The first Dyke March in the United States was held in 1993 in Washington, D.C. by political organizers such as the Lesbian Avengers, as a way to speak out against lesbian erasure and other intersectional issues within the larger queer rights movement. The message spoke to the 20,000 people who attended that year, and sparked other Dyke Marches across the country, including in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York City. This movement inspired the Pittsburgh dyke activists who attended some of these marches in later years to bring this protest to the Steel City.
“We wanted to take up more space at Pride in a confrontational way,” Colelea (they/them), one of the organizers of the first Dyke March, said. “The word ‘dyke’ means that you can’t be apolitical. It’s an inherently political identity.”
Colelea, alongside organizers Khalia Latte and Eli Kuti, banded together with organizers from the Lesbian Avengers and other activist groups, as well as queer event producers, to form the first coalition for the Pittsburgh Dyke March. In 2005, this coalition forcibly joined the Pittsburgh Pride March as the Dyke Contingent, as a direct response to the way marginalized queer individuals were treated within the larger community.
One year later, on Friday, June 16, 2006, the inaugural Pittsburgh Dyke March stepped off in Oakland. The march experienced some homophobic fraternity brothers who threw rocks at them along the route, but it didn’t deter the marchers from finishing the route and returning for the next several years. Estimates put the number of attendees at the inaugural March at 125, including those who traveled from rural areas to Pittsburgh.
The Dyke March continued to be a Pittsburgh tradition until 2019. It returned post-COVID lockdown in 2023, this time in Bloomfield under new organizers.
Colelea had returned to her hometown after living in California for a few years to find, to their shock and joy, that the Dyke March kept going, and did not back down from its political and radical messaging.
“I cried,” they said. “I had no idea that there were that many people [who were still marching]. I was so excited about how many people were involved in organizing it.”
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For the new organizers of the Dyke March, it was important to honor Pride and the Dyke March’s legacy as a protest and outcry against injustice. Last year’s message behind the Dyke March was speaking out against the genocide in Gaza. This year’s message is ICE Out, in a direct response to the Trump administration’s ramped-up attacks against Black and brown communities across the country.
“Pride and liberation for dykes requires solidarity with all of these different movements,” said Surya Ramachandran (they/them), one of the organizers from the 2026 Dyke March. “People are relatively more okay with seeing a party, and then when you demand your rights, they don’t like it so much.”
With transphobic attacks at the federal level, as well as the local level, with former Allegheny County Council President Pat Morena’s transphobic mailer to constituents, it makes the Dyke March’s message of transgender and intersectional solidarity even more critical.
“It’s definitely a little scary to [organize a Dyke March in the current political climate], but that’s why it’s even more important that we show up,” Danielle Shellgren (she/they), another 2026 Dyke March organizer, said. “We deserve to have a Pride event that’s a protest and a community event. We deserve to have our message heard and to have fun. We owe it to ourselves and our community.”
The 20th Dyke March was held again in Bloomfield on Saturday, June 6. Hundreds of dykes and their friends showed up with masks, water, signs, and flags to celebrate and demand queer liberation as they marched down Liberty Avenue. The route ended with the Dyke Bash under the Bloomfield Bridge, where there were vendors, organization tables, dancing, food, and pure queer joy.
For two marchers, Monica and Patience, this march and Dyke Bash was their wedding reception. The couple got married at the Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside a few hours before the Dyke March stepped off.
“My wife and I are longtime community organizers, so we wanted to share our wedding day with all of the dykes who make Pittsburgh feel like home,” said Patience. “At the start of the march, the whole crowd started cheering when they saw us. And most of these people had never met us, but it didn’t matter—they were cheering for trans dyke love, for trans dykes looking beautiful, for trans dykes fighting for a happily ever after, not just for ourselves but for our whole community.”
Photo gallery by Sarah Naccarato.
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