Swarm of Dykes’ activism influenced LGBTQ+ resources today LAUREN SERGE STAFF WRITER In 1997, a group of progressive lesbian and queer individuals banded together to fight for visibility on Ohio University’s campus. It called itself the Swarm of Dykes, or SOD. With the name’s shock value and its fiery personalities to match, the group was a force to be reckoned with on campus, protesting for equality among all in the LGBTQ+ community. Today at OU, there are numerous organizations offered to queer people, with the LGBT Center located at Baker University Center at the center of it all. Back in 1997, however, the LGBT Center did not even exist. The SOD sought to establish a place for queer people to gather, connect and protest. Caitlin Sweet, who graduated in 2000, was a member of SOD when it formed. Sweet said the majority of the queer students on campus used to gather at Open Doors, an LGBT group that met at United Campus Ministry. At these meetings, the women-identifying and men-identifying people would have breakout sessions in which they could each talk about their respective issues. Sweet said it was at these breakout sessions that the idea for SOD was sparked. “I just remember us being in the basement and being like, ‘This is super unsatisfying for us,’” Sweet said. “None of us were in a place of our queerness where we felt sad about being gay or needing support or a place to process. What we really wanted was something political. (We thought), ‘What if we were to start our own group? And what is the collective term for a group of dykes?’ And the joke was, it would be a swarm. We wanted to form a direct action, non-hierarchical, political, queer organization. And so Swarm of Dykes was born.” Heather Moyer, who graduated in 8 / SEPT. 16, 2021
2000, was also a member of SOD during her time at OU. Moyer said the decision to use the word “dyke” in the name of the organization was to disassociate the power it held within homophobic discourse and, to instead, reclaim it as part of the community, as the term “dyke” is widely known as a slur used against masculine or an-
drogynous women and lesbians. “We wanted the shock value of it and reclaiming that word for ourselves,” Moyer said. “There were a couple of LGBT groups on campus, but there were none that did any radical action. And so we decided that we would want to do one that was a little more confrontational, just to make you think about what we were saying.” Betsy McCann, who graduated in 2000, was also a member of SOD. McCann emphasized that the attention the name garnered greatly influenced the message of the organization as a whole. “The whole point was that the word dyke was this very taboo, off-subject word that got people’s attention and made people very uncomfortable,” McCann said. “A swarm seems like something aggressive. And it seems like there’s a thickness to the concept of a swarm, that there’s a lot, so a swarm of dykes seems so intimidating and big. And so I think the name was definitely picked to get the reaction. And I do think we got it because even just becoming a registered organization on campus was a big step for us because I’m sure there were some phone calls or some meetings that were like, ‘Can the group be called this?’” Though SOD did become a registered
student organization, there was frequent pushback on campus. According to The Post’s archives from 2003, the graffiti wall was defaced and slandered with homophobic slurs. The Swarm took a direct and combative approach to this act of hate, and The Post stated that “members of the Swarm confronted the group and persuaded them to stop defacing the wall.” Aside from other students, SOD also faced conflict with OU administration over the name. Mickey Hart, the first director of the LGBT Center, said the Swarm did not take this pushback lightly. “At the university, there were certain words and phrases that couldn’t be on the wall, not looking at context,” Hart said. “The facilities folks who monitored the wall painted over the word dyke because that was one of the words that couldn’t be on the wall. In response to that, (the SOD) painted that entire long wall black, and much like you would on a chalkboard, they wrote the phrase, ‘I will not write dyke on the wall. I will not write dyke on the wall. I will not write dyke on the wall’ repeatedly.” SOD’s bold responses to its criticism, Sweet said, allowed for its voices to be heard and the issues it raised to be prop-
