Can I get a lesbian perspective on something please?

The reason you can't reclaim the word is because the slur is misdirected - it's like an arrow that's missed its mark. It doesn't matter what the person making the slur thought, it matters whether it finds its target. Probably part of the reason you feel it doesn't hurt you as a slur is because you aren't carrying around the same weight of lesbophobia and discrimination that lesbians who have been called dyke and found it hurtful have. Some lesbians understand and feel all that context and feel for whatever reason they can shrug it off; in that circumstance, I don't see why they shouldn't reclaim the word - others don't wish to try and reclaim it and that is also a valid choice - the point is that you don't feel it in the same way because you are not in fact a lesbian.

I'm a lesbian and refer to myself as a dyke. I'm trying to imagine your poetry and I think I'd be mostly confused - dyke means lesbian. I get what you mean about reclaiming TERF in particular, and I'm delighted your response to being called a dyke is to shrug and uncomplicatedly recognise that being read as a (butch?) lesbian is no bad thing and so the intended insult doesn't insult you, but I don't think there are many turns of phrase, even poetic, where you can directly refer to yourself as a dyke and not appear to be, misleadingly, describing yourself as a lesbian.

Agree with @SapphosRock upthread, 'butch' might be a workable alternative.

Surely the OP is gender non conforming ?
In our world to conform to the gender (=sex role stereotype) includes a particular style of personal presentation which comprises make up, a proper hairstyle, shaved body hair, dresses rather than trousers and high heels rather than trainers.

If she isn't presenting like this then in appearance at least she is gender non conforming.
On the dyke issue I agree it's something you can't appropriate. I'd be interested to hear what lesbians think of the word 'queer' ? I know a lesbian/bi (female!) couple who use that word and it always makes me flinch, maybe because I'm so old.

Well, that's kind of my point; it may be a slur, but only I can choose whether or not to let it hurt me. Regardless of whether it is a slur or not it is my word, part of my identity and a very hard-won sense of pride in that identity, clawed back from nearly 60 years of contempt and beatings and ostracisation and that word.

It's all very well for OP to say "If someone looks at me, and then assumes I'm a lesbian based on my appearance, then I'd say that's their problem, not mine". She can go home, shake off the "insult" and live her ordinary straight life for the rest of the week, the month or her life. I don't get to walk out of the danger zone like that, and it riles me that she is so lacking in empathy that she can't even now understand why it isn't her concept to play with. There's a great prose poem by Michelle Cliff called "Claiming An Identity They Taught Me to Despise". Lesbians have all had to do that, and only we get to decide what those words mean for us.

I'm a straight gender non-conforming woman. For instance, I don't wear high heels, make-up, or push-ups bras

I guess I'm GNC too, then. I am 35, have never once worn a pair of heels, gave up the push up bras at 21, and make up makes me look ill! (I also don't shave my legs, can't be arsed).

I don't think any of that relates to gender- or sex- at all.

I really, really dislike that word, though.
I don't think you can "reclaim" a word that isn't actually yours to reclaim.
Writing about how it's been used towards you is different.

OP…. I wouldn’t use those words. You don’t want to confirm to gender social constructs, fine. We are all just people, many of us don’t fit those stereotypes and we just get on with it.

Not that there’s correct way to be called a dyke, but I mean whether people make the incorrect assumption that you’re a lesbian so they can call you homophobic slurs.

I’m a lesbian, really not into the whole reclaiming slurs thing, hate the word dyke, hate the word queer, if other gay people want to call themselves that then they crack on, but straight people is where I really draw the line. You’re a lesbian so you can’t reclaim a word that never belonged to you, whether you get incorrectly called it or not.

If you're using the word to describe what others have called you then that's fine

It's different to cunt and bitch. The literal meaning of those words are vulva/vagina and female dog respectively, neither of which are things that any human being actually is. So reclaiming them defangs the insult without looking like you're making a claim that you actually are a dog or a walking talking set of genitalia. The literal meaning of dyke is lesbian, so if you call yourself that it looks like you are using it as a factual term about yourself, since it can't be carrying the same insulting meaning it carries when used to mean "unattractive/unfeminine woman who might as well be a lesbian for all the use she is to men".

Sorry if I'm missing something. If this makes sense: On your writing, are you using "dyke" to reference yourself from your own perspective, or is it merely a description of how other people see you/refer to you?

If it's the latter, then I'd see no problem at all with it. If the former, not so much. "Lots of people see me as a lesbian, therefore I see myself as being equivalent to a lesbian" doesn't really work. I would say that it would make me angry to read it, but I'm young enough not to have had it used against me much during my lifetime (although it has been chucked around a lot during trans debates). For other people, the word would be more meaningful.

How many times do we have to say it, OP? Dyke = lesbian.
If you're not a lesbian it's not your word.

Maybe if you're trying to write a story about a dyke, or imagining on paper what it might be like to be a dyke it would be okay. But the idea of calling yourself a dyke as a therapeutic exercise seems off.

[quote Innocenta]@ididntevennotice Not everyone. I'm a lesbian and I'm fine with OP using the word in literature. (I wouldn't be fine with her using it as a "reclaimed" slur face to face, as face to face usages are not ordinarily artistic or literary.) [/quote]

Ok, let's assume I meant that OP clarification does not change any opinions; you knew what she meant just as much as the rest of us. Whichever side we sit, the clarification was unnecessary.

Dyke means lesbian so I don't really understand why you'd use it about yourself (outside of referencing being called it) if you're not gay! It's like if I put in a poem I'm bi (I'm not).

But OP if you call yourself a dyke, then you ARE calling yourself a lesbian. So don't.

I really can't tell if you're being willfully ignorant, deliberately obtuse, or genuinely don't understand. But the answer is - no you can't.

Lesbian here. I'm one of those lesbians — older, feminist, radical — who is happy to call myself a dyke. Friends who know me well can call me a dyke. But it's a word we tend to use about ourselves, like the N-word.

You're not a lesbian, OP, so you can't be a dyke. Being a lesbian or a dyke isn't about what you look like or what you wear. It's not a character you can try on or dress up as.

Give me strength. It's bad enough having to fend off the TWs pretending they're lesbians. Are we now going to need to fight off straight women in leather jackets pretending they're lesbians too?

@ididntevennotice Not everyone. I'm a lesbian and I'm fine with OP using the word in literature. (I wouldn't be fine with her using it as a "reclaimed" slur face to face, as face to face usages are not ordinarily artistic or literary.)

Would you not be bothered if someone thought 'oh wow - another lesbian in my local area/social circle/artistic medium/whatever - I'm not alone' and then they were disappointed or confused?

And I am reminded of what we say about TIMs -'Woman is not a costume'. If wearing 'woman' as a costume is offensive and unacceptable, why would you think it in any way tolerable to wear 'lesbian' as a costume in exactly the same way?

Identity tourism is unacceptable no matter who does it, or however (patronisingly) you think you are championing us.

This is reminding me a bit of straight women calling themselves political lesbians in the 80s.
Which was also quite inflammatory.

I just find it quite confusing.
If you're not a dyke why call yourself a dyke?
In my circles it is a positive term for many lesbians who use it to describe themselves.

Presumably if you were writing that you’d been called that, it would be okay, because that’s the truth. I wouldn’t call myself something I wasn’t though.