Yesterday, I participated in the 16th Annual New York City Dyke March.
There were many many angry lesbians marching down 6th Avenue, some without their shirts on.
How can I express my giddy, gobsmacked, and bizarrely existential joy for this event?
Gee, I'm not even sure...
All I can say is: it was living the dream.
The dream about shirtless women marching down the streets of Manhattan.
Everyone has that dream, right?
The march this year, as every year, was performed without a permit, as a sort of "reclaim the streets" event. Cops trailed us the whole way, forming a corridor on either side of us. Volunteers in pink T-shirts walked in between the groups of cops and formed human chains at intersections to protect marchers from traffic.
The march began at Bryant Park at 42nd Street. There assembled dozens upon dozens of queer women of every shape, size and color...and many more numerous straight people who seemed either confused, amused, or petrified by the lesbian hordes descended on their park.
I timidly helped hand out noisemakers.
These were just tin cans filled with beans and taped shut with photocopied march flyers. Which was, of course, delightful.
Last year was my first Manhattan Pride Parade, and I had been both terrified and alienated by how overwhelming and commercial it was. The Dyke March, on the other hand, was still on a human scale. There certainly were no go-go boys handing out deodorant samples on the sidelines. Not that I have anything against go-go boys. It's just that I was there to celebrate gay pride, not to collect swag that smelled like a macho man on the down-low.
The march kicked off at 5 pm. We wound down 6th Avenue, yelling and whooping and banging drums and shaking rattles. Some of us danced or kissed. As we neared the march's end in Washington Square Park, the march's frontrunners took up chants of "Oh when the dykes, go marching in...!"
It rained on and off in sheets, but I could not stop grinning (this was only partially because of the small number of marchers wearing white T-shirts).