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About
Dykes On Bikes Detroit®
So, after reading the incredibly long and exceptionally interesting article by Barbara
Raab I was appalled by the fact that the term "Dykes on Bikes" was still seen negatively
by "society?"
Whose society? Certainly not ours.
Though I will admit, I have run into a tiny amount of people who find the word dyke
distasteful, almost all of those people are NOT LESBIANS. In fact, most of them
are not an active part of our community as a whole in comparison, and the majority
of them who find it distasteful aren't even GAY. Thus they have their own opinion.
What was that? I said OPINION.
Everyone has one, and everyone's is different. So elementary and so basic it is
almost seemingly nauseating. But that is what it boils down to. Opinion.
Now, having been a lesbian for over twenty years and being out in this community
for eighteen, I DO know that Dyke is embraced. It has become, to many, a form of
blanket even. It is like using the word girl, but not using it in the literal sense.
"You go girl!" so popular, but not meant in its literal fashion; because the connotation
of the word "girl" has changed through the growth of society and the addition of
years. I know more Drag Queens that say "You go girl" than women most certainly.
Furthermore, they use it with each other (Drag Queens) and not in reference to females
at all. And "You Go! Girls!"
In January of 2008 the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent - a.k.a. Dykes
on Bikes - was finally given its right to trademark! It is protected now, by governmental
law to be able to be used by those who embrace that term. It is with the utmost
pride and emotion that I embrace that term. Even happier for me it is also that
I ride, so I use it.
It has been a long search in this Detroit Metropolitan area that I have looked for
a group of Women Riders (or Womyn, Wymyn and lastly Wymen - however you want to
spell it) who also embrace this term and the spirit in which it was originally derived
and birthed. I was a member of the Women on Wheels for a year and though I love
the chapter and the group is a fantastic group of great, lady bikers that is what
it is. And a "lady" I am not.
Shortly thereafter, I joined the "Priestesses," another women's motorcycle club
in the
What was I looking for? A closer sense of camaraderie, a motorcycle club of women
who had been through a lot of the same crap I had been through personally and professionally.
A LESBIAN oriented club full of women who were ready and willing to stand up and
say “yeah we’re gay, so what?”
After reading about the Dykes ON Bikes® in
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