Attorneys Find Dykes on Bikes Offensive
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Vic Germany thought registering a federal trademark for San Francisco’s iconic Dykes on Bikes organization would be no problem. After all, the nonprofit lesbian motorcycle group has become internationally known for riding in the lead position at San Francisco’s pride parade every year for nearly three decades. Instead, the group has spent a humiliating two years slogging through the swampland of trademark law, with no end in sight, said Germany, president of the San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent, a.k.a. Dykes on Bikes.
Twice, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the Dykes’ application, on the grounds that “dyke” is vulgar, offensive and “scandalous.” Patent office attorneys even point to Webster’s dictionary, which says dyke is “often used disparagingly. The examining attorney found it to be offensive to a significant portion of the lesbian community,” said Jessie Roberts, a trademark administrator with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “And we’re also looking out for the sensitivities of the general public more than that of a specific applicant.”
The applicants, in this case, prefer to call themselves dykes. “We self-identify as dykes on bikes,” said Germany, a 48-year-old San Francisco environmental consultant. “To us, (the government’s objection) is completely absurd.” The women call themselves “dykes” for the same reason many gays have laid claim to “queer” — to defang a word that has long been a slur.
“I cannot imagine a more ironic twist of thinking than to judge this reclaimed badge of honor as insulting to the very community who has created its power,” Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, wrote in a declaration supporting the Dykes on Bikes’ trademark request. “Lesbians do not need to be protected from their own cultural creations, their own transformations of stigmas.”
The Dykes argue that they are succeeding in weaving the term into the cultural fabric. Roaring up Market Street on their motorcycles before thousands of onlookers at pride parades, San Francisco’s Dykes on Bikes have paved the way for a dozen-plus similar groups elsewhere. There are Dykes Planning Tykes parents groups, a “Dyke TV” cable access show, and a site for “the Web-savvy dyke” called Technodyke.com.
The federal paper-shuffling might seem superfluous to any Bay Area resident who has heard the street chant, “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” But “queer,” a longtime slur for male homosexuals, is different — at least in the eyes of the federal trademarkers. In November, the patent office registered a trademark on behalf of the Bravo Network for the hit television show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
“So what’s the difference between ‘queer’ and ‘dyke’?” said Brooke Oliver, the Mission District attorney who is handling the Dykes’ case. Germany pointed out that the case for “Queer Eye” was supported by a deep-pocketed television network. “And we’re a nonprofit group full of working-class women,” she said.