Definitions

Jurassic Dyke:

A woman who has been out as a lesbian for over 15 years and considers herself a dyke (q.v.).

Dyke:

A lesbian who understands and is willing to support the political implications involved in being visible as a lesbian in the straight world.

Extra Credit

Question: Yeah, but why do you have to be out?
Answer, Courtesy of poet Pat Parker:

For the Straight Folks
Who Don't Mind Gays
But Wish They Weren't So BLATANT

you know some people
got a lot of nerve
sometimes, i don't believe
the things I see and hear.

Have you met the woman
who's shocked by 2 women kissing
& in the same breath
tells you that she's pregnant?
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

Or this straight couple
sits next to you in a movie
& you can't hear the dialogue
Cuase of the sound effects.
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

And the woman in your office
Spends your entire lunch hour
talking about her new bikini drawers
& how much her husband likes them.
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

Or the "hip" ckick in your class
rattling a mile a minute --
while you're trying to get stoned
in the john
about the camping trip she took
with her musician boyfriend.
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

You go in a public bathroom
And all over the walls
there's John loves Mary;
Janice digs Richard,
Pepe loves Delores, etc. etc.
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

Or you go to an amusement park
& there's a tunnel of love
& pictures of straights
painted on the front
& grinning couples
coming in and out.
BUT GAYS SHOULDN'T BE BLATANT

Fact is, blatant heterosexuals
are all over the place.
Supermarkets, movies, on your job,
in church, in books, on television
every day and night, every place --
even in gay bars.
& they want gay men & women
to go hide in the closets --

So to you straight folks
i say -- Sure, i'll go
if you go too,
but i'm polite --
so -- after you.





Final Thought

In Gemany, they first came for the communists and
I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't in a union.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
--
and by that time
no one was left to speak up.


Pastor Martin Niemoller
a leader of the church's opposition to Hitler,
he was interned in Nazi concentraion camps from 1937-1945.
In the 1950s and 60's he was West Germany's foremost
pacifist and foe of nuclear armament.


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