I won’t have any part of it, though.
When I was younger, still living under my parent’s roof, silently struggling to understand what it meant to be gay and whether or not I was, I had my very first reaction to the word dyke. My parents and I had watched Ellen (not the talk show, but her first sit-com) every week, laughing together at each punch line. That is, until the day Ellen decided to come out to the rest of the world. The following week, as we turned the show on, my dad refused to even be in the same room as I watched. “I’m not watching that dyke.” He said, disgusted, and walked away. My anger grew. I didn’t necessarily identify with the word, but I did know that I didn’t care if she was gay, that I liked her because she was funny. It saddened me to know that even though my father liked her before he ever heard she was gay, suddenly he couldn’t anymore because now she was.
My father doesn’t refer to lesbians as dykes anymore, or at least not in front of me. I assume this is because, though I haven’t officially outed myself to him, he knows it might be inappropriate to use that word around his nearing thirty year old “single” daughter who is living with her nearing thirty year old “friend.” But I digress...
It’s my best guess that the Ellen show fiasco is when my true aversion to the word dyke began. I’ve only actually been referred to as a dyke once, by some guy as I was walking down the street. I’m not particularly macho looking, I’m not obviously gay, I don’t know many gay people…so I guess I’ve escaped the majority of the third-grade name calling that goes along with being a homosexual in society today. That doesn’t make me like it any more, though, because every general reference to fags and dykes hits home with me. I am a part of a larger group that is stereotyped into these ugly little boxes.
It might also be helpful to know that I also hate the word “nigger.” Not because I’ve ever been called one – I haven’t. Not because I’m black – I’m not. I hate it because of the power it holds over a groups of people. Whether or not that same group of people will use it amongst one another, I still don’t like it. Why embrace a word that, for so many people, means something negative? Why should I call myself or other lesbians a dyke because I want to reclaim it and turn it into something positive? Why should I use a word that I think others have no right to? I don’t think that simply being gay gives us the right to further the stereotypical labels that society has used for us. If we want to be taken seriously, if we want to be treated equally, why do we have to separate ourselves with slang that, at any time, might be perceived as offensive? I don’t think we have to, which is why I will proudly stand up and say, for all to hear...
I am not a dyke.
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