Approximately 200 people gathered in Long Beach, Calif., on Saturday to partake in the city's annual Dyke March, kicking off the city's 30th anniversary of Pride Week celebrations.
Pioneering lesbian feminist Robin Tyler illuminated for the crowd why she doesn't find the word "dyke" offensive. "I think it's great, because what a dyke is is a lesbian warrior," said Tyler. "It means rather than knocking on the door and saying 'please can we have our rights?' we kick in the door and demand our rights. That's a dyke."
Touching on the controversy surrounding the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's policy excluding transgender women by admitting only "women born women," Tyler called for gender parity and solidarity.
"If a woman is born into a man's body, she is still a woman, and we need to tell that to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival," said Tyler. "We do not have the right to define for other people how they identify from the gender perspective, and so I would like to welcome anybody that is in transition, has transitioned, or hasn't transitioned. Anybody that wants to march with the dykes, to fight back, to be political, to not take shit — you're a dyke."
Watch Tyler's full address below, via LBReport.com.
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