Final weekend, droves of individuals descended on a 15-acre park in northeast Los Angeles for a day of picnicking, mingling, cheering on drag performances and a pet costume competitors, and extra.
Often called Dyke Day LA, this annual Satisfaction gathering takes a homespun strategy to a month sometimes full of corporate-sponsored events, parades and live shows; one organizer estimated the group at about 1,500. Since its first iteration in 2007, it has gone from a scrappy Eastside different to the spectacle of West Hollywood’s Satisfaction celebrations to a necessary — if unofficial — occasion on town’s Satisfaction calendar, open to “dykes of all genders.” (In keeping with the organizers, which means everybody however cisgender males.)
The title asserts {that a} time period as soon as broadly taken as a misogynistic and homophobic slur will be seen as a optimistic, liberating label. Nonetheless, attendees had been cut up, largely alongside generational strains, about whether or not the phrase “dyke” suited the second, when labels like “nonbinary” and “genderqueer” are used to affirm identities which might be extra fluid.
“‘Dyke’ will not be our era’s title to reclaim,” mentioned Melanie Marx, 31. “I really feel like we’ve reclaimed ‘queer,’ and it’s way more inclusive.”
A number of folks of their 40s, 50s and 60s spoke of the phrase with affection. “I’ve all the time recognized as a dyke,” mentioned Tristan Taormino, 51, a feminist creator and intercourse educator. “To me it’s a politicized id. It’s not nearly who I really like and have intercourse with, however my tradition, my viewpoint, my politics. It’s an absolute reclamation.”
This 12 months’s Dyke Day, held for the primary time in particular person because the pandemic started and as laws is advancing round the US that might curb the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. folks, felt each celebratory and politically defiant. Below a cover of tree leaves and rainbow balloons in Sycamore Grove Park, attendees ate ice cream sandwiches, sipped do-it-yourself cocktails, took naps, performed backgammon, petted one another’s canine, met one another’s pandemic infants (“I obtained it from my mothers,” learn a toddler’s T-shirt) and swapped numbers. Everybody was glowing with glitter and chance and in addition beads of sweat.
Leola Davis, 37, an aesthetician in Sherman Oaks who makes a speciality of post-operation therapies for folks recovering from mastectomies often known as high surgical procedure (she goes by @thelezthetician on Instagram), was excited to be again at Dyke Day after the pandemic hiatus. “There aren’t any occasions in Los Angeles the place you possibly can see this many queer folks without delay, so it’s superb for cruising,” she mentioned.
Hannah Einbinder, the 27-year-old comic and “Hacks” star, mentioned, “There are only a few centralized areas or bars or eating places which might be devoted to queer femmes or non-cis male queers, so it’s good to be right here.” She added that it was “uncommon” to search out this type of scene in Los Angeles.
Mekleit Dix, a 25-year-old researcher who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, mentioned that Dyke Day was a welcome counterpoint to to the closely branded hubbub in West Hollywood. “I believe the sense of programming there’s like: ‘It will get higher, that’s why we’re partnering with JPMorgan Chase,’” she mentioned.
Dyke Day, by comparability, is staunchly anti-corporate. In tents dotting the park, there have been workshops on B.D.S.M. and different types of kink; demonstrations of find out how to administer Narcan, a nasal spray, to reverse an opioid overdose; and sources for gender-inclusive well being care. Elsewhere, artists recorded oral histories from patrons of lesbian bars that had closed between 1925 and 2005. American Signal Language interpreters and accessible paths ensured that every one in attendance would really feel welcome.
There have been loads of newcomers and allies within the crowd. “I’m simply comfortable to be right here with all my women,” mentioned the musician Lana Del Rey. “We’ve one of the best women on the town proper right here.”
Dyke Day follows a lineage of grass-roots Satisfaction gatherings which have aimed to middle individuals who determine as femme, together with the primary Dyke March, in 1993, in Washington, D.C., adopted by New York the identical 12 months. Dyke Day LA, run by a nonprofit, is free and welcomes attendees of all ages. (For the youngsters in attendance this 12 months, there was face-painting, a bounce home and an inflatable slide.)
Marissa Marqusee, a nurse who manages the Los Angeles LGBT Middle’s Audre Lorde Well being Program and sits on Dyke Day’s planning committee, mentioned it was essential to the organizers to create an inclusive surroundings.
“We needed the committee to be consultant of the individuals who attend Dyke Day,” mentioned Mx. Marqusee, who’s transgender and nonbinary. “Which means Black, brown, Indigenous, folks of shade. Queer and trans folks. Service suppliers of all totally different backgrounds.”
“It’s like dyke Christmas,” mentioned Lynn Ballen, a Dyke Day LA organizer and board member. She famous that, “historically, Satisfaction occasions come out of a historical past that’s extra homosexual males, extra cis, extra white.” She and her fellow organizers had been trying to foster a extra various and inclusive surroundings.
That context, together with the growth of gender identities, has formed some folks’s emotions in regards to the phrase “dyke.”
“I’m a dyke, and within the ’90s, after I was a youngster, I used to be closeted,” mentioned Romy Hoffman, a 42-year-old musician from Sydney, Australia. “I used to be into grunge, the Riot Grrrl stuff. I used to be discovering queer cinema. The phrase ‘dyke’ undoubtedly represents that time period, however I don’t know if it has been tailored to the age of queerness.”
Some choose totally different terminology altogether. “I’m type of old skool and determine with ‘lesbian,’ personally,” mentioned Ann Engel, 59, a therapist in Palm Springs.
“I grew up listening to folks name ladies ‘marimacha.’ I understood it to imply, like, ‘butch lady,’” mentioned Salvador de La Torre, 32, who’s transgender and grew up on the Texas border. “It’s undoubtedly derogatory and can be utilized as an insult, relying on the context.”
They mentioned that the time period continued to resonate with them. “Though now I’m not a girl — I used to be socialized as one and I used to be assigned feminine at delivery — I’ll all the time be keen on that affiliation, and love the phrase ‘dyke,’” they mentioned.
Supply: NY Times