As I discussed in my last post, last weekend was L.A. Pride. To start the weekend off, I went to the Dyke March Friday night. I've only been to one Dyke March before, which was purely accidental. Back in 1998, my g-friend and I were walking through a pocket park in NYC when we happened to run into a group of lesbians. They said, "Are you here for the Dyke March?" "...What's the dyke march?" "It's a group of dykes who march." Right...
As you probably know, the Dyke March is just that - its purpose is to increase lesbian visibility (inclusive of bisexuals and transgendered people), build community, and all that other stuff. It's actually a nice opportunity to feel a part of the lesbian community, or at least to feel like there is one. I see so many gay men everywhere I go, one starts to wonder if this phenomenon called lesbianism really exists or if the joke's on me.
One of the cool things about the NYC march was they blocked off a huge street for us - 5th Avenue or something like that. To walk in the middle of a major street in NYC was an experience in and of itself. The other cool thing was that several women took their shirts off and there were a lot of bra-less boobs hanging out.
This year in L.A. was very similar, although there were no boobs to be seen. The closest I saw were these paper mache ones taped to the back of someone's wheelchair/cart.
During the march, the dykes on bikes lead the way.
The Pride Headquarters is located in West Hollywood across the street from the Pacific Design Center. I took a pretty picture of it so I'm going to include it here.
Saturday I went to the first annual Dyke Day L.A. It was held in a different location than the rest of Pride, at Barnsdall Art Park near Hollywood at the top of a hill.
The view was great, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, music was playing - it was a perfect afternoon. I chilled on the grass and watched some bands, dancers, comedians, and even a demonstration on how to use a device so that you can pee standing up (she looked like she was peeing into a bucket on stage; I'm not sure if it was really her pee or some sort of water contraption she devised, but either way I'm sorry I don't have a photo of it).
Sunday I went to the Pride festival. I'll post some photos from that in a couple of days.
