dyke march
June 12th, 2005 | Uncategorized
Well, I crawled out of my rural seclusion and went down to Boston for the Dyke March. (Waving like the queen is my girlfriend Amy on the right, our niece Lena in the pink pro-choice t-shirt, and Lena’s boyfriend Matthew in the middle.) I was rather startled, but pleasantly so, to find myself in such a multifarious crowd of lesbians and sundry lovely others. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a big city march. I’ve grown so disaffected with the whole depoliticized, Bud-Lite Pride Parade scenario, but the Dyke March was a most refreshingly radical assembly.
I spoke after the march, and I think it went over okay, especially after the hulking Lesbian Avengers Discipline Team surrounded the mentally ill and/or drunk guy who was yelling, and distracted him. I talked about the whole marriage thing, and how if I had charted the progress of this civil rights movement, I wouldn’t have picked marriage to be the deciding issue in our attainment of legal and social equality. But now that it is, let’s keep fighting for it. But more importantly, once we get it, let’s not sit back and lapse into a coma of orthodoxy, but work to undermine the false equation of marriage with citizenship. No one should have to have a state-approved sex partner to be considered legitimate, or to get health insurance. I didn’t have any practical suggestions on how to go about this undermining, but I have no doubt that everyone in the crowd was already on the job.
Anyhow, it was very overstimulating and I met lots of nice people. One of them took a picture of my shoes for her website, female sneaker fiend.com. Scroll down to “Boston (Sneaker) Pride” and there I am.
9 Responses to “dyke march”
I really enjoyed meeting you and hearing you speak at the Dyke March. I felt like I was in one of your books as we strolled down the streets of Boston. I never thought I would participate in such an activity, but it was kind of fun.
Thanks for being so decent. And thanks for giving us all food for thought; for raising important questions without easy answers that call for true change and not just tossing us easy, angry rhetoric. You are every bit as smart as I always pictured you to be, and even more witty and quietly profound.
Dana from CA (Claremont89@aol.com)
Ditto what she said, except for the parts about being in Boston.
FYI, Burlington Pride is on July 9.
“Let’s not sit back and lapse into a coma of orthodoxy, but work to undermine the false equation of marriage with citizenship. No one should have to have a state-approved sex partner to be considered legitimate, or to get health insurance.”
Speak it, sister. People in couples (same-sex or hetero) deserve health coverage and the rest of us don’t? Since I don’t have anyone else in the household to nag me out of eating something other than popcorn, dark chocolate, and baby carrots for “supper,” I’m more likely to *need* health care!
Perfect! You found exactly the right way to support the same-sex marriage movement and hold our feet to the fire of fundamental change. Glad you had fun too!
On a completely unpolitical note, look at all the hot young punky women at femalesneakerfiend.com!!
Oh, and your speech was right on.
cool alison, you look hot! *groupie comment*
Dyke marches rule! We need more marches and less parades.
hey, I really enjoyed hearing you speak. I love the way you keep it humorous AND complicated, just like in DTWOF.
In my own fantasy, you would have been wearing some orange Chucks, but your sneaker-inspired shoes were pretty damn cool, too. thanks for giving my site a shout out! and thanks for being on it!
lori from Boston
topshelfpussy