by Jessica Carreras
Eric Folkmire is a 22-year-old activist from Warren. He serves as the networking and media chair for the Southeast Michigan Dyke March, which empowers lesbians and their GBT and allied friends to have a presence in the community and at Pride events.
1) What exactly does the Southeast Michigan Dyke March do?
The Southeast Michigan Dyke March is a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting lesbian, bisexual and transgender visibility in the metro Detroit area.
Our main focus is organizing the first Southeast Michigan Dyke March and Rally, the main event that we plan on hosting in June. The Dyke March and Rally will consist of LGBT women and men marching together in a demonstration for visibility, equality and inclusion. The march will be followed by a rally that will feature performance acts in a safe community space. In addition to this, we host other LGBT-focused and -friendly events in the area. One of the goals of the Southeast Michigan Dyke March is to create a safe space for the female queer community of Michigan, but of course men are more than welcome to become involved.
2) How did the group get started?
In June of 2009, members of our board were fortunate enough to attend dyke marches in both Chicago and Toronto. Those of us who attended these marches were stunned by what we experienced: such a feeling of community and liberation that we had never felt at Pride events before. Even as a gay man, I felt an incredible sense of connection at the Chicago Dyke March. We immediately began to question why Michigan did not have its own dyke march, and decided to establish one ourselves.
In October we began to have regular Southeast Michigan Dyke March board meetings and started to organize our event. We looked into permit costs and fees and began to raise funds by hosting open mic nights. Through networking and word-of-mouth we have become fairly well-known in the LGBT community and we now have a slew of loyal supporters.
3) Why did you want to get involved?
I have always felt a personal connection to the lesbian community in Michigan. Many of my closest friends are lesbian, and they have dubbed me their "lesbro".
I feel that doing something for the community in the way of activism and unity is important if I wish to see the fight for equality progress. In particular, I feel that when people think of the LGBT community, they focus heavily on the G and not enough on the L, B and T. I want to see that female LGBT identified people have a space and an event to call their own. More importantly, I want to see them included in discussions on LGBT rights and in other Pride community events.
4) Why do you think it's important to have a variety of ways in which LGBT people can get involved in their community?
Detroit is one of few places in the country where the main Pride event is a single street festival on one day of the year. Most other major U.S. cities host entire weekends dedicated to Pride, and we want to begin expanding on that idea for the metro Detroit area. If we continue to rely solely on one event, which happens to primarily focus on gay men, we are excluding a major part of our community's demographic.
Pride aside, many of the events that are hosted for the female queer community are held in clubs where there is a minimum age for attendance. What we are doing is creating an event that is family friendly and will be inclusive of all ages.
Personally, I feel that if we do not offer as many opportunities to become involved in multiple aspects of the community as possible, the LGBT rights movement cannot continue. If there was a limited number of ways to become involved, we would inevitably exclude someone or a group of people. There is no way of overselling the importance of community involvement at such a crucial time for our community, and I think that organizations like the Southeast Michigan Dyke March serve a sub-purpose to remind people that lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are a part of the community.
5) What are some of the ongoing events the group has?
Right now we are organizing several events, including a benefit show with Steffie and the Dirty Virgins.
Our main event is scheduled for June 5 in downtown Ferndale. This, of course, is the Southeast Michigan Dyke March and Rally.
To learn more, visit the group's Twitter, Facebook or MySpace page.
