'The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle Book Talk, "Part Three: 1970s", Lillian Faderman, 2015/10/18
[caption: Lillian Faderman, Historian & Author of The Gay Revolution 1970s]
Faderman: I want to read one more section. I think what was really crucial about this break with the men in early 1970 is that for the first time, lesbians, on a large scale, began to find their voice. There had certainly been lesbian organizations before, most notably DOB [Daughters of Bilitis], but DOB, with a few notable exceptions, such as Barbara Gittings, really wanted to simply fit in, to not make great waves. Barbara Gittings wanted to make waves. But DOB had a group that they called Gab and Java, and it was wonderful in that it was really important for the lesbians involved to have a big social group away from the bars where they could go, but they weren’t determinedly political, they weren’t concerned with raising consciousness. These radical lesbian feminist groups were–and it happened for the first time on a large scale in the early 1970s. I think, lesbians really began to find their voice. They started to build confidence, not just individually, but as a community, and not only did they come out of the closet, but they also made the feminist movement acknowledge that a lot of the energy in the feminist movement was lesbian energy. They really put the word “lesbian” on the map, as it had not been before.
So I’m going to read one more section about lesbian feminists. Betty Friedan was of course the founder of the National Organization of Women and she’d been denying for a while that there were any lesbians in NOW, and when it became clear that there were indeed lesbians in NOW, she called them “the lavender menace of the feminist movement.” And Betty Friedan had organized what she called these Congresses to Unite Women. Pointedly, she left lesbians off the agenda of those Congresses. So Rita Mae Brown’s group, which was now called the Radical Lesbians, decided to zap the second Congress to Unite Women. And I want to read a little bit of that.
“The second Congress to Unite Women was held on May Day 1970 in an auditorium of a junior high school on West 17th Street. Three hundred women sat waiting for the Congress to be called to order and the scheduled panel to begin. 7:15–the lights went out. Women sitting in the dark heard a rebel yell led by Rita Mae Brown and then a stampede down the aisles. People running to the front of the auditorium. Then lights again. [And I found out that one of the Radical Lesbians, Michela Griffo, had gone to the auditorium before to figure out where the light switches are, so she could turn them on and off.] Rose-colored signs had been plastered on the auditorium walls and in front of the podium: “Superdyke loves you!” “Take a lesbian to lunch!” “You’re going to love the Lavender Menace!” “Women’s liberation is a lesbian plot!” Seventeen young women were standing on stage, all looking androgynous, short-haired, clad in bell-bottom blue jeans, smiling happily and defiantly. They wore lavender T-shirts with the words Lavender Menace stenciled on their front. About 20 incognito Lavender Menaces were planted in the audience to help steer the discussion in the right direction. National Organization for Women officials tried in vain to restore order amid nervous laughter, whooping and hollering general chaos. “I object to your coming in and taking over this meeting! You’re acting like men!” one of the NOW organizers yelled into the microphone. Rita Mae Brown seized the mic and roared, “This conference won’t proceed until we talk about lesbians in the women’s movement!” A few women got up and stormed out. But most were intrigued by the sauciness of the zap. Karla Jay, one of the radical lesbians planted in the audience, stood up and yelled, “Yes, yes, sisters! I’m tired of being in the closet because of the women’s movement!” Then she ripped off the long-sleeved red blouse she was wearing to reveal a Lavender Menace T-shirt underneath, Superman-style. The straight women at the congress listened to what lesbians had to say about how heterosexual women were complicit with the male power structure, how that structure oppressed lesbians, how it oppressed heterosexual women even more. They mostly agreed. The Lavender Menace had put a collective finger on some hard truths. Straight women stood in the line at the open mic to pour out their own grievances about the sex roles that limited and dehumanized them, and the rage they felt. An apoplectic Betty Friedan later speculated that the Lavender Menace T-shirt wearers were “CIA operatives intent on destroying the women’s movement.””
[END OF VIDEO]
Interviewee: Lillian Faderman
Interviewer: Audience members
Transcriber: Aliyah B.
Transcriber: Dave P.
Formatter: Serena R.
Recording Date: October 18, 2015
Release Date: October 25, 2015
Location: City Council Chambers in West Hollywood, California
Interview Length: 00:05:49