Guest Post: Experience at 2018 SF Dyke March by Anonymous Dyke

I marched with 11 women in the San Francisco Dyke March Saturday night (June 23rd). It was a terrible experience. Worse than I was expecting. We got harassed and bullied from the very beginning because of the signs some of us were carrying. Three of my friends got pushed down and had their signs torn up and taken away. But we all kept marching the full length of the march. A sizable crowd followed us and chanted like a mob and surrounded us: Transphobes gotta go! It was pretty awful and we had to get the police for protection. We were totallly non-violent! We were representing lesbian voices and visibility. The hate on these mostly young people's faces -- both men and women-- was frightening. One of my friends got knocked down three times and she kept getting up and carrying her sign even though by the end of the March it was in shreds. Her sign said Biology is not Bigotry. And the other sign said You cannot silence me with violence. She was a true Amazon Warrior and kept marching. The rest of us tried to protect her including her partner who also got knocked down and whose sign got taken away. We finally got the police but they were fairly clueless and at first they thought we were the instigators. One of my friends almost got arrested because the mob tried to paint us as the aggressors. Oh San Francisco -- you used to be such a great place. You kind of suck now. Too much hate. There is a large segment of the trans advocates community who really hate feminist lesbians. They also hate freedom of speech, and their response is one of crushing free speech, as we witnessed, and we're seeing this over and over again not just yesterday. They block free discussion of ideas. For those of us who still believe in democratic expression of ideas-- it's time to step up and make your voices heard now! -Anonymous Dyke