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Queering the Dyke March
It was 1999, and the Toronto Dyke March, only three years old, was in danger of dying. My friend, Jenn, had gone to a Pride Toronto meeting and left as co-chair and sole member of the Dyke March committee. Jenn’s friends emerged from the woodwork. I was the only bisexual.
It was as difficult as dating. We were desperate to make the committee seem desirable. We held a rave, an art show, consciousness-raising workshops. We wrote a mandate, created a manual. Each project, served to distract us from the crunch that loomed ever closer: the day when we would somehow have to guide ten thousand women down Toronto’s Yonge St.
The Dyke March Committee was invisible most of the time. It’s parent group, Pride Toronto was so big, so splashy, and such a money-maker that our little march just sort of slipped in unnoticed. By 2000 I was co-chair with Jenn. As co-chairs, we were like spies. Most women didn’t have a clue who we were. It was about the mission, not the glory. No one clamoured to interview us. No one noticed our controversies or sought to expose them.
And we did have controversies. At one meeting half the group quit because of our decision to welcome transwomen in the march. Those who left that night were outspokenly biphobic. They viewed bisexual women and transpeople of all stripes as portals through which straight men would steal lesbian space. That experience galvanized my commitment as a trans-supporter.
I hoped that my involvement would help make the march a more bi-friendly place. Bi marchers (myself included) had been subject to rude remarks, and some lesbians literally ran rather than be seen marching near us. I hoped being in at the ground floor of the march could improve that.
I constantly expected people to challenge my right to be there. We had late night debates about the word “dyke,” and what it meant, and who could claim, or reclaim its use. I was desperate to find a politic - something that would invest me with a sense of authority. I needed to name my growing sense that Pride Toronto was “gay and lesbian-centric.” The inclusive language of “GLBT” was, in practice, an order of preference. Bisexual and trans concerns were often not even on the radar. I wanted a theorist who could tell me: this is our problem; this is how we fight it. I found bi writers and theorists of all stripes, but nothing akin to the Lesbian Theory I was encountering among the lesbians who challenged my authenticity even as they abdicated responsibility for the event over which they claimed ownership.
By 2001, my co-chair was Corinne, another bi-friendly dyke. We spent up to 40 hours every week organizing fundraisers, attending meetings, filing paperwork, and responding to emails, in addition to our “real” jobs and school commitments. We referred to our partners as “Pride widows.” At our peak, we were a group of fanatics: women committed to working beyond reason, in the face of indifference. We were the neurotically organized. Our methodology was obsessive-compulsive. It was only in retrospect that I realized why I never found the sense of authority I was seeking. Authority was not a thing to be bestowed or claimed, but a verb. Doing the thing itself had become the authority.
