Daughters of Bilitis Founded; First U.S. Lesbian Group
Arguably the first lesbian rights group in the U.S., the Daughters of Bilitis was founded in San Francisco by Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin on this day.
The name Bilitis is the name given to a lesbian contemporary of Sappho by the French poet Pierre Louÿs in his collection, The Songs of Bilitis (1894).
The group held its first New York City meeting on September 7, 1957. On June 20, 1964, it held a conference in New York City at which two doctors challenged 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 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 group was the Mattachine Society, founded 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).
Watch Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin Recall the Founding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsluZvBm84
Read: Marcia M. Gallo, Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement (2006)
Read about the history of the GLBT revolution: Lillian Faderman, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle (2015)
Learn more: Vern Bullough, Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (2002)
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)