Calgary gets its first Dyke March adding another level of pride
The lesbians are coming! The lesbians are coming! Taking place the day before the Pride Parade’s 20th anniversary Calgary finally gets around to celebrating its first Dyke March.
“We’re not Calgary Pride’s Dyke March” says event director Brianne Langille looking to set Calgary’s first Dyke March apart from Pride’s core events. Rather it is a completely independent volunteer-run group but occurring at the same time as many other side-events during September’s 11-day Pride Week.
“I think it’s an important stage in the growth of Pride itself. It’s integral” says Jessica Dollard director of the Fairy Tales Presentation Society and a festival participant. “The Dyke March is very very important not just advocating for gay rights but also advocating for women’s rights as well.”
“I hope that this raises awareness throughout the community” adds Langille. “Just how many queer women are out there and how we’re looking for the same respect that everyone else gets. And I think that’s a little bit lacking now.”
Usually slotted right before a city’s Pride Parade dyke marchers are quick to point out the major differences in the back-to-back events. Whereas the parade is more of a big party with floats balloons and corporate sponsorship the Dyke March is keeping it simple — a march demonstration from one point to another to raise awareness.
That said the community is the first priority and there is no rivalry between the two groups.
“My goal is not to take away from Pride at all” said Langille. “I love Pride. I go to Pride every year and I’m hoping that everyone that goes to the march goes to the parade.”
Pride Calgary president Sam Casselman agrees and even though the Dyke March is not asking for any sponsorship or advertising Pride is helping put the word out anyway. “I think we’re all trying to work together and I think there’s room for everybody” says Casselman.
Originating in 1981 in Vancouver the Dyke March is now established in several major cities including Toronto New York San Francisco and Seattle. Langille has been attending the Vancouver march for the past three years and used it as a model for the Calgary event which starts at Millennium Park and ends at Century Gardens on the corner of Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue S.W. closing with a concert.
“It’s very inspiring to see women coming out from all walks of life and just coming out and being with other lesbians” she says. “It’s just an amazing feeling — having their families and friends out to support them.”
In typical grassroots fashion Langille started a Facebook group to gauge potential interest and was surprised by the amount of dedicated committee members and volunteers it immediately attracted.
“They were looking for it to happen or looking to start one themselves” she says. “There was already interest in it before deciding to start.”
In some cities both the parade and the march are planned and run by the city’s Pride committee. However similar to Vancouver’s model Langille and Casselman have decided to remain separate.
“For Pride it’s really important to focus on our three main events [the parade the street festival and the dance] and not get into a ton of other events because it pulls us away from that” says Casselman.
Celebrating its 20th year Pride has had its own fair share of struggles. Casselman took the presidential reins prior to last year’s events to clean up the mismanaged remains of previous years. Along with having no money Pride suffered from constant board-member changes was not registered as a society in Alberta nor was it registered as a non-profit organization.
With all these issues Casselman was forced to push back Calgary’s Pride Week from June to September in order to raise enough money. Yet it appears to be a smart decision for the organization which is no longer competing with weddings graduations and other gay community events.
“In June we would be going from Fairy Tales to Pride to Edmonton Pride and then the gay rodeo” says Steve Polyak publisher and owner of GayCalgary and Edmonton magazine. “There’s only so many gay dollars — especially in this economy — to be able to support massive events so a lot of people are having to pick and choose what events they could and couldn’t attend.”
The same goes for sponsors who can only support so much at a given time. With the September time slot Pride Week is competing against next to nothing which benefits everyone. “It also gives the gay community some breathing space between events” says Polyak.
Casselman is pleased with how successful the re-haul has been with last year’s attendance numbers reaching 10000 — more than doubling the previous year’s attendance of 4000. This year Casselman anticipates 12000 to 15000 people. The anniversary has Casselman digging through Calgary Pride’s archives all the way back to Calgary’s first parade where participants wore bags over their heads. She was even able to track down a participant from Pride 1990 who will be a guest speaker.
While some may see a contradiction in the names of these two events others see the word dyke as one more proclamation of pride in their sexual orientation. It’s not the only event that draws criticism for its nomenclature.
Dollard says the Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival has drawn similar fire for its use of the word queer.
“Basically for us and for our organization it’s a term of empowerment. It is empowering to take back those words that were used against us” she says. “It’s very much needed in the city and it’s time for the city to grow up into using those words for empowerment rather than the traditional connotation.”
Aside from naming debates Langille has faced the usual challenges in putting together a first-time event such as co-ordinating people calculating resources and logistics such as route plans.
“Actually I was hoping to be along 17th Avenue which is sort of the queer centre of Calgary” says Langille. “And it was just not even an option for us.”
“There’s probably going to be a bunch of mistakes made” she says with a laugh. “But that’ll just make next year’s better.”
