Origins and historical usage
edit
The origin of the term
dyke
is obscure and many theories have been proposed.
[2]
[3]
[4]
Most
etymologies
assert that
dyke
is derived from
bulldyke
, which has a similar meaning.
[2]
The term first appears in an August 1921 article in the journal
Medical Review of Reviews
titled "The 'Fairy' and the Lady Lover". In this article, Perry M. Lichtenstein, a prison physician in New York City, reports on the case of a female prisoner he examined: "She stated that she had indulged in the practice of 'bull diking,' as she termed it. She was a prisoner in one of the reformatories, and there a certain young woman fell in love with her."
[5]
The forms
bulldyker
and
bulldyking
also appear later on in the
Harlem Renaissance
novels of the late 1920s, including
Eric D. Walrond
's 1926
Tropic Death
,
Carl van Vechten
's 1926
Nigger Heaven
, and
Claude McKay
's 1928
Home to Harlem
.
[2]
[6]
The
Oxford English Dictionary
notes the first attestation as Berrey and Van den Bark's 1942
American Thesaurus of Slang
, which lists
bulldiker
as a synonym for
lesbian
.
[7]
The etymology of
bulldyke
is also obscure. It may be related to the late-19th-century slang use of
dike
("ditch") for the
vulva
.
[8]
Bull
("male cattle") being used in the sense of "masculine" and "aggressive" (e.g., in
bullish
), a
bulldyke
would have implied (with similar levels of offensiveness) a "masculine
cunt
". Other theories include that
bulldyke
derived from
morphodite
, a variant of
hermaphrodite
;
[1]
that it was a term for stud bulls and originally applied to sexually successful men;
[9]
or that it was a dialectical corruption of the name of the rebel Celtic queen
Boadicea
.
[1]
[3]
From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century,
dike
had been American slang for a well-dressed man, with "diked out" and "out on a dike" indicating a young man was in his best clothes and ready for a night on the town. The etymology of that term is also obscure, but may have originated as a
Virginian
variant of
deck
and
decked out
.
[10]
In the 1950s, the word
dyke
was used as a derogatory term for lesbians by
straight
people, but was also used by lesbians of higher social status to identify crude, rough-bar lesbians.
[11]
In a 1970 study, Julia Stanley theorized that the source of these varying definitions stems from gender-determined sub-dialects.
[12]
Homosexuality in America is a "subculture with its own language."
[12]
As such, a special vocabulary is developed by its members. Previously, gay men defined
dyke
as lesbian without derogation. A
bull dyke
was also defined as a lesbian without further distinction. For lesbians of the community, however, a dyke is an extremely masculine, easily identified lesbian, given to indiscretion.
Bull dyke
is an extension of this term, with the addition of this person described as nasty, obnoxiously aggressive, and overly demonstrative of her hatred of men.
[12]
In 1995, Susan Krantz discussed the etymology of
bulldyke
, with derivations of the Middle English "falsehood" for
bull
and
dick
for
dyke
(Farmer and Henley 1891).
[1]
Therefore, a possible origin for a masculine lesbian comes from
bulldicker
that could specifically mean "fake penis", denoting a "false man".
[1]
Further speculation talks of the synonymous term
bulldagger.
Here, dagger also alludes to the male genitalia and bull referring to "false" rather than "man".
[1]
Increasing acceptance
edit
Boston Dyke March (2008), Massachusetts, US
Dykes on Bikes
banner (2006),
Melbourne
Gay Pride
, Australia
In 1969, people in the gay community began to march in the streets to demand
civil rights
. Terms such as
dyke
and
faggot
were used to identify people as political activists for the gay community. During this time,
dyke
referred to a woman committed to revolution, the most radical position. A surge of
feminism in the lesbian community
led to "
dyke separatism
", which emphasized that lesbian women should consider themselves to be separate from men, their ideas and movements.
[13]
In 1971, the poem
The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke
by
Judy Grahn
was published by the Women's Press Collective.
[14]
[15]
This use of
dyke
empowered the lesbian community because heretofore it had only been employed as a condemnation. Because of the exposure of the word to the public, the term
dyke
was reclaimed by the lesbian community in the 1970s.
[16]
The meaning of
dyke
has positively changed over time. Most members of the community have dropped
bull
from the term to use it as a positive identifier of one who displays toughness, or as a simple, generic term for all lesbians. This abbreviation does not carry the negative connotations of the full phrase as it previously did.
[1]
Scholar Paula Blank, in a 2011 article on lesbian etymology, called for taking ownership of
lesbian
and similar words.
[17]
In the late 20th and early 21st century, the term
dyke
was claimed by many lesbians as a term of pride and empowerment.
[18]
[19]
Alison Bechdel
, author of comic strip
Dykes to Watch Out For
(1983?2008),
[20]
said use of the term was "linguistic activism".
[19]
The strip depicts the lives of a lesbian community and is one of the earliest
representations of lesbians in popular culture
.
[21]
It has been described "as important to new generations of lesbians as landmark novels like
Rita Mae Brown
's
Rubyfruit Jungle
(1973) and
Lisa Alther
's
Kinflicks
(1976) were to an earlier one."
[22]
In her 2011 article
The Only Dykey One
, Lucy Jones argues that consideration of lesbian culture is core to an understanding of lesbian identity construction.
[23]
Matters came to a head when the
United States Patent and Trademark Office
denied the lesbian motorcycle group
Dykes on Bikes
a trademark for its name, on the grounds
dyke
was offensive, derogatory and disparaging to lesbians. However, the office reversed itself and permitted the group to register its name after attorneys appealed and submitted hundreds of pages to show the slang word does not disparage lesbians in the way it once did.
[24]
On December 8, 2005, Dykes on Bikes won the trademark case,
[25]
and the organization has since gained international recognition for leading gay pride parades from
San Francisco
to
Sydney
.
Facebook controversy
edit
In June 2017,
Facebook
censored the use of the word "dyke" on its website as "abusive content".
[26]
[27]
[28]
This decision resulted in a
Change.org
protest petition created by the
Listening 2 Lesbians
collective that was signed by 7,247 supporters.
[29]
Dyke March (2018),
Oldenburg
, Germany
Dyke Marches
have become popular
gay pride
events nationwide in the United States and Canada. They are generally non-commercial, in sharp contrast to corporate-sponsored pride events, and some are participated in by
bisexual
and
trans women
. The stated mission of the Boston Dyke March, for example, is "to provide a dynamic and welcoming space for participants of all sexualities, genders, races, ages, ethnicities, sizes, economic backgrounds, and physical abilities."
[30]
Marches also take place in several European cities. The United Kingdom's first Dyke March was held in London in 2012.
[31]
In Germany, the annual Dyke March Berlin was established in 2013.
[32]
[33]
In Mexico, the Marcha Lesbica (Lesbian March) was founded in March 2003 and is held biannually in Mexico City.
[34]
[35]
[36]
A
dyke bar
is any bar or club frequented by lesbians, and is considered as slang in the vocabulary of the
LGBT
community. The existence of official dyke bars, or lesbian bars, in the United States has decreased tremendously in the past 40 years. In the 1980s there were around 202 lesbian bars, in 2021 the number is thought to be at 16. The
COVID-19 pandemic
contributed to the closing of dyke bars, with the lack of business preventing bar owners from paying rent, exacerbating an already existing decline in lesbian spaces.
[37]
While gay bars and gender inclusive LGBT bars exist across the United States, spaces specifically for lesbians/sapphics are much less common, and their presence is steadily decreasing.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Krantz, Susan E. (1995).
"Reconsidering the Etymology of Bulldike"
.
American Speech
.
70
(2): 217?221.
doi
:
10.2307/455819
.
ISSN
0003-1283
.
JSTOR
455819
.
- ^
a
b
c
Spears, Richard A. (1985). "On the Etymology of Dike".
American Speech
.
60
(4): 318?327.
doi
:
10.2307/454909
.
ISSN
0003-1283
.
JSTOR
454909
.
OCLC
913655475
.
JSTOR
.
- ^
a
b
Grahn, Judy (1984). "Butches, Bulldags, and the Queen of Bulldikery".
Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds
(1990 Expanded?ed.). Boston, Massachusetts:
Beacon Press
. pp.?
133
?161.
ISBN
0-8070-7911-1
.
- ^
Dynes, Wayne R., ed. (1990).
Encyclopedia of Homosexuality: Volume 1 (A?L)
(1st?ed.). New York, New York:
Garland Publishing
. pp.?335?336.
ISBN
0-8240-6544-1
.
- ^
Lichtenstein, Perry M. (August 1921). "The 'Fairy' and the Lady Lover".
Medical Review of Reviews
.
27
(8): 369?374.
- ^
McKay, Claude (1928).
Home to Harlem
(1987?ed.). Boston, Massachusetts:
Northeastern University Press
. p.?129.
ISBN
1555530230
.
- ^
"dyke,
n.³
"
,
Oxford English Dictionary
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972
.
- ^
"dyke"
,
Online Etymology Dictionary
.
- ^
Herbst, Phillip (2001).
Wimmim, Wimps, & Wallflowers: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gender and Sexual Orientation Bias
. Intercultural Press. p.?332.
ISBN
978-1-877864-80-3
.
.
- ^
"dyke,
n.²
"
,
Oxford English Dictionary,
2nd ed.
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 [1933]
.
- ^
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky; Davis, Madeline D. (2014).
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold
(20th anniversary?ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. p.?68.
ISBN
9781138785854
.
- ^
a
b
c
Stanley, Julia P. (1970). "Homosexual Slang".
American Speech
.
45
(1/2): 45?59.
doi
:
10.2307/455061
.
JSTOR
455061
.
- ^
Stanley, Julia P. (1974). "When We Say "Out of the Closets!"
".
College English
.
36
(3): 385?391.
doi
:
10.2307/374858
.
JSTOR
374858
.
- ^
"Edward the Dyke: and Other Poems"
.
Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) Archives
. Archived from
the original
on 7 September 2021
. Retrieved
24 May
2019
.
- ^
Moore, Lisa L. (August 23, 2013).
"It Is An Apple: An Interview With Judy Grahn"
.
Los Angeles Review of Books
. Retrieved
24 May
2019
.
- ^
Garber, Linda (2001). "Putting the Word
Dyke
on the Map: Judy Grahn".
Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory
(1st?ed.). New York:
Columbia University Press
. pp.?
31
?62.
ISBN
0-231-11032-4
.
- ^
Blank, Paula (2011). "The Proverbial "Lesbian": Queering Etymology in Contemporary Critical Practice".
Modern Philology
.
109
(1): 108?134.
doi
:
10.1086/661977
.
JSTOR
10.1086/661977
.
S2CID
161151721
.
- ^
Dalzell, Tom (2010).
Damn the Man!: Slang of the Oppressed in America
. Mineola, New York: Dove Publications. pp.?160?161.
ISBN
978-0486475912
.
- ^
a
b
Raab, Barbara (June 23, 2006).
"Sticks & Stones and Dykes"
.
In These Times
. Archived from
the original
on August 18, 2007
. Retrieved
1 August
2019
.
- ^
Bechdel, Alison
(2018).
"Dykes to Watch Out For"
.
dykestowatchoutfor.com
. Archived from
the original
on January 1, 2018
. Retrieved
18 February
2019
.
- ^
Bolonik, Kera (November 23, 2008).
"Alison Bechdel Retires Her Infamous "Dykes"
"
.
New York
. Archived from
the original
on February 13, 2009
. Retrieved
18 February
2019
.
- ^
Garner, Dwight (December 2, 2008).
"The Days of Their Lives: Lesbians Star in Funny Pages"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
17 February
2019
.
- ^
Jones, Lucy (2011). "
'The only dykey one': constructions of (in)authenticity in a lesbian community of practice".
Journal of Homosexuality
.
58
(6?7): 719?41.
doi
:
10.1080/00918369.2011.581917
.
PMID
21740207
.
S2CID
33286479
.
- ^
Anten, Todd (2006),
"Self-Disparaging Trademarks and Social Change: Factoring the Reappropriation of Slurs into Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act"
(PDF)
,
Columbia Law Review
,
106
(2): 388?434,
ISSN
0010-1958
,
JSTOR
4099495
, archived from
the original
(PDF)
on April 26, 2006
, retrieved
12 July
2007
- ^
Guthrie, Julian (December 9, 2005).
"Trademark office OKs 'Dykes on Bikes' / Motorcycle group's name on its way to becoming registered"
.
San Francisco Chronicle
. Archived from
the original
on July 24, 2012
. Retrieved
1 August
2019
.
- ^
Murphy, Meghan (June 26, 2017).
"Why is Facebook banning lesbians for using the word 'dyke'
"
.
Feminist Current
. Retrieved
9 May
2019
.
- ^
Thompson, Annabel (July 12, 2017).
"The controversy around Facebook banning lesbians from using the word 'dyke'
"
.
ThinkProgress
. Retrieved
9 May
2019
.
- ^
Sharpe, Kenny (July 27, 2017).
"Users face consequences as Facebook struggles to filter hate speech"
.
The Globe and Mail
. Retrieved
9 May
2019
.
- ^
Facebook: Stop Discriminating Against Lesbians
.
Change.org
. July 2, 2017. Retrieved 9 May 2019. @ https://www.change.org/p/facebook-stop-discriminating-against-lesbians. (The URL for Change.org is blocked due to spamming and cannot be linked with a citation template.)
- ^
"About"
.
Boston Dyke March
. 2019. Archived from
the original
on 21 May 2021
. Retrieved
30 April
2019
.
- ^
petit fours (February 26, 2012).
"Dyke March London: what is it? and why do we need one?"
.
The Most Cake
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
"Dyke March Berlin"
.
dykemarchberlin.com
(in German)
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
"Dyke March Berlin"
.
Berlin Pride Guide
. 2018. Archived from
the original
on 15 May 2021
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
"Marcha Lesbica"
.
marchalesbica.com
(in Spanish)
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
Martinez, Martha (21 March 2003).
"Realizan en Mexico la primera marcha lesbica de America Latina"
.
Cimacnoticias
(in Spanish)
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
Sanchez, Mayela (March 20, 2013).
"Mexico's young LGBT women take a stand at lesbian march"
.
United Press International
(UPI)
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
- ^
Compton, Julie (April 4, 2021).
"A year into pandemic, America's remaining lesbian bars are barely hanging on"
.
NBC News
. Retrieved
June 16,
2021
.
- Bates, Gloria (June 6, 2018).
"Dyke: A Fracture In the Lesbian Community"
.
Medium
.
- Bendix, Trish (June 23, 2017).
"Dyke Marches Assert Political Power and Demand Visibility. But They're Under Threat"
.
Outward
.
Slate
.
- Levy, Ariel (March 2, 2009).
"Lesbian Nation"
.
The New Yorker
.
(article about the
Van Dykes
collective)
- Morris, Bonnie J. (December 22, 2016).
"Dyke Culture and the Disappearing L"
.
Outward
.
Slate
.
- Smith, Kristin (June 21, 2011).
"The Lez Look Book"
.
The Bold Italic
.
- Books and journals
- Beers, Jinx (2008).
Memoirs of an Old Dyke
. Bloomington, Indiana:
iUniverse
.
ISBN
978-0595526246
.
- Eliason, Michele J. (20 July 2010). "A New Classification System for Lesbians: The Dyke Diagnostic Manual".
Journal of Lesbian Studies
.
14
(4): 401?414.
doi
:
10.1080/10894161003677133
.
ISSN
1089-4160
.
OCLC
795931159
.
PMID
20661801
.
S2CID
205754307
.
Special Issue: A History of "Lesbian History," Part 2
- Jay, Karla, ed. (1995).
Dyke Life: From Growing Up To Growing Old, A Celebration Of The Lesbian Experience
.
Basic Books
.
ISBN
978-0465039074
.
- Kleindienst, Kris, ed. (1999).
This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the 21st Century
(1st?ed.).
Firebrand Books
.
ISBN
978-1563411175
.
- Knadler, Stephen P. (Winter 2002). "Sweetback Style: Wallace Thurman and a Queer Harlem Renaissance".
Modern Fiction Studies
.
48
(4): 899?936.
doi
:
10.1353/mfs.2002.0076
.
ISSN
0026-7724
.
JSTOR
26286254
.
OCLC
436657207
.
S2CID
161731198
.
Look up
dyke
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.