Continuing my adventures in reading the "bisexuals aren't allowed to say dyke" corner of the Internet, here's another slight-of-hand I'm seeing that is extremely red-flaggy from both an activist and historical perspective. 1/
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The historical sources this crowd cite as origin documents all come from a period when "lesbian" was a term used both for behaviors (one engaged in lesbian acts rather than being a lesbian) and included women who might now identify as bi. 2/
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They acknowledge and/or are confronted with this historical context -- that their argument (lesbians are the ONLY people who can use the word dyke because it's a derogatory term ONLY used toward lesbians) is undermined by the documented usage of the term over time... 3/
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-- but shimmy around the problem by arguing that NOW lesbians (the group against whom the word dyke was originally hurled) include a much narrower group of people, and that narrower group of people are the people who have the right to police usage. 4/
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(This also conveniently ignores that dyke is a word that not only has associations with same-sex desire but has a strong historical association with gender presentation -- so a case could be made it's not about whom you have sex with but that you present as a mannish woman.*) 5/
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*Remembering that all of this historical-contextual usage developed during a time when our understandings about gender and sex the relationship of gender and sex to desire were very different than our understandings today. 6/
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So the self-deputized dyke police also put forward a fascinating (to this historical of sexuality) theory about community ownership of histories: that it is (a very specific) present-day definition of a community that determines who has the right to the its history. 7/
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If we take as a given (which I don't) that at some point around 1969 "lesbians" and "bisexuals" found enlightenment and became two wholly separate communities when before they had maintained only one ... who, then, has the "right" to that pre-history that included both? 8/
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The folks currently defining "dyke" as the sole property of "lesbians" maintain only people who identify as their particular, current-in-the-moment definition of lesbian have a legitimate claim to the pre-history of queer women. 9/
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That claim places this particular group as the *most* lesbian, because it places them in the position of continuity with lesbian forebears, while all other queer women must apply (to them) for the right to even *speak the words* of that shared past. 10/
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At this point, I'm not going to directly engage with these folks because 1) a lot of them seem to be quite young and I'm not parachuting into their timelines as a grumpy older stranger because that's a shitty power move, and 2) they clearly don't want to discuss this. 11/
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But I do want to put out there, for any peers or younger folks they are currently bullying, from me and all of the other queer folks who feared for years we weren't queer enough to speak the words: YOU ARE ENOUGH. 12/
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You are queer enough. This is your history. Speak the words that help you make sense of who you are in the world & connect with people in the past & present who help you feel less alone. The people with delusions of grandeur telling you what you're "allowed" to say are wrong. 13/
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Anyway, if you're in need of some queer joy in your life this week, I still have some #romance giveaways ready to hand out ...
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As of 9:30am ET Mon 8/24 I still have...
4 copies of The Mage on the Hill left
8 copies of He's Come Undone left
2 copies of Waiting for the Flood left
1 copy of Lord of the Last Heartbeat left
3 copies of A Lady's Desire left
...if you need some queer joy this week! twitter.com/feministlib/st…
4 copies of The Mage on the Hill left
8 copies of He's Come Undone left
2 copies of Waiting for the Flood left
1 copy of Lord of the Last Heartbeat left
3 copies of A Lady's Desire left
...if you need some queer joy this week! twitter.com/feministlib/st…1
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