I'm thinking back to the formation of Queer Nation in 1990, when "We're here, we're queer, and get used to it," became a fairly well known chant. Reclamation was one of the express purposes of both the name of the organization and the chant. Many forget the other phrase that we often took to the streets with. "Dykes and fags bash back." Lots of us even wore t-shirts with that saying, and if I'm remembering right, a huge banner saying that hung from the roof of one of the most popular gay bars on Christopher Street for about a year.

I know more than a few lesbians who call themselves dykes, and of course Dykes on Bikes traditionally leads off the NYC Pride parade. Even so, I would never call a lesbian a dyke unless I specifically knew she was okay with that.

I would never call a specific LGBTQ person queer unless I knew they were okay with that. But I do use it as an umbrella term all the time referring to LGBTQ people collectively. I guess I feel most people think reclamation has come far enough with the word queer to make that possible.

I don't feel comfortable referring to lesbians collectively as dykes. I guess we'll just have to see how far the reclamation movement goes.