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Here’s What Happened:
In the 1976 San Francisco Pride Parade, a group of LGBTQ+ women rode motorcycles. Over the years, more and more women bike riders showed up at the annual parade. In the late 1980s, a number of women riders created a group known Women’s Motorcycle Contingent. The group’s community grew with opening a member house, a lesbian bar and then a gay bar. In the 1980s, one of the members coined the phrase, “Dykes on Bikes”. In 2003, the group officially changed their name to “Dykes on Bikes” (DOB). By that time, Dykes on Bikes was a well-recognized name in the San Francisco area for the group’s purpose of promoting lesbian civil rights and resisting harmful stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community.
In July 2003, DOB filed a trademark application. The USPTO denied the application. The examining attorney considered the term “dyke” to be derogatory. In response, DOB’s attorney argued and provided evidence that the term has become an accepted term of pride and identification for women within the LGBTQ+ community. The USPTO didn’t accept the argument and made the refusal final.
Fast-forward 2014. In In re Simon Shiao Tam, the applicant sought to register the term “Slants” for a music group whose members were Asian Americans. After the USPTO refused registration because the word was disparaging to those of Asian heritage and descent, Tam appealed to the US Supreme Court. DOB filed an amicus brief arguing in favor of registration. The US Supreme Court reversed the refusal to register because the disparagement bar was an unconstitutional restriction of free speech under the First Amendment.
Following the Tam decision, the USPTO finally registered the Dykes on Bikes trademark.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS: Kudos to DOB for not giving up on their trademark.
Note: In Clint Eastwood’s 2018 film, “The Mule”, Eastwood’s character encounters the San Francisco Dykes on Biles contingent in a brief scene.
Cited Authority_:_ Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017).