Dykes on Bikes: Headlining SF Pride Parade since 1977
Since 1977, the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Club, aka Dykes on Bikes, has been leading off the SF Pride Parade. They tried for over two years to trademark "Dykes on Bikes" so it could be used for community-building and progressive causes and not used by just anyone for commercial purposes, such as printing on t-shirts. In 2005, they won the trademark.
In 1974, Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives. In her case to win approval to trademark the name "Dykes on Bikes," she wrote: "I knew better than anyone what it meant when in the late '70s, younger women proudly reclaimed the word 'dyke.' . . . Young women full of strength and hope . . . emptied the word of its bigotry and fear, replacing it with community and self-affirmation." --Barbara Raab, "Sticks & Stones, and Dykes," June 23, 2006, In These Times
