Meet Dykes Who Hike: The trans-inclusive WLW hiking group building community one step at a time
Meet the WLW hiking group building community one step at a time (Supplied)
What’s that coming over the hill?
Probably a lesbian, if London’s WLW hiking group are out and about.
Founded by Lucy Cooper and Yas, Dykes Who Hike has swelled in popularity in just the few months it has been going, with hundreds of people attending their events and more than 14,000 following them on Instagram.
The group’s hikes have already included a Sussex trip from Seaford to Eastbourne, a trek between Whitstable and Canterbury, and from Ramsgate to Margate in Kent, alongside socials and taking part in Pride in London.
Dykes Who Hike is for “queer wlw girlies, trans and non-binary folk” and initially began as a joke before Lucy and Yas realised just how important such a group would be to the lesbian and wider LGBTQ+ community, particularly because most events in the city involve alcohol, and other similar organisations were not representative of queer experiences.
“Me and Lucy met at a queer basketball team and it’s obviously for the same demographic as us – LGBTQ+ women, trans and non-binary people – those are exactly the kind of people we wanted to do our walks with,” Yas told PinkNews.
“The groups we [found] were straight, one called the gay outdoors club, but it seemed to be all men in their sixties or seventies. I was like: ‘I love that for you’, but I didn’t want to commit to a whole day of hanging out in the fields with them.
“I wasn’t really sure how I would fit in, or if that was exactly the group for me.”
The response after they established Dykes Who Hike has been “amazing” Lucy said, recalling how the pair were nervous before the first event, anxious that it would just be the two of them. But 60 queer folks turned up, ready to go.
The pair joked about how people message them to say they set their phone alarms so they can get tickets, as if it was a “little gay Glastonbury”.
Lucy went on to say: “I think that’s mainly because people just want a sense of community. “Maybe part of the reason why we started it was [because] we wanted to feel we were part of our community.
“A lot of the spaces that already exist [for the community] are typically a bit more geared around alcohol, or it’s like you kind of know someone before you go, a night out or something. We wanted to do something where it felt like you could turn up and meet new people.”
Dykes Who Hike is not the only new lesbian event which has popped up around London in recent months, in what has been dubbed a “lesbian renaissance“.
Earlier this year, Hackney, in East London got new permanent lesbian bar La Camionera – Spanish for female trucker, but also slang for butch lesbians – which opened after a large turn-out at its temporary opening in February.
La Camionera’s opening comes alongside a wave of pop-up events and regular nights at clubs, bars and pubs hosted by event companies such as Lick, Lesbian Island, Butch Please and Lesbian Supper Club, while Dyke March has also returned after a decade-long absence.
It bucks the trend of previous years when LGBTQ+ venues up and down the country closed down, with lesbian spaces particularly affected.
“It’s kind of amazing how much is popping up,” Yas said. “It’s cool because there [are] obviously so many people out there [who] recognise that lesbians or queer women are willing to go out [and] do things.”
She went on to praise those who are willing to take the risk of opening bars, which are “so needed and appreciated”.
The number of events focused on London’s night-time economy means she and Lucy can concentrate on their “specific niche, which is organising walks”.
Thinking about the future, Lucy says they plan to keep expanding hikes to areas outside London so that in “whatever place, if you go on a Dykes Who Hike hike, you get the same positive experience”.
They also hope to have an overnight adventure, full-time jobs permitting. “It’s blue-sky thinking, to use corporate lingo,” she said.
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