And when the dyyyyykes...go marching iiiiiiin....

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.

Survey says -

Not that I intended to post three blogs about the probably already over-hyped controversy about a supposedly offensive LGBT film festival poster, but I recently found a site that conducted a survey about it (if you haven't read my last two blog posts, you can read more about the poster incident here and take a look at the poster in question here).

In a survey last week by North County NOW, people were asked:

Do you think the St. Lawrence County administration was justified in removing a poster advertising a movie festival about gay issues from a public bulletin board in the Department of Social Services building?

53.1% said No and 46.9% said Yes.

682 people had responded to the survey and 246 comments were posted. Here are a couple of comments from the people who agreed with the poster being taken down:

- "It was inappropriate for the workplace. Dyke and butch are not words that I want posted -they are derogatory in nature and are not necessary to advertise any movie."

(I would assume that s/he doesn't know about the film Straight Hike for the Butch Dyke, which aired on LOGO as a twist on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.)

- "I think you should post the poster in question so people can see the descriptions that were used! One movie in particular: Itty Bitty Titty Commitee, A rockin' lesbian love song to the heady rush of sex, freedom and rebellion. Full of mosh pits, power fists and utter charm. or Butch Jamie: Hilarious gender-bending comedy. Struggling actress Jamie is a spiky-haired butch dyke tired of auditioning in femme "drag" for women's roles."

(Hmmm. Sounds like two really great movies to me. But what can I say? I suppose I'm biased.)

About half of the people who were in favor of the poster removal argued that it didn't have anything to do with LGBT issues, but that the poster was inappropriate in the workplace as well as in a building where children and teens could see it. Another sizable percentage who agreed with the poster's removal posted a slew of hated-filled comments about the LGBT community.

For the 53% who didn't agree with the poster's removal, most of them referred to our freedom of speech. As Noam Chomsky states, "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

A dyke, a wig, and a funeral

As some of you may know, I have a short film out now on The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival DVD. The film is called Half-Laughing, and it's a dramatic story with streaks of satiric humor. It's about a young dyke who goes home with a shaved head for her grandfather's funeral only to confront her mother, who wants her to wear a wig.



The story isn't what I'd call autobiographical, but I did have a very surreal experience with a wig and a funeral at one point. The film is more interesting than what really happened, so here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet:



Also, here's the behind-the-scenes video with interviews with some of the actors. We shot the film a few years ago, and I just finished putting these interviews together! Finally off my to-do list! :)