i’m a lesbian and sociolinguistics enthusiast. here’s why bi women can reclaim ‘dyke’:
- earliest record of the term “dyke” is 1940s, before that it was “bulldyke”.
- up until the 1960/70s, the modern idea of “lesbian” and its associated identity politics didn’t exist. people weren’t classed as “lesbian”, it wasn’t a thing you could be, it was a thing you did. lesbian was a synonym for tribade, tribadism meant “scissoring”.
- there was no distinction between lesbians and bi women as there was little to no understanding that some women were exclusively attracted to women, they were both classed by their sexual activity, not their sexual identity.
- up until the 1960s “bisexual” was only used in scientific/academic contexts, and even then it wasn’t widely used. most texts referred to both bisexual and lesbian women as “lesbian”.
- it was only in the 70s upon the arrival of the (white, cisgender, and terf) lesbian separatist movement, that bisexual women were othered. prior to that they shared the same identity and oppression as women who exclusively loved women.
- because historically there was no differentiation between bi and lesbian women, both faced the same slurs and oppression. bi women still face lesbophobic slurs nowadays for loving women even if tumblr regards them as lesbian-exclusive terms. bi women shouldn’t be demonized for reclaiming a slur that is not only intrinsically embedded in their history (that, because of terf lesbian separatist narratives, they have been denied) but is also still used against them despite use of it not aligning with the dictionary definition. bi women aren’t the enemy.
(p.s. the same applies to femme/butch identities. the terms femme/butch began in gay bars in the 1940s-1960s. both lesbian and bi women were members of the wlw clubs and communities in which these terms were coined.)
(p.p.s. please feel free to debate in the comments, as long as you are civil. discussion is healthy and opinions change.)
