Hit the Dyke March Sat.
The Dyke March takes place Saturday, June 28, celebrating 16 years of women-only space during the weekend of Pride Parade festivities.
Visibility is this year's theme. It's also the idea that's made the march politically significant for the past decade and a half.
"At the Dyke March we can bring our whole selves into the gathering: all our identities can be visible," reads the 2008 festival statement. "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!"
"I love the Dyke March. I just think it's a great gathering, and beautiful to see all different dykes out there," said Judy Graboyes, a member of the Dyke March committee for five years.
"We believe that it's the largest dyke gathering in the world," Graboyes added. "It gives young dykes, all dykes, a place to go and have community."
"We think that it has a really big impact on all women's lives," she said, noting that dykes don't have many spaces to be themselves. Dykes who attend the march can carry the sense of community there with them throughout the year when they travel into hostile spaces, she added.
Typically, the Dyke March statement, issued annually, calls attention to problems that are pressing to the lesbian community. Last year, for the march's 15th anniversary, the statement called attention to the need for health care.
Unlike other women-only gatherings, including the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, the Dyke March welcomes anyone who identifies as a woman.
"The Dyke March is for anybody who identifies as a dyke," Graboyes said.
An essential element of the march is "questioning and challenging constructs of gender," she added.
Men are asked to show their support from the sidelines and refrain from walking in the march.
"A lot of men feel like they want to support the Dyke March," Graboyes said, stressing the importance of having it remain an all-woman space.
Volunteers and donations support the Dyke March, with only 15 percent of its annual budget coming from grant money.
City grants give the march $4,000 a year, leaving the steering committee to raise the rest of the $25,000 annual budget.
"Eighty-five percent of the money comes from donations and T-shirt sales," Graboyes explained. "You can still donate on the Web site," she added.
In addition to the political message, the march offers an afternoon's worth of dyke-friendly entertainment, including a world sampler of music on stage that includes rock, hip-hop, Latin jazz, and Afro Puerto Rican music. The pre-march rally will also feature several speakers and a self-breast exam led by Dr. Joan Gabriella Heinsheimer.
The rally opens at 3 p.m. at Dolores Park; the march begins at 7 p.m., with the route to be announced the day of the march.
For more information, visit http://www.thedykemarch.org.