words by Kate Wildblood, illustration by Queen Josephine
As essential to dyke life as the carabiner, Dyke Pride has featured on the calendars of lesbians since the early 1970s, ensuring our place at the forefront of the Pride movement. An opportunity to celebrate, campaign and connect, the marches we’ve stomped our way through have brought us together as community. Loving, laughing and always life affirming.
“Look over here, look over there, lesbians are everywhere!” The proud cry heard at what is believed to have been the first Dyke March in May 1981 at the Bi-National Lesbian Conference in Vancouver, Canada soon made its way across the globe, stopping at Toronto as part of Lesbians Against the Right, and landing in London as anarchists Rebel Dykes challenged the status quo with punk squats, sex parties and Greenham Common Peace Camps in the 1980s. It wasn’t, however, until 1993 that the American direct action groups Lesbian Avengers, ACT UP and Puss n’ Boots organised thousands to march through Washington DC protesting for lesbian rights and dyke visibility.
Subscribe to continue reading
