relationships is a dyke right!
The right to make a new world is a dyke right!
Dyke rights are human rights!
Human rights are dyke rights!
2008 Statement
Welcome to the 16th Annual
San Francisco Dyke March!
Visibility is the essence of the Dyke March! On this day tens of thousands of dykes gather openly. We admire each other in our glorious variety and soak up the wild nourishment of taking over the streets!
At the Dyke March many of us experience freedom to be who we are and a safety we may not know in other parts of our lives, even those of us who live in the relatively accepting Bay Area. At the Dyke March we can bring our whole selves into the gathering: all our identities can be visible. We are from all classes, races, sizes, ages, abilities and nationalities; we can wear our hearts on our sleeves, and take our shirts off if we please!
The Dyke March, though a single day, is a year-round encouragement, a cheer, a beacon to dykes everywhere that being a dyke is needed, valued and welcome. Dykes all over the world are inspired by our message to put themselves at the center of their own lives and politics and envision possibilities for change.
We understand all too well the many pressures on dykes to blend into the background, or not claim dykeness in our own political arenas. The members of the Dyke March Committee, discussing visibility, acknowledged that there are times and places we would not feel safe wearing our Dyke March t-shirts. One member felt that visibility would hamper her career goals. Another, at times, had chosen to be invisible to avoid unwanted attention. Some of us have chosen not to wear our Dyke March t-shirts on certain occasions in order to sidestep loathing, hate, judgment and harassment. Many of us have experienced shielding our dyke identity almost as if it were an involuntary response; we are all vulnerable to reverting to invisibility no matter how out we are.
For many dykes around the world this issue is life-threatening. This year two dykes are coming from Serbia to speak on the Dyke March Stage. A representative of four dykes from New Jersey in prison for defending themselves against a misogynist, homophobic attack will update us on their case. These dykes face the very real threat of death for being VISIBLE. And that’s why we need Dyke Marches!
Visibility is an issue for all queer folks: dykes, gay men, bisexuals, transsexuals and other gender benders. What distinguishes this issue for dykes is sexism. With the rare exception of a few matriarchal societies, women have been dominated by patriarchy.
Dykes are perceived as a threat, as women who cannot be controlled. The notion of women loving women, dykes loving dykes, getting down with each other, totally turned on by each other, not needing men for emotional support or sex is such a huge threat to the dominant order that it is either treated as non-existent or abnormal. As a result we are either burned at the stake or rendered invisible.
Unfortunately the queer community is not immune to oppressing women and dykes. That’s exactly why there’s a need for a Dyke March! As women and as dykes, our contribution to the running of the world has not been valued and our history has not been acknowledged (even within the LGBT movements). We have nevertheless made great contributions and have a rich history. Unfortunately, since that history is not readily available, many dykes are totally disconnected from our own heritage. Let’s all reclaim dyke herstory and pass it on! {click here for a fabulous list of resources!}
In the United States the Women’s Liberation Movement was revitalized following the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. African- Americans were standing up, not only for civil rights, but for human rights and all oppressed people began to learn lessons about fighting for freedom. Even in the progressive movements which followed, women were oppressed by men. Women began forming women-only consciousness raising groups and other avenues to liberation. Women of color were often faced with a need to remain united with their brothers in the struggle against racism; however, the common thread of sexism did, and continues to, cross class and race lines.
Various theories and strategies began to emerge regarding the liberation of women and dykes. Among them there were and radical feminism. The women moving forward on these fronts were working, not for a movement -- they wanted a revolution! A revolution, the overturning of a web of systems (religion, culture, government) that dominate through war and violence, and are legitimized through religion, law and the writing of history which nearly always excludes women. More importantly the women’s movements had cultures and values that ran counter to those of patriarchy. Some of the most brilliant (and overlooked) criticism of cultural systems comes from feminist and lesbian artists, activists and scholars. We owe many of the freedoms we do have today to them. And that’s why we need a Dyke March!
Why BE VISIBLE? Being Visible is an act of protest! It’s an act of power! Being Visible creates community! Being Visible can save lives! Dykes attending the March, even some in the relatively accepting San Francisco Bay Area, tell us that they experience a safety not known in other parts of their lives. The more we put ourselves in the world’s face, the more we demand our human rights, the more we will get the right to live, to love, to be recognized for our contributions. As dykes we know that we cannot be free until everyone is free – and that includes each of us!
Be Visible! Where you can.
Be Visible! As you recognize the many ways we are made invisible! Be Visible! Take the energy of the Dyke March with you as you claim your power!
2007 Statement
The San Francisco Dyke March demands Health Care for All – and by all, we mean ALL DYKES as well as all people who are shut out, shunted aside, and shit on when they need health care. Except for the very wealthy, everyone in the world needs better health care, and we need it today. You know who we’re talking about: it’s you! And definitely it’s someone you love. Dykes in the Bay Area probably have it as good as anywhere in the U.S. – if we’re lucky enough to have coverage, connected enough to know where to go when something’s wrong, brave enough to speak up for ourselves, have friends and lovers to help with medical expenses.
But even in the Bay Area, health care delivery is too often inhumane – everyone has experienced waiting for hours to see a harried doctor for ten minutes, who, way too frequently, dispenses drugs with no thought of the side-effects. Doctors, too, report being chewed up and spit out of “the system.” The system is broken.
We all know how the criminals in the government have limited access to health care in order to boost profits for their campaign contributors; we’ve gone through decades of people warning us that a universal health care system would bring about the evils of “socialized medicine.” And we know that’s a lie. We know, in fact, almost everything that’s told to us about our health and our health care is a lie. What we don’t know is the truth: because women’s needs are understudied, underserved, under-reasearched, under-funded. Because the particular health challenges of women of color are mostly ignored. Because hardly anyone pays attention to dykes. And if you’re working class or poor you are completely invisible.
We are sick from invisibility. We need national health care now, for everyone. We need much more focus on all women. We need medical personal to be re- trained to recognize that dykes exist, have different concerns than heterosexuals, and that no one who comes into a medical office should ever be shamed, for any reason.
All people need what dykes need: respect and options appropriate to our specific health issues. This means access to non-western treatments for everyone, regardless of class. It means dignified, self-directed end-of-life care. If we had universal coverage we could not to be forced into staying at a particular job or in a particular area only because we need the health insurance. We need health care that includes mental health treatment – for when we decide we need it. We must never be coerced into treatments or drugs we don’t want. We need honest health education – not fear-based distractions like the media manipulated “war on obesity”; in fact, we need the language of war taken out of medicine completely! We need health care for people, not for profit – flexible health care that recognizes everybody has a different body and all bodies are equally precious.
All women need what dykes need: an end to the misogyny around abortion and forced sterilization. In recognition that women are 75% of the caregivers in families, we need systemic re-evaluation and re-valuing of this crucial work, which women are often pressed into doing on top of their other employment or family responsibilities. You dykes whose siblings have decided you’re the one to take care of your aging parents because you’re “unmarried” know what we’re talking about. Because women fill more of the service sector and part time work force jobs, we are more likely to be un- or under-insured, as well as paid less to start with. Women need equal, complete health care coverage no matter how many hours a week they have “traditional” employment. And the pharmaceutical companies need to stop using women as experimental guinea pigs for their drugs. And Dykes need what we have always needed: full recognition of our designated partners in all aspects of the health care system – from the ways medical forms make us invisible to the tragedies of our partners being forced out of the decision making process during life-threatening situations.
We need support for our choices around children – whether we want them or do not. We need sympathetic, educated providers around issues of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and any other stresses that our social positions make us vulnerable to. We need research into the long-term effects of testosterone use and acknowledgement of the problems of its abuse. We need to be treated with dignity no matter what our gender presentation is. We need a national registry of health- givers who are trained to deal with queers, that any queer or dyke can access. Health care in the United States is a scandal. The money that should be going to our medical needs, our schools, our infrastructure, is instead being siphoned off in wars of empire. The U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world, yet it ranks 22nd in infant mortality between Taiwan and Croatia, 46th in life expectancy between Saint Helena and Cyprus, and 37th in health system performance between Costa Rica and Slovenia. Canada, most of Europe, much of South and Central America, as well as parts of Africa, the Middle East and Australia – all have universal health care.
And even where health care is “universal,” we support world-wide organizing that constantly seeks better delivery and support. The outrageous pricing of AIDS drugs in South America and Africa is among hundreds of examples where corporate interests have subverted humane care. We need to change our country’s priorities – and we need to do it now. Bring the troops home, dismantle the war machine. Re-envision what a healthy life means – we need clean air, drinkable water, universal health care with dignity and respect.
1996 Statement
No Retreat: Making the World Safe for Cunnilingus
by Kris Kovick
I remember occupying Market Street at last summer's Dyke March, thousands of us cruising, vogueing, whiplash flirting, trawling for love, when suddenly the procession slowed down.
Women ran into shops to get a soda or a beer or a CD or a video. Those merchants had to realize we were a dynamic force, like a big finger-fucking tidal wave snail trailing down the boulevard. I wondered, is this divisive, in an age of AIDS, raging racism, and brutal poverty, is it okay for us dykes to be together like this? And then I looked up. We were surrounded by those huge apartment buildings on Market Street. Two guys way at the top had stripped the sheets off their bed and spray-painted on them, "We Love our Lesbian Sisters!" and hung it on their balcony. Yeah, it's okay to be here for each other; in fact, it's essential.
The Dyke March is the largest lesbian event ever, bigger than all the festivals combined, and it is organized by a small band of radical kick-butt dykes, the Mafia of consensus, who trace their politics back to the Blue Stockings of the Suffrage movement at the turn of the century, through the Red Stockings movement of radical feminists in the sixties, and on through the Birkenstockings of the seventies, and still on to the fishnet stockings and feminist boot girls of the 90s.
The theme of that year's event was "No Retreat!" -- a concept borrowed from the fight to save affirmative action. We will not retreat to the closet, just as women and people of color will not retreat to subservient roles. Living in the closet is a form of exile, not only from one's family and community, but more significantly, from one's own self. It is the solitary confinement of sexuality, and it is intolerable.
Life, Liberty, and Lingerie
Although it begins at Dolores Park, the exact route of the Dyke March is a secret because the organizers don't have a parade permit. You see, our girls take the Right to Assembly pretty seriously. They are constitutional connoisseurs. And you won't see any politicians on the sound truck/stage/float, either. This is a grassroots, down-home, every woman kinda event. No corporate sponsors, no admission fee. And there is no official titty policy whatever! After the rally and march, there will be a street party in the Castro with music blasting the gay ghetto 'til the cops show up in riot gear.
Although the March is organized by a small band of skilled and highly politicized volunteers, the event attracts the broadest spectrum of lesbian ladies, butch bo-hunks, sapphic primates, menstruating cross-dressers, spit muffins, bitchy bitches, little bastards outta Carolina, Bay Area Career Women, hags SF, riot grrrls, patio daddy-o's, handsome homegirls, homeric tomboys, hard and soft ballers, rugby widows, corporate nuns in sensible shoes, bike messengers from hell, power femmes, backyard butches and their dogs, balloon smugglers, funpigs, menopause babes, baby daddies, dykes like us, young carnality on parade, plus geeks of all ages, genders, and colors, all without controversy or scandal. It's a miracle. It's three hours of monolithic lesbian unity, the vision of the Matriarchy. It's also the Mardi Gras of the clit. For sure you'll get lucky. In fact, the Dyke March is to celibacy what the remote control channel changer is to the linear narrative. So, stir it up!
For more info contact us:
email The San Francisco Dyke March