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Where does the term "d y k e " come from ?
uring the past three decades, the
word “dyke” steadily has
gained currency in the
gay and lesbian com
munity, although it
flW ÂV
retains some rough edges.
Unlike “lesbian,” which boasts
a well-documented, almost gen
teel pedigree reaching back to
classical antiquity, “dyke” only
recently has stepped off the
streets, and no one seems sure of its ori
gins. But there have been some interesting
hypotheses.
Older women will remember when “dyke,”
like its gay male counterpart "faggot,” was
almost always a term of abuse, pronounced with
a mixture of disdain and fear about women who
tried to act like men— in the clothes they wore,
their mode of speech and the way they courted
other women. Lesbians rarely used the word;
women who assumed masculine ways usually
would call themselves “hutches” or, especially
among African American lesbians, “studs.”
In the 1970s, however, lesbian activists
sought to reclaim the word as a term of self-
identification signifying allegiance to a
woman-centered culture. In the mid-’70s, for
example, lesbian separatist Elana Nachman
started writing her books under the sur
name “Dykewoman” (later modi
fied to “Dykewomon”).
Soon, women began to
wonder about the origins
of the word. Lexicogra
phers generally agree
that the lesbian
meaning is unrelat
ed to the word
meaning “embank
m ent,” as in the
dikes that keep the
sea from flooding
Holland.
The earliest con
firmed references to
“dyke” with the meaning
“butch lesbian” date only to
the 1920s, when it appears in
African
American
slang as
“bulldyke," with the variations “bulldyker,”
“bulldagger” and “boondagger.” In 1935, Bessie
Jackson recorded “B-D Woman,” a blues song
about women who “ain’t gonna need no men”:
“They can lay their claim, they can lay that jive
just like a natural man.”
In the absence of any obvious etymology,
several theories have arisen to explain the ori
gins of “dyke.” One hypothesis, proposed in
1975 by Harold Wentworth and Stuart B.
Flexner in their Dictionary o f American Slang,
views the word as a contraction of “hermaphro
dite,” positing an intermediate form such as
“morphodike.” But although the “hermaphro
dite”— someone who appeared to be half-man
and half-woman— was a popular feature of cir
cus sideshows, little evidence indicates the word
ever widely was applied to mannish women out
side the circuit.
Lesbian poet and cultural theorist Judy
Grahn conceived a much richer history in her
influential book Another M other Tongue, first
published in 1979. She found in the word
“bulldyke” an echo of the name of the British
warrior-queen Boudica (more commonly spelled
Boudicca or Boadicea), who led an uprising
against Roman invaders in 61 A.D.
According to Grahn, the name “Boudica”
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circulated underground for centuries as code for
a strong female rebel until it eventually became
“bulldyke.” Her evocative etymology transforms
a word of abuse into a word of empower
ment, and that no doubt was its pri
% - ! î t* e / ment,an mary purpose.
Toni. C. Morales
é
e °r<le
[
Director of Corporate Relocation
E-mail toni@move-northwest.com
T
M A YFLO W ER.
TRANSIT
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(503) 777-4181
(»0«) 547-4600
Fax (503) 775-8443
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“dyke” doesn’t hold
water. Grahn’s theory doesn’t
explain why Boudica’s name took
more than 1,800 years to resurface and then
did so not in England but among African Amer
icans. Similar problems, and similar good inten
tions, come with the speculation that “dyke”
harks back to the Greek word for “justice,”
dike (pronounced DEE-kay), associated with the
warrior-goddess Athena.
Bibliographer J.R . Roberts has proposed
what might be the most credible theory. She dis
covered that 19th century dictionaries of Amer
ican slang listed “dike” with the meaning “a
man in full dress, or merely the set of
male clothing itself.”
In 1902, a slang dictionary
derived the word from the
archaic “dight,” “to
deck or adorn.” A
man dressed to the
nines was said to be
“diked out” (com
pare our present-
day “decked out”).
Significantly, this
usage was uniquely
American.
According to Rob
erts, “dike” eventual
ly came to be applied
pejoratively to women
who were dressed up— or
“diked out”— in male cloth
ing, either because they were
attempting to pass as men or because they
wanted to make a political or artistic state
ment. “Thus dike, once used to describe a well-
dressed male, becomes a vulgar and hateful
epithet to be hurled at women who rebel
against confining roles and dress styles,”
Roberts writes.
Among African Americans, “bull” was
added to underscore the mannishness of such
women; the prefix also might have alluded to
their perceived sexual voracity. This theory
explains not only the American provenance of
the term but also why it was applied almost
exclusively to butch women, not lesbians in
general— at least until the 1970s, when activists
embraced the word “dyke” as a designation of
pride.
Popularized by such things as Dykes on
Bikes, dyke marches and Alison Bechdel’s comic
strip, "Dykes to Watch Out For” (where not all
the “dykes” are butch), today the word fast is
becoming an accepted synonym for “lesbian.”
Nevertheless, it might not be quite ready for
polite society. JH
R awley G rau has won four Vice Versa Awards
fo r his writing on gay and lesbian culture. He can
be reached at G ayN estor@ aol.com .
25 years of professional
expertise in representing
ifour best interests...
Deborah Betron
Broker, C R B , G R I
Office: 503/287.9370
v mail: 503/699.8061
B *.
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