Can I get a lesbian perspective on something please?

[GetGenderInTheBin]

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

Since joining the gender debate, I have often been called a "dyke", amongst many other insults. I think I get called this because I am gender non-conforming.

I am currently writing about my experiences as a GC feminist, and some of my writings are poetry. Is it okay for me to use the word "dyke" when referring to myself, in the same way that I might call myself a "TERF", "cunt", or "bitch" (i.e. in a way that is reclaiming the word). Or should words only be reclaimed by those that they're directing aimed at?

Thanks.

@Adeleskirts The usage OP has quoted is a poem.

You call me a bitch? Yes, I'm a bitch.
You call me a TERF? Yes, I'm a TERF.
You call me a dyke? Yes, I'm a dyke.
You call me a cow? Yes, I'm a cow.

Is this really a display of strength and independence? Isn't it just letting others define you? Rising above or just letting someone call you names? This isn't reclaiming, this is just turning the other cheek. That's not the kind of way that most of the lesbians who call themselves dykes behave. We are the mainly older, mainly don't-give-a-f**k lesbians who seem to terrify so many younger women because we were lucky enough to grow up at a time when we had strong lesbian role models. If anyone calls me a bitch or a cow they'll experience the sharp side of my tongue.

You are not a lesbian so please get your own word. We gave quite enough calamities caused by the colonisation of language by men such that we really don't need it from well meaning sorts on our side too.

It's fine to say you've no issues being called it, but please don't try to own that which was never yours to begin with.

OP should not use that word to describe herself because it means lesbian, and OP does not identify as a lesbian.

You either are or you aren't a lesbian. Let's not open another door for those who identify 'as' something else they aren't, with that 'as' implying they're not the genuine article. A lesbian is an adult human female who 'is' attracted exclusively to people of her own sex. That's it, nothing complicated.

I think you're trying to process an experience you've had that maybe isn't yet fully understood. I agree with the advice and explanations folks here are giving you. I'm also a straight woman who has had my sexuality commented on by cruel men when I didn't respond to their neanderthal shouts. They weren't really questing my sexuality. They were trying to be hurtful, but that's a different experience entirely.

[quote Innocenta]@CompleteGinasaur I said "to describe herself in the everyday". Surely as a poet yourself, you understand that the "lyric I" is not identical with the writer's literal self? [/quote]
For God's sake, @Innocenta, OP specifically says she "wishes to reclaim and wear it with pride". This doesn't sound at all like the assumption of a poetic persona to me.

@CompleteGinasaur I'm not talking about a poetic persona, necessarily. I presume you mean something like a monologue-type poem where there is a clear character. In which case, yes, I agree with you that OP doesn't seem to be doing that.

What I'm referring to is that even in a more straightforwardly lyric poem, one that could be mistaken for the poet directly talking about their own experiences (or even in some ways is drawing on elements of biography!), the nature of the form is such that the "I" in a lyric poem is not literally the real poet. As I said upthread, that's why poems are so good for sharing feelings, expressing emotions between people, using in times of intense emotion (weddings, funerals...). Because they can originate in the life of the poet but they aren't bound to it.

@Adeleskirts

I find this so cringe and stereotypical. You’re gender non conforming as you don’t wear make up a push up bra and heels? How very offensive to all women and deeply shallow minded. Is that really what you see as gender conforming for a woman?

I’m intrigued what the people who find op offensive for saying that she is gnc (for not wearing make-up and heals) understand by the term gnc?

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

What age bracket are you in? Both myself and the majority of the women I work with would fall into this category. I think that's normal once you get into your 30s, potentially other than the make-up.

I think people are surprised that wearing a specific type of bra is being cited as a typical expression of femininity. Ditto for heels. Are women who wear ballet pumps and a minimiser bra "gender non conforming"?

I mean "GNC" is a load of old bollocks anyway, as this really demonstrates. It's all subjective and dependent on specific cultures and societies.

Sorry not lesbian but wanted to contribute about appropriation and art aspect.

I don’t think you could repurpose the word to call yourself a dyke. But I do think it might be ok to ironically refer to yourself as a ‘dyke’ in art to denote the fact that you have been called one, just because of how you dress even though you’re not. For example (I know this is crap just illustrating a point)

I don’t play the game of gender
So I don’t do the glam and splendour
I’ve learned I can wear what I like
Yet apparently that makes me a dyke

You would be using it to highlight the assumptions and stupidity/ bigotry some people have. A way of commenting on how entrenched gender stereotypes are together with homophobia.
Is that acceptable?

I've skimmed this thread only, and obviously the lesbians are answering your main question but please, for the love of God, can't you just call yourself a woman - because that's what you are? I'm a big hairy woman, I don't wear heals, I clump around and don't look dainty, but I'm in no doubt I'm a woman. And everyone recognises me as such without having to ask. Please don't follow this mad, oppressive trend in language that expects us to describe, re-describe and explain/justify our version of woman-ness. Which in different times, was just called individuality. Sorry, but all this crap is really getting me down at the moment!

The thing is, OP, that your job as an artist, writer, etc, is to tell the truth.

What that means is not, obviously, that fiction is out of bounds - and as Innocenta so rightly points out, the lyric "I" is not generally understood as necessarily the same person as the poet, and that's fine. So of course you can use the word dyke, examine the layers of aggression, oppression and liberation inherent in that word, and write from the point of view of someone to whom that word's meaning actually applies (as well as from your own, i.e. someone to whom it doesn't). But there are a couple of caveats: the first is that you have to do it well, with a sense of respect and responsibility to the people whose lives you are evoking, and tell the truth of it to the highest degree of which you are capable. (This will almost certainly involve listening to some of them, at least.) The second is that it will, particularly in the current climate, piss some people off, because there is a very widespread anxiety about underrepresented voices which often takes the easier path of chastising anyone who tries to imagine that oppression over actually amplifying the people who have experienced it. There are lots of reasons for that, most of them good/well-meaning/ entirely comprehensible ones, but the phenomenon doesn't make it easier for artists to explore other people's experiences.

And the other thing is - tell the truth means that you have to know that it's fiction, and own that. A man writing a novel from a female viewpoint is not inherently offensive. A man who says he is female, or somehow expects his work to be treated as though he is female, is ahem unethical. There is a massive difference between fiction, and lying.

I’m intrigued what the people who find op offensive for saying that she is gnc (for not wearing make-up and heals) understand by the term gnc?

I don't understand why OP is getting criticised for this other than her list is quite short. There's nothing unusual in posters listing all the things they don't do or do to prove their "gender non- conforming" credentials.

The lists often strike me as , well, a bit pointless- focusing on appearance. I always wear dresses, make up, ballet flats, kitten heels, jewellery, shave my legs, dye my hair and I hate sport. I don't however do "wife- work" My husband and I both still recall the only time in over 30 years that I ironed a shirt for him and I've never used a hoover.

I don't see there is anything objectionable in writing poetry which is fictional.

The thing is, OP, that your job as an artist, writer, etc, is to tell the truth

Is it?

I would also like to second Signalbox's question, because some of the frustration with the OP's description of herself as GNC seems to suggest that the phrase is perceived as more gender-identity labeling nonsense on stilts, like c**. To me, the term GNC firmly locates gender as an externally-imposed set of limitations, to which the subject does not conform. Yes, it's culturally dependent, because gender (the form of oppression) is, and yes, the shorthand of high heels and make-up etc is a bit simplistic - but the "you're not GNC, you're an ordinary woman" argument seems to be missing the point. It's not intently anti-feminist or facile to notice specific gendered societal expectations and then note that you don't conform to those, is it, especially if it's acted as a flash point for male violence towards you? Or is it me that's missing the point? My sense is that we're probably all on the same(ish) page, and tripping up over terms...

(Not intently, inherently.)

"The thing is, OP, that your job as an artist, writer, etc, is to tell the truth"

I won't be using the d-word in my poetry anymore, but I do disagree with this statement.

Writing/ artistry has several purposes: it can spread the word, entertain, be an outlet, be an inspiration. The purpose of the text can be determined by the author or indeed the audience.

If a text is made to entertain, then having it be truthful maybe isn't the best strategy. Harry Potter, Lord of the rings, and Star Wars are hardly truthful texts, but they are entertaining.

My poetry is an outlet for the stress feminism causes me. It's a way of processing the negatives and turning them into something positive. Some of what I write is hyperbolic, and I won't be changing that.

In creative work I agree with this:
Use words how you like, especially in poetry. Others can take offence, or not, or dislike it, or not. We are all able to tell the difference between words and “literal violence”. It’s not “hate speech”.

Its not the job of art to only represent truth. Art has millions of purposes. Including self therapy and expanding self knowledge as OP appears to be thinking about. Truth is also sometimes highly subjective. It’s also often the case that people including artists and poets, don’t really know themselves very well, so how they can claim to offer self ‘truth’ in their creativity can be quite a difficult standard to meet.
So call yourself anything you want in your creative work, just don’t stand on a platform or write your professional byline claiming to be a lesbian IRL if you’re not, (or if you don’t know) though. That would be untrue and unethical.

DD is a lesbian. The word 'dyke' is used as an absolute insult at school towards her by jeering bully boys at school who told her that she must be a boy because she sits like a boy (and consequently proposed she slit her throat). It is used as a homophobic slur.

Also can't understand how any GC feminist would call themselves gender non-conforming because they don't wear bras or high heels. Really? That's some pretty regressive gender stereotyping going on there..

FGS.

If I call myself an adult female homosexual have I managed to use words that no one not an adult female homosexual has appropriated yet for their own personal special self identification?

'Gender non conforming' what ever that is, since no one's ever issued an official list and I have no bloody clue, does not mean 'homosexual'.

The reason I mentioned that I'm GNC is because I think it's related to why some biogted people have referred to me as a lesbian.

If I had come on here and simply stated that I am often labelled a lesbian even though I'm straight, surely that would have caused confusion? My female friends that are feminine-dressing don't seem to get called lesbian slurs.

Oh call yourself whatever you want and sod everyone else. You will anyway, and it's very fashionable.

I'm probably at this point left to call myself an ex bleeder with an ovary fetish or something equally vile if I want to talk about the characteristic I have that's protected in law, but whatever, only a homosexual female, so its not like it matters.

Oh call yourself whatever you want and sod everyone else. You will anyway, and it's very fashionable.

I'm probably at this point left to call myself an ex bleeder with an ovary fetish or something equally vile if I want to talk about the characteristic I have that's protected in law, but whatever, only a homosexual female, so its not like it matters.

I'm a gay woman. I call myself a dyke. I call other lesbians I know dykes. I like the reclamation (& so do they). Its history as a derogatory term is key here-It cannot refer to a straight woman or be used by one.

I'd also not use it to refer to or address or describe a lesbian unless I knew she were okay with it.