How We Came to be in Detroit
So, after reading the incredibly long and exceptionally interesting article by Barbara Raab I was appalled by the fact that the term “Dykes on Bikes” was still seen negatively by “society?”
Whose society? Certainly not ours.
Though I will admit, I have run into a tiny amount of people who find the word dyke distasteful, almost all of those people are NOT LESBIANS. In fact, most of them are not an active part of our community as a whole in comparison, and the majority of them who find it distasteful aren’t even GAY. Thus they have their own opinion. What was that? I said OPINION.
Everyone has one, and everyone’s is different. So elementary and so basic it is almost seemingly nauseating. But that is what it boils down to. Opinion.
Now, having been a lesbian for over twenty years and being out in this community for eighteen, I DO know that Dyke is embraced. It has become, to many, a form of blanket even. It is like using the word girl, but not using it in the literal sense. “You go girl!” so popular, but not meant in its literal fashion; because the connotation of the word “girl” has changed through the growth of society and the addition of years. I know more Drag Queens that say “You go girl” than women most certainly. Furthermore, they use it with each other (Drag Queens) and not in reference to females at all. And “You Go! Girls!”
In January of 2008 the San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent – a.k.a. Dykes on Bikes – was finally given its right to trademark! It is protected now, by governmental law to be able to be used by those who embrace that term. It is with the utmost pride and emotion that I embrace that term. Even happier for me it is also that I ride, so I use it.
It has been a long search in this Detroit Metropolitan area that I have looked for a group of Women Riders (or Womyn, Wymyn and lastly Wymen – however you want to spell it) who also embrace this term and the spirit in which it was originally derived and birthed. I was a member of the Women on Wheels for a year and though I love the chapter and the group is a fantastic group of great, lady bikers that is what it is. And a “lady” I am not.
Shortly thereafter, I joined the “Priestesses,” another women’s motorcycle club in the Detroit area. The spirit of this club is much closer to the spirit I was looking for, but not exactly what I was looking for.
What was I looking for? A closer sense of camaraderie, a motorcycle club of women who had been through a lot of the same crap I had been through personally and professionally. A LESBIAN oriented club full of women who were ready and willing to stand up and say “yeah we’re gay, so what?”
After reading about the Dykes ON Bikes® in San Francisco and seeing pictures of them leading the Pride Parade I wanted to be one. I emailed them in spring 2007 and again in August but never heard back. I emailed them this year in March and received a reply from Soni, the Secretary of the San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent. I expressed my desire to open a Dykes On Bikes® Detroit Chapter and it was approved by the San Francisco Club. So here we are today! Ride With Pride!
Leave a Reply