New York City’s Dyke March Organizes Protest Against Fascism

Hundreds of demonstrators flowed downtown from Bryant Park on Saturday, June 28, for the 33rd annual New York City Dyke March, which adopted a solid anti-Zionist stance and explicitly anti-fascist tone.

Self-identifying dykes led the march, themed “Dykes Say No to Fascism,” to Washington Square Park with a “Free Free Palestine” banner. At the head of the protest, marchers carried mass-distributed signs featuring large white text calling for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which has been characterized as a genocide by several human rights groups. Other signs supported Black liberation, condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and affirmed that the fight for LGBTQ+ rights is far from over.

Also leading the protest was a 20-foot papier-mâché dinosaur. The pastel-colored creature is called Sapphasaura, artist Anna Moustakerski explained to Hyperallergic, and made as an homage to the 1973 protest against anti-feminist exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History. The Lesbian Feminist Liberation Zap hauled a 250-foot dinosaur of the same name down Broadway more than five decades ago, demanding changes to the museum’s programming.

The version of Sapphasaura present in this year’s march, however, was covered with messages of love that the artists asked the public to address to future generations.

“We kind of think of it as a big, totally dominating monster that is urgently carrying everyone’s messages,” Moustakerski told Hyperallergic. The multicolored missives told future generations to “be gay” and “fight fascism.”

In the months leading up to Saturday’s protest, this year’s organizing committee announced a firm anti-Zionist stance that also denounced antisemitism: “Our critique is directed at a political system and ideology, not at Jewish people or Judaism,” the