Daughters of Bilitis – Purpose
1. Education of the variant, with particular emphasis on the psychological and sociological aspects, to enable her to understand herself and make her adjustment to society in all its social, civic and economic implications by establishing and maintaining a library of both fiction and nonfiction on the sex deviant theme; by sponsoring public discussions on pertinent subjects to be conducted by leading members of the legal, psychiatric, religious and other professions; by advocating a mode of behaviour and dress acceptable to society.
2. Education of the public through acceptance first of the individual, leading to an eventual breakdown of erroneous conceptions, taboos and prejudices; through public discussion meetings; through dissemination of educational literature on the homosexual theme.
3. Participation in research projects by duly authorized and responsible psychologists, sociologists and other such experts directed towards further knowledge of the homosexual.
4. Investigation of the penal code as it pertains to the homosexual, proposal of changes to provide an equitable handling of cases involving this minority group, and promotion of these changes through due process of law in the state legislatures.
I’m glad as heck that you exist. You are obviously serious people and I feel that women, without wishing to foster any strict separatist notions, homo or hetero, indeed have a need for their own publications and organizations. Our problems, our experiences as women are profoundly unique as compared to the other half of the human race. Women, like other oppressed groups of one kind or another, have particularly had to pay a price for the intellectual impoverishment that the second-class status imposed on us for centuries created and sustained. Thus, I feel that The LADDER is a fine, elementary step in a rewarding direction… L.H.N. (The Ladder, vol. 1, no. 8, May 1957)
Not long after her first letter, Lorraine wrote again, this time describing her inner conflict with her sexuality along with the social expectations of women and marriage. For Lorraine, this little lesbian, sorry, variant, magazine had validated her attractions to women as well as giving her the tools to process it authentically and spectacularly.
I wanted to leap into the questions raised on heterosexually married lesbians. I am one of those. How could we ever begin to guess the numbers of women who are not prepared to risk a life alien to what they have been taught all their lives to believe was their natural destiny–AND–their only expectation for ECONOMIC security?… L.N. (The Ladder, vol. 1, no. 11, August 1957)
While The Ladder was applauded, it was also heavily criticised. Many lesbians didn’t understand why the DOB were so obsessed with having what the straights had. Did they really want to get married only to get divorced ten years down the line? Did they really want to have coordinated outfits and holiday photo albums? Did they really want Chinese characters tattooed on their backs? Surely lesbians wanted to reject heteronormativity, not join it?!
Despite the clashes, the magazine was still revolutionary in that it managed to create a community of lesbians who existed all over the US, like the wonderful, and amazing, Lorraine Hansberry.
In 1957, Lorraine finished writing A Raisin in the Sun, which was to become the first Broadway play written by a Black woman, directed by a Black man and to feature a nearly all-Black cast. Lorraine then went on to become the first Black playwright and the youngest person ever to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Did you know any of that? No, you probably didn’t, because history hates lesbians, Black lesbians and successful Black lesbians.
At this point, some bore throws in their unwanted two cents. You know the type, ‘Who cares that she was Black? I don’t see colour, I see people. I’ve had enough of affirmative action; everything should be about talent.’ Blah Blah Blah. Maybe this person should grow up in segregated Chicago, watch their father burn out from combatting the legal challenges of white neighbours and then try writing an award-winning play about it. More difficult than it looks, right? And if Lorraine was a lesbian, she would also be the first Black lesbian to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Something, that I, along with thousands, maybe millions of others, think is worth a fucking mention.
Lorraine and her husband eventually separated, and Lorraine became increasingly involved in the underground lesbian social scene, hanging out at lesbian parties with other lesbian writers such as Louise Fitzhugh, Eve Ward and Patricia Highsmith. Most of these women were white, with Lorraine usually the only Black woman in the room. Around this time, Lorraine met Black writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin. The pair became close, and Lorraine introduced James to many of her lesbian friends, which somewhat connected her white lesbian world with her Black intellectual world.
By then, the DOB had branched out. Not only did they have regular meetings in San Francisco, but they were also meeting in New York City. Del and Phyllis had recruited lesbian activist Barbara Gittings to help establish the New York chapter, even though Barbara had earlier called the DOB name impractical, difficult to pronounce, and basically just shit. Well, she’s not wrong, is she?
Barbara arranged monthly DOB meetings with guest speakers such as doctors, psychiatrists, ministers and lawyers. The guest speakers would then sympathetically share their thoughts on homosexuality while offering unwanted opinions, unwanted advice and unwanted cures. Plus ça change!
In the beginning, Barbara thought it was great that such smart and interesting people took the time out of their busy schedules to talk about the plight of the lesbian. But, after a while, Barbara realised that what they were saying was, in fact, utter nonsense, and soon decided that only lesbians themselves were qualified enough to talk about lesbian matters. No kidding.
In 1963, Barbara took over as The Ladder’s editor. Although she was grateful that such a magazine existed, she hated that they still used the word ‘variant’ to describe lesbians. Barbara also thought that society should be the one to change, and that it should embrace lesbians as equals rather than asking lesbians to tone down their flannel shirts, oil-stained vests and mullets.
Del and Phyllis didn’t like Barbara’s militant approach, and preferred that the magazine took a more apolitical stance. Boring! Barbara being Barbara decided otherwise, and made numerous changes to the magazine, like replacing the weird line drawings on the front cover with photographs of real lesbian women. Now that’s progress. She also added the tagline ‘A Lesbian Review’ in big bold letters under the masthead.
Not long after Barbara had been made editor, Lorraine Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died at just thirty-four years old. Since then, Lorraine’s sexual identity has all but disappeared, mainly thanks to her husband and his refusal to acknowledge it. Ahh, Lorraine, while you were glad as heck that The Ladder existed, I am glad as heck that you existed too. We all are.
In 1972, The Ladder changed hands again. This time with a new Barbara as editor. Again, with the names! Is this some deterministic nomenclature? Would I have got more puss if I’d been called Anne, Marie or Barbara?
Barbara Grier, like Barbara Gittings, favoured a more feminist attitude. In a bold move, she removed the word ‘lesbian’ from the front cover to attract more women. She also continued to move away from the assimilationist nature of Del and Phyllis and added twenty more pages dedicated to feminism and lesbian feminism. Subscriptions tripled.
This once again conflicted with Del and Phyllis’s original ideology, thus leading to the dissolution of the DOB and eventually the magazine. The Ladder ceased publication in 1972.
Barbara Gittings carried on in her quest to address homosexuality in a more positive and supportive way. She went to libraries and second-hand bookshops, desperate to find historical lesbians who were not depressed. Good luck with that. Barbara found this very difficult, because apparently lesbians didn’t exist in the past until the Lesbian Herstory Archives came along and proved otherwise.
History
Historians
The Lesbian Herstory Archives were created to preserve lesbian history. The archives contained a cornucopia of letters, photographs and literature, as well as anything else big or small that proved lesbians had always been around. The collection was initially set up in co-founder Joan Nestle’s New York apartment, but as the years went by, the materials multiplied, and soon it had outgrown the apartment.
Joan Nestle had grown up in New York and was well known on the lesbian scene. In the early 1970s, she met Mabel Hampton, who had moved to Harlem in New York after losing her parents at a young age. Mabel was a dancer during the Harlem Renaissance and danced in many all-Black productions. When the Harlem Renaissance faded, Mabel found work as a housekeeper for, as it happens, the family home of Joan Nestle.
The pair immediately became friends, and they worked together to help make the Lesbian Herstory Archives a success; the archive even included some of Mabel’s collection of lesbian pulp fiction. Like Joan, Mabel committed to the cause and participated in every pride march that occurred during her lifetime. She was so well known in the community that she was once named the grand marshal (yes, that is a thing) of a New York City Gay Pride March, and was later given a lifetime achievement award by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. Before her death at eighty-seven in 1989, Mabel said, ‘I, Mabel Hampton, have been a lesbian all my life, for eighty-two years, and I am proud of myself and my people. I would like all my people to be free in this country and all over the world, my gay people and my Black people.’
The Lesbian Herstory Archives is still going strong today, and was eventually moved out of Joan Nestle’s apartment to a building of its own in Brooklyn. In fact, you can visit the archives and see for yourself that lesbians did exist in the past, and they even had lives and were… happy.
Del Martin
Del and Phyllis remained closely involved with the lesbian community throughout their lives, and in 2004, they were among the first same-sex couples to get married in San Francisco. Unfortunately, the marriage was later deemed void by the California Supreme Court. However, four years later they married again after the California Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage for a second time. Not confusing at all… Del died two months later, while Phyllis passed away in 2020.
Barbara Grier also continued the fight for lesbian visibility, and while working at The Ladder helped create the world-renowned The Lesbian in Literature. This was a bibliography that included a rating system for lesbian literature and is now referred to as Grier Ratings. The ratings consisted of letter scales, which represented the importance of the lesbian subjects and characters, and asterisks, which referred to how they were represented.
For example:
An A*** had lesbian characters with truthful and passionate portrayals.
An A (with no asterisk) had lesbian characters but bad lesbian portrayals.
B or C had lesbian subplots, but they were suppressed or coded.
Finally, and brilliantly, literature that was created solely for the male gaze was rated T for trash. And, as you would expect, there was a lot of trash.
Barbara went on to co-found the Naiad publishing house and spent the rest of her life publishing lesbian-themed books for women who weren’t used to seeing themselves on paper, such as Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence (1985), which was banned in Boston and condemned by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church doth protest too much.
Then finally, in 1970, Barbara Gittings appeared on television, along with six other out lesbians. The sapphic six were among the first out lesbians to appear on television in the United States, and not only were they showing their lesbian faces to the nation, but they were proud to do it.
Before her death in 2007, Barbara reflected on her life of activism, stating, ‘As a teenager, I had to struggle alone to learn about myself and what it meant to be gay. Now for 48 years I’ve had the satisfaction of working with other gay people all across the country to get the bigots off our backs, to oil the closet door hinges, to change prejudiced hearts and minds, and to show that gay love is good for us and for the rest of the world too. It’s hard work – but it’s vital, and it’s gratifying, and it’s often fun!’
She’s right. It really is.