There is a long history of lesbian censorship and demonization in America, which is apparent through the reception and representation of queer stories in media. For example, ONE Magazine, which was known as the “first national, legally sanctioned organization dedicated to the promulgation of information on homosexuality,” had one of its earliest issues banned due to obscenity laws (4). The October 1954 publication of ONE magazine was withheld by the post office for including a short story called “Sappho Remembered”– an emotional portrayal of a woman reflecting on her identity. The most “sexual” act is a kiss, and yet the story rendered the issue as unfit for distribution. Although this ban was eventually reversed, it demonstrates publishers’ hesitation to acknowledge queer –and especially lesbian– relationships in mainstream media. 

Mainstream media saw lesbians as a threat because they digressed from traditional heterosexual relationships and power systems. Tensions between lesbian feminists and their straight counterparts came to a boiling point at the Second Congress to Unite Women on May 1, 1970, which was held by the National Organization for Women (NOW). Although the term feminism became increasingly intersectional throughout the Second Wave Feminist Movement, the strong majority of speakers at the congress were middle class, straight, white women. Additionally, the First Congress to Unite Women, which was a year earlier, excluded prominent lesbian organizations, such as the Daughters of Bilitis. The co-founder of NOW, Betty Friedan, prompted a radical lesbian protest when she categorized lesbian feminists as a “lavender menace” in a speech (3). This term suggested that including lesbians in the feminist movement would subvert the authority of men since lesbians were often stereotyped as “man-hating” by their prejudiced straight counterparts. Lesbians played an essential role in the Second Wave Feminist Movement, so discounting their voices diminished their existence as well as their aid to the feminist movement.

Lavender as a color was often associated with queer people, and has a deeper history than even the rainbow pride flag, which was designed in 1978. Some of the earliest references to purple correlating with queerness date back to Sappho’s poem fragments (1). However, it wasn’t until the late 1960s and early 1970s that lavender became seen as a symbol of gay empowerment. Purple fabric and clothing was used in the 1969 “gay power” march as well as the “Lavender Menace Rebellion.” After Friedan’s speech, radical lesbian feminists (or the radicalesbians) reclaimed the term “Lavender Menace.”  The “Lavender Menaces” protested the Second Congress to Unite Women by wearing hand-dyed shirts and wielding hand-made signs proudly declaring themselves lesbians and self-associating with the color lavender. The women also took over the stage and microphones at the Second Congress to Unite Women and called out the prejudice and silencing being forced upon them within the feminist movement (3). This peaceful protest and demonstration of pride helped to ignite a radical lesbian movement and redefine feminism and the voices at the forefront of the movement.

On May 1, 1970, the day of the Second Congress to Unite Women, the protesters also distributed a lesbian manifesto titled “The Woman Identified Woman.” The four-page manifesto was one of the most important documents in the creation of lesbian feminism. “The Woman Identified Woman” acknowleged the isolation that many queer women felt, and created a sense of unity while also making space for queer voices within politics and feminism. Additionally, the manifesto argued that lesbians are an extremely valuable asset to the feminist movement because they embody one of the core values of feminism — they are not defined or controlled by a male partner (5). In this sense, lesbians were seen as the “ultimate feminist.” “The Woman Identified Woman” also pinpointed the male gaze and patriarchy as the root of homophobia. The manifesto argued that when straight women find out that a woman is lesbian, then they fear that they will be viewed as a sex object because they have been conditioned by men to place themselves in that role: 

[…] when a straight woman learns that a sister is a lesbian; she begins to relate to her lesbian sister as her potential sex object, laying a surrogate male role on the lesbian. This reveals her heterosexual conditioning to make herself into an object when sex is potentially involved in a relationship, and it denies the lesbian her full humanity. For women, especially those in the movement, to perceive their lesbian sisters through this male grid of role definitions is to accept this male cultural conditioning and to oppress their sisters much as they themselves have been oppressed by men. (The Woman Identified Woman, 1)

The Woman Identified Woman was a major turning point for lesbian feminism and lesbian representation in media. In the subsequent years, many publications included a variety of lesbian media in an attempt to break down the mainstream censorship and façade that alienated queer women. On Page 16 of the first publication of Amazon Quarterly, a lesbian feminist literary magazine, they wrote: “Lesbian Woman has a message. The message is that Lesbians are people. This news will come as no surprise to the readers of Amazon Quarterly, but it may to the straight reading public to whom much of the book is addressed,” (2). 

Material solely dedicated to creating space for oppressed groups was extremely valuable in helping to create a sense of unity. However, even within some queer-centered publications the authors and contributors addressed heterosexual society. The “straight reading public” was encouraged to read Amazon Quarterly by its publishers in the hope of breaking down biased preconceived notions and prejudices. A lesbian feminist literary magazine such as Amazon Quarterly would have portayed lesbians and queer relationships in a much more holistic and thoughtful manner compared to the messages mainstream media, which is why lesbian publications had the power to expand heterosexual perspectives on queer love.

 

Work Cited

(1) Hastings, Christobel. “How Lavender Became a Symbol of LGBTQ Resistance.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 June 2020, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/lgbtq-lavender-symbolism-pride/index.html. 

(2) Laurel, et al. “Amazon Quarterly.” Amazon Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 2, Amazon Press, Dec. 1973, pp. 1–76, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28032325.

(3) “Lavender Menace Action at Second Congress to Unite Women.” NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/lavender-menace-action-at-second-congress-to-unite-women/. 

(4) “One Magazine.” ONE Magazine | ONE Archives, 1 Jan. 1970, https://one.usc.edu/archive-location/one-magazine. 

(5) “The Woman-Identified Woman / Women’s Liberation Movement Print Culture / Duke Digital Repository.” Duke Digital Collections, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/wlmpc/wlmms01011.

 

While lesbian publications largely aimed to form communites of readers and to create a sense of unity through bringing shared experiences to light, some queer writers intended to educate all women and destigmatize and broaden perceptions of lesbianism. For example, in Judy Grahn’s “A Woman is Talking to Death,” which was the opening piece of literature in the December 1973 issue of Amazon Quarterly (2), she strived to break down straight misconceptions of queer love. The poem is composed of nine sections, and the third section is especially powerful in its depiction of the nuances of love between women. The poem is set up as an interrogation between a woman and a questioner who could be reasonably interpreted as the patriarchy or death. It seems as if the woman is being evaluated on her “purity” based on her answers to questions that ask about her relationships with women. Even though the questions are clearly targeted at incriminating the subject, she admits to everything that she is interrogated about, but in a holistic way that the inquirer was not expecting. When the woman is asked if she has ever kissed any women she says that she has kissed many women, and goes on to speak about the people she has kissed: “women who recognized a loneliness in me, women who were hurt, I confess to kissing / the top of a 55-year-old woman’s head in the snow in Boston, / who was hurt more deeply than I have ever been hurt,” (1).

When the inquirer asks his final question, which is “Have you ever committed any indecent acts with women,” the subject admits to her “indecent” acts, which she identified as the ways she let her fellow women down. This poem eloquently depicts the nuances of love and life, while destigmatizing queer love. Although there is no response to these questions that would have actually made the woman “guilty,” by answering the questions in an unexpected manner, she forces the reader to judge her based on her life experiences instead of solely her sexuality.  

 

Work Cited

(1) Grahn, Judy. “A Woman Is Talking to Death by Judy Grahn – Poems | Academy of American Poets.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poem/woman-talking-death.

(2) Laurel, et al. “Amazon Quarterly.” Amazon Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 2, Amazon Press, Dec. 1973, pp. 1–76, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28032325.

 

Lavender Woman, a lesbian periodical that published 26 issues from 1971 to 1976, created space for queer women in a straight, male-dominated society. It’s existence itself was a rebellion against the overpowering voices at the time. The magazine, which took the lavender aspect of its name from the Lavender Menace movement, was written by a collective of women (2). On the first page, there is a list of contributing authors, but no great significance seems to be placed on individual names and there are no page numbers associated with them. Lavender Woman strived to create unity, a value which was enhanced by the collective since each contributor was given similar or equal power within the periodical and much of the credit was shared. The periodicalLavender Woman was comprised of articles, artwork (largely block prints and drawings), and poems targeted at lesbian issues. The major themes of the works centered around helping lesbians feel seen through sharing common experiences of discrimination, love, and navigating sexuality. Lavender Woman aimed to destigmatize lesbians and lesbian relationships while creating a safe space for lesbians to see aspects of their lives reflected in media. The Lavender Woman collective approached this goal by publishing relatable experiences–even painful ones. In one poetry submission from the 1973 vol.2 no.3 edition of Lavender Woman, there was a direct reference to the color lavender being associated with queerness and the fear that goes along with potentially being judged upon further discovery of identity:

SYNTHIA

I want to think of Synthia as clean

Like earth and kind.

But she has bound her hair

With purple and wears stockings

Purple, too. If she were nude?

Or tousled? No.

Somewhere

The purple would show through.

-M. Champaign

“SYNTHIA” focuses on the prejudice against queerness or evidence of “lavender” within a person, which is described as unclean in the poem. Many of Lavender Woman’s readers would have been able to relate to “SYNTHIA” and may have encountered similar interactions. Sharing experiences of discrimination created a further sense of unity because it helped lesbians feel less alone in their experiences. 

 

The female writers in the collective for Lavender Woman were not naïve to the fact that prejudice often follows demonstrations of pride, so they created community by starting many of their articles and headers addressing their queer audience–which they refered to as their sisters. It is not a guarantee that families accept or understand their queer family members, so Lavender Woman called their readers their sisters to create a space for lesbians to feel safe expressing themselves and their love. One untitled poem submission by Sara Thompson addresses young or newly realized lesbians by saying: 

 

We will tell you the truth so that you will understand

The confusion

We will tell you the truth so that you will understand

The pains when they come

We will tell you the truth so that you will see

The joy of being a woman

You must keep your eyes open little sister, all the time 

(Thompson, 9)

 

The authors of Lavender Woman knew the struggles of forsaking the advantages of fitting into male-centered systems, which Cheryl Clark considered in her essay “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance,” published in This Bridge Called My Back. Clark categorized lesbian sexuality as a form of rebellion due to the many opportunities that came along with proximity to men: the benefit of marriage due to fitting the mold of a “proper woman,” and the stability and income men brought due to sexist societal systems (1). In her essay, Clark viewed lesbians as unified against the patriarchal system–which she called the “slave master”:

 

“For a woman to be lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalistic, misoginystic, racist, homophobic, imperealist culture, such as that of North America, is an act of resistance. (A resistance that should be championed throughout the world by all the forces struggling for liberation from the same slave master.)” (Clark, 126)

 

Although there were marches and protests during the Second Wave Feminist Movement–like the Lavender Menace revolution–Cheryl Clark’s “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance” argues that just openly existing within a prejudiced society is a rebellion in and of itself. 

 

Work Cited

(1) Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. SUNY Press, 2021. pp. 126.

(2) Kate Kasten, et al. Lavender Woman. Lavender Woman, vol. 2, no. 5, Lavender Woman, Aug. 1973, pp. 1–21, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28039112.