Dyke March - Chicago

Chicago

The Chicago Dyke March occurs each year around the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, June 28, 1969. The Chicago Dyke March has been in operation since 1998 in the LGBT-friendly neighborhood of Andersonville. However, in 2008 organizers announced that it will remain in each new location for two consecutive years. The March was held in Pilsen in 2009 and 2010 and in South Shore in 2011 and 2012. According to the planners of the Chicago Dyke March the reason behind the move was to "increase 'queer visibility' throughout all neighborhoods in" Chicago. Journalist and commentator Yasmin Nair has been critical of the Chicago Dyke March, saying,

In Chicago, for instance, we have an alternative Dyke March, but it became, over the course of a decade, a predominantly white and middle-class event. Even after it moved locations (first to the predominantly Latin@ west side, then to the largely African-American South Shore) there’s a great deal of talk about alternative politics, but not very much conscious conversation about what it means to, essentially, stage Dyke March in these communities and not very much explicit engagement with people, including queers, who live there. Instead, one day a year, we "take over the streets," and then disappear. I’ve been to the alternative Dyke three out of the four years so far, and I can see its value as a kind of annual resting space/networking tool for queers with alternative politics, but I wish we would drop the pretense that moving the location is more than just marching in a different place.