On July 18th 2026, some anarchists and fellow travelers answered a call to show up in a bloc contingent at the Portland Dyke March to combat the march’s liberal co-optation and rebuild our collective memory of what pride is really about. What began as a small, banner-carrying group amidst the parade became a larger contingent who found it within us to collectively break the cycle of useless, permitted protests.

When we first arrived at the north park blocks, we immediately saw the Portland pigs on motorcycles parked right next to the rally. This happens every year, it’s not surprising but a sobering reminder of how hard we still need to fight. The official Dyke March Instagram page posts the flyer for the annual march and wait until the last minute to announce that they have permits and a police escort. Embedded in the comments, the Dyke March account claimed that even though this is a permitted march where PPB will be consistently present and guiding traffic, they “have never and will never invite police to join in on our march.” This claim is ridiculous, because what is a permit other than a direct invitation for collaboration with the police? This way of organizing goes directly against the original politic of the Dyke March.

Each year, it seems as though the Dyke March strays farther from its original anti-police, pro-direct action spirit that the Lesbian Avengers intended…for now at least. The first Dyke March was organized by the New York Lesbian avengers and took place on April 24, 1993 in so-called Washignton D.C. during the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. It was so successful that the New York Lesbian Avengers decided to organize another Dyke March in June 1993 in response to the control of Gay Pride by white cis gay men. Since then, the Dyke March became an annual tradition taking place the day before Pride celebrations. It was a grassroots movement, bringing visibility to Black and brown lesbians, butches, femmes, transgender and gender non-conforming folks while encouraging everyone to get more political and involved in local and global struggles. The first Dyke March even had their own manifesto, look it up. The Dyke March has always been loudly anti-Zionist, anti-police and anti-racist. They didn’t bother to get permits because the organizers truly understood that permits and police escorts immediately makes any action a state sanctioned parade rather than a protest.

Anyway, once we walked onto the grass of the park blocks, it only took a couple seconds to find our people in black bloc, some were wearing hot pink t-shirts, but everyone was wearing face coverings and obscuring all identifying traits. There was a beautiful spread of zines, including “Camover Portland 2026 Summer Games”, “At Daggers Drawn”, “Gays, Crazies and Motherfuckers: Anarchists in the Stonewall Uprising” and “Toward the Queerest Insurrection”, along with sparkling waters laid out on the ground for anyone and everyone to enjoy. Quite a few queers not in bloc approached the area to pick up zines, ask our recommendations, and talk about their hatred for flock cameras as they read through the Camover zine. As soon as the speeches ended, we all made our way over to the starting point of the march where we unfolded a hand-painted banner that read “Pride was will be a riot” and stood in the front directly behind the accessibility trailer. Looking around, there were only about 10 of us in bloc.

Before the march even began, the crowd was chanting “Stonewall was a riot”. Someone in bloc turned around to face the crowd and yelled at the top of their lungs “Stonewall was a riot but here we are at a Dyke March with city permits and cops escorting us down the street! Fuck your permit! Fuck the cops!” This sentiment sat incredibly well with the general crowd, leading a small group of 20 or so queers to abandon the general march and stand behind the bloc banner. A majority of the people who chose to stand behind the banner were not masked, or bloc’d up. They obviously didn’t originally come to join our contingent, but they joined the group of bloc simply because they fucked with our critiques and principles. Some of the most popular chants in our group were “Every brick, every wall, we will make their prisons fall!”, "Bring back the lesbian urban guerilla!”and “Pride was a riot! Let’s get rowdy!”

As we were walking south on Naito Parkway by the waterfront, we heard god awful singing and music coming from a set of speakers on the grass. Getting closer, we realized the people singing were bible thumpers who thrive on misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. These christofascists always post up directly outside of Portland Pride every year like clockwork, so it wasn’t very surprising they were up to their usual bullshit on the route of the Dyke March. After quickly scheming amongst ourselves, we confronted them with our banner proudly spread out for them to read. They continued to sing their terrible songs as we got closer, and before they seemed to register what was going on, one of us pushed over a speaker. They immediately reached out to put hands on us but we were too fast…another speaker got kicked over! That‘s when they started shoving us harder and trying to punch some of us in the face. While a majority of these fascists were preoccupied with trying to physically assault us, someone in bloc was able to pick up a speaker by its cord and chuck it across the lawn. At this point in the confrontation, a self-appointed peace police with the Dyke March came up, stood in between us and the fascists (facing us, a clear sign they were trying to defend the fascists from us), put their hands out and were yelling at us to leave them alone. We didn’t leave because they told us to, we left because we completed our objective: knock down their speakers and tech so they couldn’t sing their stupid songs. As we rejoined the march, people came up to us and thanked us for confronting the fascists and knocking over their shit. The inherent spontaneity of radical queers will never be brought down. We will always get shit done.

While the official Dyke March ended a few blocks after that scene, we continued walking down Naito Parkway with a group of about 60 people behind our banner. The realization that a large group of queers decided to reject the orders of the permitted march came when a yellow-vested Dyke March volunteer on a bike rode up to us and said “Okay guys, I’m gonna lead you in a u-turn to get back on route.” Naturally, we didn’t stop walking and chanting, which forced them to scurry away. At this point we were no longer a part of the city permitted and police escorted Dyke March, we were our own march calling for the downfall of amerikkka, the destruction of prisons, the destruction of borders, the downfall of capitalism, land back and liberation for all. Someone had said that Portland pigs were behind our march on motorcycles demanding we disperse and get out of the street. We didn’t. We kept screaming our chants and walking down Naito Parkway. They gave up pretty quickly, however, that one dispersal order convinced about half of the people in our march to get on the sidewalks and turn around. We realized we no longer had a collective goal in mind so we paused our march on the corner of SW Salmon St and Naito Parkway to figure out where we would be marching to. We splintered off from the march as the group of about 30 people took to the other side of the street, walking north on Naito Parkway, shouting their chants and blocking traffic, making the cars behind them slow down to a stop.

We don’t need the city’s or any government’s permission to take to the streets. We don’t need the police present at our events. We don’t need to listen to self appointed peace police. We don’t need to listen to “de-escalators”. Even though the initial bloc group was small, as the contradictions of the permitted pride march came to light, people matched our spirit. Even though the non-bloc queers didn’t necessarily come to the march with the same plan as those of us in bloc, it’s clear that people are a lot more down to move beyond these liberal parades than they’re given credit for. It just takes a spark. It just takes a will to rebuild mass street antagonism against the police and all settler-colonial power structures. Even though in hindsight, our march could have been much rowdier, disruptive, and more sustained, the energy of our splinter march was raw and lively. It only ended up this way because we refused to listen to those in positions of authority and chose to engage in the actions we engaged in all because we wanted to and were unapologetic about it. Out of the closet and into the streets! (Without a permit of course.)

-anonymous community submission

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