| abstract | - Dykes on Bikes (motorcycles) are a traditional crowd favorite participant at gay pride events such as Pride parades, Dyke Marches and significant LGBT events like the international Gay Games formerly and informally known as the Gay Olympics. They most likely were originally put at the front of the parade for logistical reasons and have remained there as a symbol of LGBT pride, defiance, liberation and empowerment. The contingents are fiercely independent and self-reliant in the "Do it yourself" and feminist traditions and have been studied as a social phenomena as a "complex, multi-layered form of consumption-related cultural resistance that raises awareness of social injustice and discursively informs social meanings in everyday life outside the festivals." Along with drag queens, the Dykes on Bikes have been criticized for not portraying a more acceptable image of LGBT culture but supporters counter that they are seen as highly visible icons of gay pride who refuse to assimilate and conform to mainstream society gender roles and indeed remind of the butches and queens who helped lead the Stonewall riots launching the modern gay-rights movement. Although they are mostly associated with large parades and events they are actually a loosely affiliated international network of mostly lesbian and dyke motorcycle clubs including The Sirens in New York City, Dykes on Bikes in Portland, Oregon, and the Women’s Motorcycle Contingent in San Francisco as well as a growing international network of chapters. The Dykes on Bikes have been criticized for using the term dyke in their name rather than lesbian but the group has registered the mark in the United States, after a battle to demonstrate that the terms diesel-dyke, bull-dyke, bull-dagger and dyke all have historically negative connotations but have been re-appropriated as self-referential terms of endearment and empowerment distinct from lesbian and indeed awards and events utilizing those names are now used by the LGBT community. Like the tradition of motorcyclists rejection of the norms of middle-class, middle-America, the Dykes on Bikes teach, by example, that women can be masculine and challenge the dominant sexual and cultural expectations of what a woman is and what she can do and achieve. __TOC__
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