I get called Dyke as a slur. I have been beaten and faced SA from and by people who have called me a dyke. I have been called dyke when I was a lesbian and I have been called dyke after coming out as a trans man, because to cis society I am a dirty filthy dyke, to lesbian separatists, I am a traitorous self-loathing dyke.
It is insensitive and transphobic to police the language that trans men have reclaimed. It is insensitive and transphobic to refuse to acknowledge that trans men can come from and still exist in the lesbian community. Furthermore, it is insensitive and transphobic to presume that trans men exist on a binary and that we are unable to have complex relationships with are sexuality and gender. Trans men, having been reclaiming dyke for as long as it has been used a slur. It is not a specific lesbian identity – it has been used by ALL queer women and ALL transmasculine people, including trans men. When I go to the dyke bar, guess what? They have trans men there. When I got the dyke march, guess what? They have trans men there. There are trans men in every single dyke community space that hasn’t been overrun by TERFs, Lesbian separatists, or libfems.
It is only online that I have EVER been told that I am not a dyke, that I can not reclaim that identity, that I should be understating/sensitive of the people who attack me and try and police my gender, sexuality, and identity.
Hell, even the TERFs I’ve dealt with in person, call me a broken deadbeat dyke, and I’ve reclaimed that. When someone tells me I’m a dyke while they try to misgender me, whether they’re just a run-of-the-mill transphobe or a TERF. Guess what? I get to say “Yes I am, and that doesn’t make me less of a man, you don’t know me and you don’t get to choose who or what I am.” And I will tell that to anyone who decides they get to police any aspect of my identity.
I do not owe anyone Tumblr/Twitter an explanation for who not only am, but for who I am accepted as by my community.
I am sorry if the tone of this answer comes off as angry, but I am angry, and I have the right to be.
