From Lavender Menace to Queer Nation: the transformation of lesbian identity in the baby boom era

Abstract

Women of the early baby boom years in the U.S. came out into an environment in which same-sex desire was stigmatized and criminalized. For working-class lesbians, the bar scene provided an environment in which women could find companionship and a way to live a life decoupled from traditional heterosexual roles. For middle class women, bar life was fraught with legal and social risk, and some–mostly white–women worked to establish a more “socially acceptable” communal life through organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis. As the women’s movement flourished in the late 1960s and 1970s, women born in the early years of the baby boom (1946–1950) created distinctive lesbian feminist cultures and identities. In contrast to early baby boomers, women born at the tail end of the baby boom (1960–1964) came out in a vastly different cultural context. Second-wave feminism had already peaked, the AIDS epidemic and debates about sexuality changed the context for lesbian identity and activism, and organizing by women of color created the development of an intersectional view of lesbian identity and activism. Through an analysis of feminist magazines, newsletters, and texts of the late 1960s through the 1990s, this paper explores the cultural contexts through which radical lesbian feminist identities arose and, for a period, flourished in the U.S. By the end of the 1980s and 1990s, as second-wave feminism declined, lesbian feminist identity shifted. Over the last decades of the twentieth century, new queer forms of identification emerged, coupled with a decline of lesbian identification among younger people. I argue that these new forms represent both continuity and disruption with earlier forms of lesbian identification.

Keywords:

• Lesbian
• lesbian identity
• lesbian feminism
• baby boom
• lesbian separatism

Disclosure statement

The author report no conflicts of interest. The author alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 I use the term homosexual here in keeping with language used by participants.

2 I do not attempt to define radical lesbian feminism strictly here. For early statements, see among others Martha Shelley’s “Notes of a Radical Lesbian” reprinted in the classic feminist anthology Sisterhood is Powerful (Shelley, 1970) and Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (Rich, 1980). See also essays in Hoagland and Penelope’s For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology (Hoagland & Penelope, 1988). Although women of the era defined radical lesbianism in myriad ways, many formations included an acceptance of lesbian separatism, at least at certain times or within certain spaces. Lesbian separatism was often—though not exclusively—coded as white. For a powerful critique of the presumed whiteness of radical lesbianism, see Cheryl Clarke’s essay “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance” published in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Clarke, 1981).

3 Noted lesbian author Rita Mae Brown was one of the original members of both Radicalesbians and The Furies. Other members of The Furies who rose to prominent positions include Charlotte Bunch, Ginny Berson, and Joan E. Biren.

4 I was able to access many of these periodicals and publications through the extraordinary resource of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, many of which have been digitized. I accessed the Lesbian Herstory Archives Newsletter Collection and LGBTQ Newspapers and Periodicals Collection from the Lesbian Herstory Archives through Gale Primary Sources Archives of Sexuality and Gender, LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part 1 through the University of Washington libraries.

5 As one reviewer noted, these early lesbian feminist organizations were dominated by middle-class and Eurocentric perspectives, and yet Black women and other women of color were key participants in many organizations—including the formative years of LW, which used the words of radical Black feminist Flo Kennedy in articulating lesbian oppression. A more complex analysis needs to acknowledge the foundational contributions of these women.

6 In fieldwork I conducted in a Northeast lesbian community in the 1990s, I noticed the increasing presence of children and lesbian families at the softball fields. At the time, I noted that it seemed that there were more children than dogs at the fields in contrast even to a few years earlier. This period saw the flourishing of a host of books aimed specifically at lesbian parents and those who hoped to become so. See, for example, the entries on “advice literature” and “artificial insemination” in the Encyclopedia of Motherhood (O’Reilly, 2010).

Additional information

Funding

The author reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Kristin G. Esterberg

Kristin G. Esterberg is Chancellor of the University of Washington Bothell and Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. Prior to joining the University of Washington Bothell, Esterberg served as President of the State University of New York at Potsdam and as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Salem State University in Massachusetts. Esterberg received her Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality, social organization and change, and higher education, including her books Lesbian & Bisexual Identities: Constructing Communities, Constructing Selves and (with John Wooding) Divided Conversations: Identities, Leadership, and Change in Public Higher Education. She is president-elect of LGBTQ Leaders in Higher Education.