• "pre-lesbian separatism isn't a valid reason!"
• "this discourse is necessary and important!"
• "why do you WANT a slur so bad?"
• "but dyke means lack of attraction to men!"
• "dyke is exclusive to lesbians!"
• "dyke is AAVE / exclusive to Black wlw!"

• sources page

• i understand!!
• i disagree, lesbophobe.

sources & debunking time!!

another carrd, with explanations & sources

"it simply doesn't (mean lack of attraction to men). this is false information that has been spread on twitter. there are no official historical sources that prove this--i have looked high and low for poof, it simply doesn't exist. dyke has NEVER, during any period of time meant lack of attraction to men.IF it did mean lack of attraction to men, then ace-aromantics could reclaim it. that's obviously ridiculous."

another carrd, with definitions & sources

"(you keep seeing everyone say it means 'lack of attraction to men') because at some point, someone said it and it spread like WILDFIRE. the only things that mention a lack of attraction to men are carrds with no sources that support it.this myth has literally never been mentioned before 2015 unless you can find it. that should be telling enough that it isn’t true."

an injustice magazine / medium article, with historical & credible quotes

"many people resist the knowledge that bisexuals and lesbians have historically used the same identity language. while none of the presented information is in any way meant to argue that bisexuals today should identify as lesbians, the idea that the word “lesbian” was simply “misused” in previous decades to “wrongly” include bisexual women — rather than the reality that words evolve to mean different things — is like a reverse etymological fallacy.""even by saying that 'bisexual women are only called d-slurs because people assume they’re lesbians,' one acknowledges that bisexual women can have so much in common with lesbians that they get 'mistaken' for each other and attacked for the same reasons: their love for women, and sometimes the gender-nonconformity that comes with that."

challenging the "lack of attraction to men" definition of "dyke"

"if you look at the historical conceptions of sexuality, and how female sexuality specifically was thought of under western heteropatriarchy (aka the context these slurs originated in), women were thought to not have sexuality. instead, women were blank slates onto whom men projected their own sexual desires. women were meant to exist for male consumption and play the role men and society wanted from them, but they weren’t supposed to (or believed to) actually feel sexual feelings.""being unattracted to men is not threatening to them because they don’t care about your feelings, they care about whether they’re getting the obedience and gratification they want from you. that’s why even a straight woman will get called a d*ke simply for refusing a specific man, even if it’s known that she likes men in general. It’s not about the attraction, it’s the refusal to behave as an object for men."

how & why material reality makes the definition argument seem silly

"no gay man is fighting for the right to not marry women. the idea a lack of attraction is all that homophobes attack people for also implies that they’d be similarly mad at aroace women, which is false.""there are bi women who only date women and straight women who don’t date anyone — lesbians aren’t the only ones who “reject” men or are punished for not being 'available' to them.""it was originally about women being masculine (which most people associate with same-gender attraction, which bisexual women experience)."
"many women in this study define a [d-slur] as ‘anyone who is not heterosexual,’ and lesbian-aligned bisexual women often use the term to describe themselves. this move allows bisexual women to participate in lesbian contexts without either the onus of deception, since ‘[d-slur]s’ includes bisexuals, or the burden of the bisexual stigma.""many bi women will talk about how they’ve been called the d-slur by strangers, family, friends, and partners in regards to their bisexuality, and people still go 'well, sorry, but you’re attracted to men so you can’t say our word,' as if bi women’s attraction to men negates the homophobia they face, as if they can’t be gender-nonconforming in the same way butch lesbians are.""do you think homophobic strangers would call a femme lesbian a d-slur more than they would a GNC/butch bi woman?"

bisexuals do face homo/lesbophobic violence and discrimination, actually.

"it’s really funny how gay people insist that biphobia is just homophobia and yet we can’t… reclaim homophobic slurs that target and traumatize us.""homophobic violence doesn’t occur because we lack attraction to the opposite gender. it’s because we have attraction towards the same gender.""homophobic violence also has plenty to do with gender-nonconformity, which is to be expected when it’s such a staple of gay/bi culture and non-heterosexuality is a marker of 'failing' to adhere to gender roles.""i know bisexuals who’ve been called these slurs while single or in different-gender relationships. i know people who’ve been called the d- or f-slur in response to coming out as bisexual.""y’all make far too many assumptions about how bisexuals live their lives when our experiences can be almost identical to yours. we’ve always shared spaces with you, fought with and for you. unless you somehow believe that we aren’t oppressed for our same-gender attraction, there’s no legitimate reason to 'guard' these words from us. they’ve been ours. we aren’t 'stealing' anything. "

lesbians aren't more or less important than bisexuals. there shouldn't be a hierarchy here.

"why is so much of the argument about 'what makes lesbians uncomfortable'? why is your comfort prioritized over our trauma, over our REAL experiences? why do lesbians who have never had this word used toward them have a say over bi women who have? especially gnc bi women?""the idea that bi women only have a right to it as long as lesbians say its okay is… off-putting. because why do bi women, specifically gnc bi women and bi women of color, need to ask lesbians for permission on how to deal with their trauma?"

people will ignore sources and say we're wrong, no matter what we do. that doesn't mean we should listen to them.

"the nature of tumblr is to paint whoever you disagree with as your oppressor and a monster and you just have to deal with that.""whether i personally ID as bi or lesbian does not matter because my experiences won’t change." (i.e. labels don’t magically grant you understanding of exclusive experiences like a nightclub pass because that’s not how material reality works.)"anti-wlw language has always revolved around lesbians; that doesn’t mean bi women were just unfortunately caught in the crossfire.""the sacred lesbian-only experience doesn’t exist, unless its specifically 'i identify as a lesbian.'""all wlw are subject to comphet [and] corrective rpe (though i may agree that it has different connotations among lesbians, i can personally say lesbians are not the only ones targeted for being “cured” of their attraction to women, and rpe CERTAINLY does not feel better just because you hypothetically could like a man).""a lot of these arguments about bi women being available to men are misogynistic and extremely biphobic and literally ACTUAL terf rhetoric.""bi women helped build the lesbian community in the first place before radical feminism, terfs, and political lesbianism drove us out of [it].""people will hate you (as a bisexual), no matter what you do or don’t."

definition & "misdirection" vs material reality

"it literally does not matter whether dyke technically means lesbian. even if you think that’s what it means, it does not matter and bi women can still reclaim it.""the whole concept of 'misdirected' slurs only applies when the slur is misdirected to someone who is not actually oppressed in the way that people targeted by it are. that’s why TME trans people can’t reclaim transmisogynistic slurs just because they’re also trans, for example, and this also applies to other contexts like race and disability.""they (bi women) feel the weight of all of that whenever the concept of 'dykes' is used as a joke or a target of violence or they’re called that word themselves. a straight woman getting called a dyke can brush it off safe in the knowledge that it’s not true, she can hear dykes/lesbians get mocked and feel unaffected knowing she’s not considered part of that group, but a bi woman cannot because derision towards sexuality between women harms us all equally."

historical origins of the word "dyke"

"the earliest known appearance of bulldyke is actually as a nickname for a man. from chicago’s daily inter ocean of 28 july 1892:with the idea of killing off a portion of the women in the levee district hattie washington, a colored woman, started out at 6:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon with a big revolver in her hand.she went to blanche alexander’s place on custom house place in search of belle watkins, who, she said, had won the affections of harvey neal, alias 'bulldyke.' belle got wind of her coming, and made her escape, but as soon as the woman got inside of the house she began firing right and left."

different existing definitions of the word "dyke" unrelated to lesbianism

general uses:
"dike (mythology); dikē - the greek goddess of moral justice"structures:
"dyke (embankment) or dike - a natural or artificial slope or wall to regulate water levels, often called a levee in american english"people:
"dyke (surname)"settlements:
"dyke, virginia, united states"earthworks:
"devil's dyke (disambiguation) - one of several ancient embankments or ditches (or both)"geological features:
"mount desire dyke - an igneous intrusion in south australia"see also:
"d-yikes!" - an episode of south park" (great episode btw i'm a huge fan it was funny)