What Dykes Care About (According to the NYC Dyke March)

Feature image LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images

For thirty years, the Dyke March has taken place in NYC as an alternate to the next day’s Pride Parade. While the official parade is overrun with corporations, the Dyke March has remained a combination of protest and party. It aims to better represent the origins of pride and continue its focus on the issues dykes and other queers continue to fight for and against.

A month before the event, NYC Dyke March announced their theme this year would be Dykes Against Genocide. This felt like a reassurance that the political roots of the Dyke March would be honored as we gathered as queer people to take a stand against the ongoing violence in Palestine and other colonial violence around the world. Unfortunately, two days before the event a statement was posted to the official Instagram — and then quickly taken down — that called into question the organization’s commitment to Palestinian liberation. An apology and explanation was issued, but doubts still existed going into the event.

Luckily, on the day, the energy was positive with a wide range of people celebrating their queerness and marching for Palestine and other issues they care about. Despite the focus of this year’s theme, the march has always had a variety of chants and slogans, and as I looked around I felt like I received a window into what dykes care about right now. Or, you know, what dykes in NYC who attended this march care about.

I started writing down people’s signs and shirts and have gathered them here. This isn’t everything I saw — these are just the signs and shirts expressing a clear want. From the serious to the silly and everything in between here are some of the issues dykes were campaigning for this past weekend.

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1. Free Palestine
2. Protect trans kids
3. Stop the fetishization of lesbian media
4. Register to vote
5. End the genocide
6. End the occupation
7. Abortion is healthcare
8. Stop NYC Cop City
9. End the U.S. war machine
10. Ceasefire now
11. No mask ban
12. I just want my titties out
13. Read queer books
14. Read banned books
15. All empires will crumble
16. Dump him
17. Top4top
18. Gender affirming care is healthcare
19. Fuck Trump
20. Fuck Adams
21. Fuck pinkwashing
22. The future isn’t binary
23. I want lesbians on the telly
24. NYPD IDF KKK they’re all the same
25. Know your roots read Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (it’s a free pdf)
26. I want a dyke for president
27. Divest
28. Fund whores, not wars
29. Remember our queer siblings in Palestine
30. ACAB
31. Buy weed from women
32. Femme seeking single monogamous butch IG: @harsh__babe*

*IG handle added with permission… shoot your shot, single monogamous butches of Autostraddle

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