Baraka_Guru

Cimarron, it doesn't work that way. Even in academics, they've moved beyond the label "gay studies" and onto "queer theory." And you have to understand the context under which the labels are used.

I've worked closely with a lesbian for years, and she was quite politically active in the international gay community through in the post-Stonewall period of the '70s and '80s. Also realize that we're both editors. The way that she uses language is telling. She calls gays fags and lesbians dykes as a standard and she does so endearingly.

Appropriation of language works despite the bigots' clinging to their own ignorance and hate. It's one of the many aspects that have given the community its power and freedom.

Now you won't hear me bandying about with those terms, but I assure you it's quite normal for lesbians to refer to themselves as dykes. To them, it's "dyke culture" and "dyke politics." It seems to me that "lesbian" is becoming more of an antiquated and antiseptic descriptor.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot