Dykes on Bikes
Encyclopedia
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and dyke motorcycle club
Motorcycle club
A motorcycle club is a group of individuals whose primary interest and activities involve motorcycles.In the U.S. the abbreviation, MC or MCC, can have a special social meaning from the point of view of the outlaw subcultures, and is usually reserved by them for those clubs that are mutually...
s, Dykes on Bikes in Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, and the Women’s Motorcycle Contingent in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. They are known for their participation in gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
events such as Pride parade
Gay pride parade
Pride parades for the LGBT community are events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender culture. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage...
s, and significant LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
events like the international Gay Games
Gay Games
The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level...
.
They most likely were originally put at the front of the parade for logistical reasons and have remained there as a symbol of LGBT pride, defiance, liberation and empowerment. The contingents are fiercely independent and self-reliant in the DIY
Do it yourself
Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...
and feminist traditions and have been studied as a social phenomenon as a "complex, multilayered form of consumption-related cultural resistance that raises awareness of social injustice and discursively informs social meanings in everyday life outside the festivals."
Along with drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
s, the DOB have been criticized for not portraying a more acceptable image of LGBT culture but supporters counter that they are seen as highly visible icons of gay pride who refuse to assimilate
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
and conform to mainstream society gender roles and indeed remind of the butches
Butch and femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behavior, style, expression, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures...
and queens who helped lead the Stonewall
Stonewall Inn
The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall is an American bar in New York City and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United...
riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
launching the modern gay-rights movement
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
.
The Dykes on Bikes have been criticized for using the term dyke in their name rather than lesbian but the group has registered the mark in the United States, after a battle to demonstrate that the terms diesel-dyke, bull-dyke, bull-dagger and dyke all have historically negative connotations but have been re-appropriated as self-referential terms of endearment and empowerment distinct from lesbian and indeed awards and events utilizing those names are now used by the LGBT community.
In keeping with the tradition of motorcyclists' rejection of the norms of middle-class, middle-America, the Dykes on Bikes teach, by example, that women can be masculine and challenge the dominant sexual and cultural expectations of what a woman is and what she can do and achieve.
History
San Francisco Pride
The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration, usually known as San Francisco Pride, is a parade and festival held in June each year in San Francisco to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies...
parade, it could have been used prior to then, but came into formal use at that time. Dykes and motorcycles have been regularly intertwined in lesbian fiction and the term is sometimes used derogatorily against any woman rider who isn't with a man.
In many countries motorcycles are simply an economical and effective mode of transportation. Cheaper to purchase, maintain and use than a four-wheeled vehicle and more capable of handling narrow or poorly maintained roads, motorcycles are a simply a better option. The United States with its car friendly culture and its wide well-marked and extensive road system is an exception rather than the rule but even in America the motorcycle is used not only as transportation but as means of escapism.
According to Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson , often abbreviated H-D or Harley, is an American motorcycle manufacturer. Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the first decade of the 20th century, it was one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression...
historians female riders did everything men did from long distance riding
Long Distance Riding
Long-distance riding is the pastime of riding motorcycles over long distances in defined times, with a popular target being to cover 1,000 miles in a day....
to enjoying lazy Sunday afternoon rides with friends. In 1915, mother-daughter team Avis and Effie Hotchkiss became the first women to cross the United States on a motorcycle. Dorothy "Dot" Robinson competed through the Depression alongside men in endurance races. Bessie Stringfield
Bessie Stringfield
Bessie Stringfield , nicknamed "The Motorcycle Queen of Miami", was an African American woman credited with breaking down barriers for both women and African American motorcyclists. She was the first African-American woman to ride across the United States solo and during World War II she served as...
was the first African-American woman to complete a solo cross-country ride and during the 1930s and 1940s she traveled through all of the lower 48 states and rode abroad in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. The 1930s saw the founding of the Motor Maids, the world's first women's motorcycle club founded by Wellesley College graduate Linda Dugeau.
World War II creates opportunities
Women's Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943...
(WAC), two-thirds of whom were single and under the age of twenty-five. Women were recruited with posters showing muscular, short-haired women wearing tight-fitting tailored uniforms. Bessie Stringfield joined a motorcycle dispatch unit of the army.
Many lesbians joined the WAC to meet other women and to do men’s work. Few were rejected for lesbianism, and found that being strong or having masculine
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
appearance – characteristics associated with being dykes – aided in the work as mechanics and motor vehicle operators. A popular Fleischmann’s Yeast
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour was a pioneering musical variety radio program broadcast on NBC from 1929 to 1936, when it became The Royal Gelatin Hour, continuing until 1939...
advertisement showed a WAC riding a motorcycle with the heading This is no time to be frail. Some recruits appeared at their inductions wearing men’s clothing and their hair slicked back in the classic butch style of out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
lesbians of the time.
Post-war many women including lesbians declined opportunities to return to traditional gender roles and helped redefine societal expectations that fed the women's
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
, black and gay liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
movements.
Dykes on Bikes first appearance
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, bisexual, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
or any of the newer gender-bending terms like femme, androgyne and boi
Boi (gender)
__notoc__Boi is a term used within LGBT and butch and femme communities to refer to a person's sexual and gender identity. In lesbian communities, there is an increasing acceptance of variant gender expression, as well as allowing people to self-identify with labels such as boi...
.
Worldwide phenomena
Gay pride parade
Pride parades for the LGBT community are events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender culture. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage...
s, Gay Games
Gay Games
The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level...
events and protests. "Dyke March
Dyke March
Dyke March is a mostly lesbian-led and inclusive gathering and protest march much like the original gay pride parades and marches. They usually occur the Friday or Saturday before LGBT pride parades and larger metropolitan areas have related events both before and after the event to further...
es" have become a popular Pride event nationwide with the Dykes on Bikes often leading the marches. The Dyke March events are generally non-commercial, often in sharp contrast to corporate-sponsored pride events, and are usually inclusive of lesbian, bi, and trans women. Leading pride parades around the world from San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
Legal battle to register DOB as a trademark
Normally the United States Patent and Trademark OfficeUnited States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
(PTO) under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act
Lanham Act
The Lanham Act is a piece of legislation that contains the federal statutes of trademark law in the United States. The Act prohibits a number of activities, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and false advertising.-History:Named for Representative Fritz G...
will not consider registration of a proposed mark that contains a term that is disparaging
Disparagement
Disparagement, in United States trademark law, is a statutory cause of action that permits a party to petition the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel a trademark registration that "may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or...
to a group of people. This presents a problem for the PTO when an attempt is made by a group to register a mark containing a self-disparaging term, as was done with DOB. "On February 20, 2004, the PTO refused the registration of the mark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
Dykes on Bikes under Trademark Act Section 2(a), explaining that a reasonable person
Reasonable person
The reasonable person is a legal fiction of the common law that represents an objective standard against which any individual's conduct can be measured...
of ordinary sensibilities would recognize that the term “dyke” is disparaging and objectionable to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities." It was noted that during the time period from 2000-2005 the PTO had approved marks for “Crippled Old Biker Bastards,” “Biker Bitch,” “Whore,” and “Evil Pussy
Pussy
Pussy is an English word meaning:* Cat* The human female genitalia, for the slang term related to genital anatomy.* Pejoratively, cowardice or weakness as an insult in general- Etymology :The origins of the word are unknown...
” as well as “TechnoDyke,” "Homo Depot," "Queer Shop," Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Queer as Folk. The Brooke Oliver Law Office that represented the SFWMC also pointed out the absurdity of the initial rejection ruling citing the PTO's own regulations that
"the perceptions of the general public are irrelevant" and indeed the test of “whether a mark is disparaging and/or offensive is the perceptions of the individuals referred to and/or identified by that mark. In this particular case, it is women – or more specifically lesbians, bisexuals and transgender women – who ride motorcycles in the Pride Parades and who would be using the term.”
On November 13, 2006, the Dykes on Bikes won the battle to trademark the name, having struggled since 2003 to persuade the PTO that "dyke" was not offensive to the lesbian community. In 2005, after a prolonged court battle involving testimony on the word's changing role in the lesbian community, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is a body within the United States Patent and Trademark Office responsible for hearing and deciding certain kinds of cases involving trademarks. These include appeals from decisions by USPTO Examiners denying registration of marks, and opposition proceedings...
permitted the group to register its name.
Further reading
- Joans, Barbara. 1995. "Dykes on Bikes Meet Ladies of Harley." In William L. Leap (ed.), Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages. New York: Gordon and Breach Press. Pp. 87–106.
External links
- Dykes on Bikes at the 2011 San Francisco Pride parade
- Dykes on Bikes at the Open Directory ProjectOpen Directory ProjectThe Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...
- Dykes on Bikes, Victoria, Australia