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Marcia M. Gallo’s Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement begins in the 1980s:
When the package marked “FBI” finally arrived in April 1981 at their home in San Francisco, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin wondered what on earth it could contain. They pulled out sixty-four sheets of paper, many of which resembled abstract black and white checkerboards. The envelope was filled with page after page on which heavy dark ink obscured typewritten words, two or three lines of print, and whole sections of reports. They saw scribbled notes on faded lists of names, time-worn announcements and flyers, and barely legible copies of terse government memoranda.
This, of course, was after COINTELPRO had become big news, so it was no surprise that the U.S. government would infiltrate activist circles. But Martin nevertheless expressed anger that the group she and Lyon had helped found and organize 25 years prior had been infiltrated:
I think it’s incredible that the government would waste so much money on such nonsense.
The group the FBI targeted was the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which led the lesbian side of what has been dubbed the homophile movement. Homophile activism really began in the early 1950s with the founding of the the male-dominated Mattachine Society and stretched into the 1960s, finally fizzling out during the wave of gay political organizing that came after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. This is a movement that, when it receives any attention at all, is often qualified or even outright dismissed as “conservative” or “accommodationist.” Take, for example, DOB’s statement of purpose:
A WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROMOTING THE INTEGRATION OF THE HOMOSEXUAL INTO SOCIETY BY:
1. Education of the variant, with particular emphasis on the psychological, physiological and sociological aspects, to enable her to understand herself and make her adjustment to society in all its social, civic and economic implications--this to be accomplished by establishing and maintaining as complete a library as possible of both fiction and non-fiction literature 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 behavior and dress acceptable to society.
2. Education of the public at large through acceptance first of the individual, leading to an eventual breakdown of erroneous taboos and prejudices; through public discussion meetings aforementioned; 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.
Indeed, by today’s standards (and by the gay liberationist standards of the 1970s), it is easy to see why DOB is not considered “revolutionary” enough. As such, groups such as Mattachine and DOB are often framed as mere precursors to the real gay activism that came after Stonewall. Even before historians took LGBT history seriously, Stonewall had been placed at the center of gay history—a narrative LGBT historians since John D’Emilio have been struggling to disrupt.
Therein lies the importance of Gallo’s Different Daughters, which I’ve chosen to highlight in this month’s diary. Because, while the homophile movement in general is often left out of the historical narrative, women’s participation in that movement is especially glossed over. I have previously written about the treatment of the homophile movement—and particularly the lesbian side of that movement—in the historiographic literature. I’m going to draw from and “reprint” some of that, but I am focusing on Gallo’s deep and well-researched organizational history of DOB, which benefits especially from interviews with founders and previously active members.
The argument I make, and that Gallo’s book makes at its core, is that these women were radical. The FBI targeting of DOB makes clear that this was no mainstream, “conservative” organization. The mere existence of DOB during the 1950s was radical. It is true that they sometimes internalized society’s framing of homosexuality. But it is important to remember the context. Never before had a politically aware lesbian organization been formed in the United States. Medical science almost universally condemned homosexuality as an abnormality. There were no political allies, there were no openly gay or lesbian public figures, and the idea of a homosexual minority had just recently entered the gay and lesbian consciousness. The U.S. government was engaged in an all-out war against gays and lesbians in the form of the Lavender Scare. This kind of organizing was uncharted territory. And it was only through the groundwork laid by homophile activists was a post-Stonewall gay revolution even possible. As one former DOB activist puts it:
I wonder what today’s activists would do if they had to confront what we did back then?
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds of the DOB story, because that is why you should read the book. But some background is necessary.
DOB was founded in 1955 by four lesbian couples, Martin and Lyon included. Gallo notes that Martin and Lyon, having lived through the end of the Great Depression, were inspired by FDR and particularly Eleanor Roosevelt. Although there were most certainly concerns that the Mattachine Society (which had been founded five years previously) focused on gay male concerns, DOB was not, as it is sometimes portrayed, some kind of “ladies’ auxiliary” group. DOB, which got its start in San Francisco, was an autonomous group founded by lesbians for lesbians. As you can imagine, with a relative dearth of specifically lesbian bars, simply finding networks of other lesbians could be a challenge during this time. Lyon recalls the phone call from Rose Bamberger:
“She said, ‘Would you like to be a part of the group of six of us that are putting together a secret society for lesbians?’ Lyon raises her voice as she tells the story. “We said, ‘YES!!’ Because we would immediately know five more lesbians than we did, which was . . . AMAZING.”
At the first meeting of this “secret society,” the women came up with the idea to name their group the “Daughters of Bilitis.” The mystery inherent in this obscure-sounding name was not only sexy, but important in an era when such organizing needed to be discrete. In response to the dangerous bar atmosphere, where police raids were a constant concern, DOB offered privacy and refuge where women who loved other women could gather and talk free of the fear of harassment and arrest.
DOB had a mostly white membership, but the 1956 Articles of Incorporation did state that the group welcomed all women, “regardless of race, color, or creed.” A Chicana and a Filipina were among the founders, and women of color went on to play an important role in the organization going forward. However, DOB cannot be separated from the era in which it existed, and race relations were not always rosy. From the book:
But DOB was a product of its times. Its commitment to nondiscrimination notwithstanding, the separate-and-unequal practices that walled off segments of U.S. society also limited its ability to implement its principles. At least one longtime DOB leader remembers that there were varying degrees of difficulties in addressing racial differences among some chapter members, particularly those Daughters from the southern United States. “Racism was often very present, and very difficult to deal with—at times it threatened to tear us apart,” LA DOB co-founder Stella Rush remembers. “But at least we tried.” And it wasn’t just white southerners who could make potential black DOB members uncomfortable. As Martin Duberman recounted in Stonewall, “Once, in the early sixties, Yvonne (Maua Flowers) had gone with another black woman to a DOB meeting on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and had been repelled by it. The white women reacted to the black women’s presence first with shock, then with a supercilious casualness that was at least as offensive. Yvonne never returned. ‘I can’t be there,’ she decided, ‘with all these white girls.’”
It wasn’t just racial tension that threatened to tear the group apart—overall DOB strategy was a major source of contention. By 1956, disagreements over the purpose of the group. DOB got its start as a private social group, but some organizers believed it should be engaging in public programs to reach out to other lesbians. That year, half of the original organizers split from the group over these disagreements. Martin and Lyon remained, and the group took in newcomers. The “new” DOB made a radical departure from the “secret society” roots of the group, developing its very political statement of purpose and resolving to start an “all-out publicity campaign” to recruit lesbians to the cause. Part of this campaign involved publishing a newsletter, which would become The Ladder. Gallo notes:
Each of DOB’s stated goals—self-knowledge and self-acceptance; public education; involvement in research; and lobbying to change the laws criminalizing homosexuality—reflected the members’ beliefs that a conscious, carefully constructed program of discussion, information, and outreach to sympathetic professionals would best advance the nascent movement for gay and lesbian rights. In this way, they mirrored the objectives of the two other homophile groups then in existence, both of whom had similar mission statements.
Different Daughters traces the evolution of DOB from its founding as a “secret society” social group into a politically aware group with an educational focus and then into a national homophile organization. It also covers the evolution of The Ladder, the importance of which cannot be overstated. As Gallo puts it:
[The Ladder] showcased “normal” lesbians to the world at a time when no such images existed.
By the 1960s, more disagreements within the early lesbian movement were simmering, and The Ladder was near the center of these disputes. The DOB’s political approach, which some began to view as too cautious, came into question especially following a series of high-profile gay bar raids. There were calls for The Ladder itself, which was extremely influential as the primary source of print communication with lesbian activist circles, to become more confrontational. In the late 1960s, The Ladder took a dramatically different turn under the editorship of Barbara Grier, who sought to remake it into a more broadly feminist publication, appealing to more women. “A Lesbian Review” was removed from the cover and the magazine devoted space to covering feminist issues. The changing political landscape and the increasingly confrontational nature of women’s activism in the late 1960s took its toll on DOB, which was seen more and more as a timid and “accommodationist” organization. By 1970, it became clear to Grier that DOB was a sinking ship, and Grier worked with DOB president Rita Laporte to seize The Ladder’s subscriber list, after which she severed ties with DOB completely. The August/September 1970 issue featured a new manifesto:
THE LADDER, published by Lesbians and directed to ALL women seeking full human dignity, had its beginning in 1956. It was then the only Lesbian publication in the U.S. It is now the only women’s magazine openly supporting Lesbians, a forceful minority within the women’s liberation movement.
Initially THE LADDER’s goal was limited to achieving the rights of accorded heterosexual women, that is, full second-class citizenship. In the 1950’s women as a whole were as yet unaware of their oppression. The Lesbian knew. And she wondered silently when her sisters would realize that they too share many of the Lesbian’s handicaps, those that pertained to being a woman.
Martin and Lyon regarded this as blatant theft. By 1970, DOB officially folded as a national organization, with some local chapters continuing. The Ladder did not last beyond 1972.
These are the bare bones of the story; Gallo’s wonderful book has so much more, peppered with deep archival research and illuminating oral history.
Different Daughters is important for telling the DOB story, which had only been partially told before. It is also important in that it challenges the prevailing view from the late 1960s on that DOB activists were conservative and timid. While, yes, by the late 1960s there existed a generational split among women/lesbian activists, with activists of the DOB generation tending to be more incrementalist and “pragmatic,” these women who forged DOB in the heyday of McCarthyism and rampant anti-gay oppression were anything but timid.
In addition to placing itself within and correcting the LGBT historical narrative, Gallo’s work also intervenes in the history of feminism. The “wave model” of feminism is well-known, and Different Daughters helps complicate this narrative, disrupting the idea that the 1950s were a “decade of domesticity.” Gallo notes:
As the historian Elaine Tyler May has written, “Signs of stirring were evident beneath the surface of postwar complacency. While most women experienced discontent in isolation, as exhausted housewives or underpaid and exploited workers, a few groups did begin to organize on their own behalf.” [...]
Further, feminism, although dormant as a mass movement, was certainly not dead as an ideology, especially not for women who loved women. [...] They worked as educators, social reformers, attorneys, and physicians, creating homes together and networks of female friends in the interwar years that sustained them in the Cold War era.
DOB is an important part of this story. If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll want to add Different Daughters to your to-read list.
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