San Francisco's gay village is most concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church and on both sides of the Castro neighborhood from Church Street to Eureka Street. Although the greater gay community was, and is, concentrated in the Castro many gay people live in the surrounding residential areas bordered by the Mission District, Noe Valley, Twin Peaks, and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods. Some consider it to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights which both have a strong LGBT presence.
Castro Street itself runs south through Noe Valley, crossing the 24th Street business district, and terminating a few blocks farther south as it moves toward the Glen Park neighborhood.
The San Francisco Pride parade is a world-renowned LGBT pride parade. It is held on Sunday morning of the Festival. The route is usually along San Francisco's Market Street, from Beale Street to 8th Street.[1] The parade starts nominally at 10:30 am, though it is hours before all the contingents are able to get onto the parade route, and the last contingent doesn't leave the parade route until 2-4 pm.
Dykes On Bikes lead the 2005 San Francisco Pride parade, the contingent has hundreds of motorized bikes, many of which are decorated for the event.Dykes on Bikes formerly known as Women's Motorcycle Contingent (WMC) for legal purposes has several hundred motorcycle riders, almost all women-identified although they welcome all gender-variant people. Some of the women are topless, some wear leather or fanciful costumes. The sound of hundreds of motorcycle engines gives this contingent a big impact. They are traditionally the first contingent in the parade; one reason for this is that it's difficult for motorcycles to run reliably at the walking pace of the rest of the parade, so as the first contingent they can move at an easier pace. On November 13, 2006, they won a battle to trademark the name "Dykes on Bikes", having struggled since 2003 to persuade the United States Patent and Trademark Office that "dyke" was not an offensive word