1957 September 7

First New York Meeting of the Daughters of Bilitis, First Lesbian Group in America

 

The Daughters of Bilitis, the first openly lesbian activist organization in the U.S., was founded on September 21, 1955. The group’s first New York City meeting occurred on this day.

The Daughters of Bilitis sponsored a lesbian and gay rights conference in New York City, on June 20, 1964, at which two doctors attacked the idea that homosexuality is a disease.

On May 4, 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared the long-time home of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, to be a historical landmark. They had purchased the house in 1955. The couple originally married in 2004, but the marriage was later invalidated by a ruling of the California Supreme Court. The were officially –and legally and permanently– married in May 2008 following a different ruling by the state supreme court.

The first gay rights organization in the U.S. was the Society for Human Rights, organized in Chicago by Henry Gerber on November 10, 1924. The first gay men’s organization was the Mattachine Society, organized on November 11, 1950.

The first lesbian and gay rights movement in the world originated in Berlin, Germany, in the 1860s. This included the invention of the word “homosexuality.” Read Robert Beachy, Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity (2014).

Read: Marcia M. Gallo, Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement (2007)

Read about the history of the GLBT revolution: Lillian Faderman, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle (2015)

Watch Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon discuss the founding of the Daughters of Bilitis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsluZvBm84

Learn more: Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, Out For Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (1999)

Learn more at a valuable documentary history: Jonathan Katz, ed., Gay American History: Lesbian and Gay Men in American History, A Documentary (1976)

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