The D.C. Dyke March Won't Let Me Fly the Jewish Pride Flag
I heard the D.C. Dyke March was back after a 12-year hiatus via a Facebook post. The march started in Washington, D.C., in the early ’90s and then dropped off in 2007, so having it return was like a gift to the community. Having been to many Dyke Marches here in D.C. and in New York City, I was very excited to see this amazing event come back to life. The marches are great fun, someone usually brings drums, and there are fun outfits, clever signs, cheering, and dancing. These events are about the visibility of the lesbian community that often feels overshadowed by our gay brothers. But I didn’t expect that to attend this year’s march, I would have to hide my Jewish identity. I didn’t come out of one closet just to be forced back into another.
As a proud Nice Jewish Girl, I have walked in the D.C. Pride Parade with a hundred or so other Jewish queers and their supporters, for years carrying the Jewish Pride flag, a rainbow flag with a Star of David at its center. I have manned booths at the parade with the flag draped over the table, and wore T-shirts with the image on it. Never once has anyone said a word. But in the back of my mind was the Chicago SlutWalk of 2017, when Jewish queer women were asked to leave because they carried the very same flag, which organizers banned in solidarity with pro-Palestinian marchers, concerned that any flag with a Jewish star too closely resembled that of the State of Israel.
With that in mind, I reached out to the organizers of the D.C. Dyke March to make sure that they had a plan in place in case anyone tried to harass marchers who, like me, wanted to fly the flag of their gay Jewish pride. Their response was like a sucker punch to the gut: They told me that although Jews were welcomed to march, the Jewish Pride Flag was not.
It was like Chicago all over again. I felt like I was being pushed out of spaces that I considered safe, spaces that were my refuge when I was coming out. Sure, I was welcome to stay if I did what they wanted me to do, but I was deeply hurt to realize that, once again, I wasn’t allowed to simply be who I am.
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