Dyke

Dyke or dike is a slur commonly used to refer to lesbians, especially butch lesbians. It targets and has been reclaimed by all manners of AFAB, lesbian, feminine-aligned, and intersex queer people, such as transmasculines, m-spec lesbians and sapphics, nonbinary people, and transgender & sapphic non-lesbians.

Alternate Names

 * Bulldyke (African American English, to be used only by Black dykes)
 * Morphodyke (intersexist slur, only to be reclaimed by intersex individuals)

Etymology
The origin of the term dyke is unknown, however there are theories on where it originated:



Definitions
Due to the term's complex history, the definition of dyke varies by source. However, the most widely agreed upon are:


 * a contemptuous term used to refer to a lesbian
 * a masculine lesbian or woman
 * any queer person who is a woman or perceived as incorrectly performing womanhood



Controversy
Reclaiming the term has been the subject of many various controversies since its original reclamation. In modern times, most pushback comes from Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) due to the radical inclusion of the label. There is also a large amount of discourse around who can reclaim the slur, especially from m-spec lesbian and lesboy exclusionists. For example, TERFs tend to argue that dyke is a term exclusive to cisgender monosexual lesbians, and that any use of it by other groups is appropriation. M-spec lesbian exclusionists will often claim that the term "dyke" is rooted in disinterest and unavailability to men. Finally, people who exclude non-female lesbians may argue that the term is explicitly and solely targeting women, and hence any non-woman claiming it is being lesbophobic and misogynistic.

All of these statements are untrue. The slur directly targets women for masculine traits and for lesbianism, not necessarily lack of interest in men. What is considered a "masculine trait" ranges from having a penis, to not being a woman, and to simply being queer.

Subsets

 * Dykegender
 * Boydyke
 * Fagdyke
 * Dykegenderfag
 * Tryke