Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (65 page)

12
. Milton E. Hahn and Byron H. Atkinson, “The Sexually Deviant Student,”
School and Society
(September 17, 1955), 82: 85–87. Personal interview with Betty, age 66, Omaha, Neb., October 11, 1988.

13
. Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer,
Washington Confidential
(New York: Crown Press, 1951), p. 94.

14
. Ralph H. Major, Jr., “New Moral Menace to Our Youth,”
Coronet,
September 1950, pp. 101–108. “Women Who Fall for Lesbians,”
Jet
(February 1954), 5:20–22.

15
. Rosie G. Waldeck, “Homosexual International,”
Human Events,
in New York Lesbian Herstory Archives, file: 1950s.

16
. Court decison quoted in
One,
March 1957, pp. 5–20. See also “Owe Takes a Stand,”
The Ladder,
June 1957, pp.3–6.
One
appealed to the Supreme Court which reversed the ruling of the lower court in 1958. See
One,
March 1958, p. 6, and
Homophile Studies
(1958), 1:60–64.

17
. “Sword of self-revulsion” from Edwin West,
Young and Innocent
(New York: Monarch, 1960), p. 43.

18
. Publishers’ demands discussed by 1950s novelist Vin Packer, quoted in Roberta Yusba, “Twilight Tales: Lesbian Pulps, 1950–1960,”
On Our Backs,
Summer 1985, pp. 30–31+. Paula Christian, another prolific lesbian paperback writer of the 1950s, similarly observed: “Through my own experience at Fawcett, it should be understood that a publisher (with the moral character of a nation in mind) cannot allow this theme to be promoted as something to be admired or desired. Nor can a publisher in the paperback field expect the general public to accept a truly sophisticated treatment where there is no justification for the ‘deviation’ with a great deal of why’s, wherefore’s, and ‘we hate ourselves, but what can we do?’”
The Ladder
(February 1961), 5(5): 19. For discussions of lesbians’ reading of the pulps as the only literature in which lesbian love was portrayed see Kate Millett,
Flying
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), p. 202; Dorothy Allison, “A Personal History of Lesbian Porn,”
New York Native,
June 16, 1982, p. 22; Fran Koski and Maida Tilchen, “Some Pulp Sappho,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.,
Lavender Culture
(New York: Jove, 1979), pp. 262–74.

19
. Helen Hull papers, Columbia University, photocopy in New York Lesbian Herstory Archives, Hull biographical file.

20
. In the ’50s, as in earlier decades, front marriages were not uncommon among black lesbians as well as white. See Virginia Harris’ story about middle-class black lesbians in the 1950s, “A Pearl of Great Price,”
Common Lives/ Lesbian Lives
(Spring 1987), 2:3–10. Regarding parents having children committed see interview with Whitey in Nancy Adair and Casey Adair,
Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives
(San Francisco: New Glide Publications), pp. 6–7. Personal interview with Terry, age 58, in Kansas City, Kans., October 16, 1988.

21
. Personal interview with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, San Francisco, August 14, 1987.

22
. DOB greeter in Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love,
Sappho Was a Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism
(New York: Stein and Day, 1972), p. 100. “Attorney Stresses Nothing to Fear in Joining DOB,”
The Ladder,
April 1957, pp. 15–16; “Your Name is Safe,”
The Ladder,
Novemeber 1956, pp. 10–12. The latter article was reprinted in
The Ladder,
February 1958, pp. 4–6.

23
. FBI File 94–843, 8/6/59.

24
. Allan Bérubé, “Behind the Spectre of San Francisco,”
The Body Politic,
April 1981, pp. 25–27, and personal interview with Martin and Lyon, cited above. Homosexuality was never illegal under California state law, although certain acts such as oral sex were until the mid-’70s: Sarah Senefield et al.,
Sex Code of California: A Compendium
(Sausalito, Calif: Graphic Arts of Marin, 1973), pp. 164–65.

25
. “Instructions for Committee on Indoctrination and Education,” quoted in Berube and D’Emilio.

26
. “Discharge of Homosexuals,” Air Force Regulation 35–66, Department of Air Force, Washington, D.C., May 31, 1956.

27
. Personal interview with Annie, age 65, San Francisco, August 11, 1987. Official treatment of suspected lesbians in “Report on Homosexuality with Particular Emphasis on this Problem in Governmental Agencies,” p. 4, and Louis Jolyon West et al., “An Approach to the Problem of Homosexuality in the Military Service,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
(1958), 115:392–401.

28
. Personal interview with Dina, age 56, Fresno, Calif, November 1, 1987.

29
. Personal interview with Sandy, age 57, Lincoln, Neb., October 12, 1988.

30
. Interview with Pat Bond in Adair and Adair, pp. 57–61.

31
. Maida Tilchen and Helen Weinstock, “Letters from My Aunt,”
Gay Community News,
July 12, 1980, pp. 8–9.

32
. Jackie Cursi, “Leaping Lesbians,”
Lesbian Ethics
(Fall 1986), 2(2)181–83.

33
. Personal interview with Marie, age 58, Fresno, Calif, April 26, 1988.

34
. Investigative board quoted in Berube and D’Emilio, p. 280. Personal interview with Elizabeth, age 66, Marin County, Calif, Aug. 12, 1988. Personal interview with Marie, cited above.

35
. Vito Russo, “Pat Bond: The Word Is Out WAC,”
Christopher Street
(May 1978), 2:11.

36
. Case summarized in Jonathan Katz,
Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.
(New York: Thomas Crowell, 1976), pp. 119–23.

37
. Personal interview with Wilma, age 54, Los Angeles, May 14, 1988.

38
.  Janet S. Chafetz et al., “A Study of Homosexual Women,”
Social Work
(November 1974), 19(6)1714–23, and Virginia R. Brooks,
Minority Stress and Lesbian Women
(Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1981), p. 63. Other studies show that even higher percentages of lesbians believe they must be closeted at work. For example, Martin Levine and Robin Leonard studied 203 middle-class, white collar, highly educated lesbians in New York City. Three-fifths expected discrimination at work if their sexual orientation became known. Those who did not either worked in fields accepting gays or their employers were gay: “Discrimination Against Lesbians in the Work Force,” in Freedman, pp. 187–97.

39
. Written communication with H.P. cited above. Such trepidation and suspicions are not limited to women who survived the 1950s. In the mid-1970s much younger lesbians, who were members of the middle-class feminist organization NOW, insisted that the FBI, which had just infiltrated radical lesbian communities in the East and South looking for Weathermen Susan Saxe and Katherine Ann Powers, had begun to harass the middle-class lesbian commuity in an attempt to destroy lesbian-feminist progress. In a flyer titled What to Do When the Man Comes to Your Door, lesbian NOW members complained that the FBI had already visited some of them and were beginning a campaign that was comparable to the Salem witch trials. See Sarah Schulman, “The History of the Commie-Pinko-Faggot,”
Womanews
(New York), July/August 1980, p. 1 +.

7. Butches, Femmes, and Kikis

1
.  Early German homophile activism discussed in Lillian Faderman and Brigitte Eriksson,
Lesbians in Germany: 1890–1920,
(Tallahasee, Fla.: Naiad Press, 1990), introduction. Lesbian society in France discussed in Catherine van Casselaer,
Lot’s Wife: Lesbian Paris, 1890–1914,
(Liverpool: Janus Press, 1986).

2
.  Personal interview with Pat, age 51, former member of the Orange County Lionettes, the Huntington Park Blues, and the Fresno Rockettes, Fresno, March 5, 1988, and personal interview with Cleo, age 61, Omaha, Neb., October 11, 1988. Softball continues to be a major activity among young lesbians in areas such as the midwest. As Rhonda, age 26, observed, “Softball is the only consistent thing in this community. Political groups and social groups come and go, but softball will always be around”; Omaha, Neb., October 11, 1988. On the continuing importance of softball in the lesbian community see also Yvonne Zipter,
Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend: Reflections, Reminiscences, and Reports from the Field on the Lesbian National Pastime
(Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1989).

3
.  Personal interview with Donna, age 54, Carson City, Nev., June 10, 1987.

4
.  A 1973 study of lesbians indicated that both sexually and socially, homosexual women tend to behave by and large like heterosexual women, rather than like gay or straight men. Only in their interest in sports and abuse of alcohol were lesbians more like men than like other women: Marcel T. Saghir and Eli Robins, “Clinical Aspects of Female Homosexuality,” in Judd Marmor, ed.,
Homosexual Behavior: A Clinical Reappraisal
(New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 280–95. Esther Newton observes in “A Place in the Sun,” a study of middle- and upper-middle class lesbians of Cherry Grove, that those women too had a drinking problem, perhaps acquired at their cocktail parties, where the excitement of alcohol may have been associated with the rebellion of the speakeasies, where modern women could drink in public for the first time (paper given at the Berkshire History of Women Conference, Wellesley College, Mass., June 20, 1987).

5
.  Reported in “The Gay Bar—Whose Problem Is It?”
The Ladder,
4: 3 (Dec. 1959), pp. 4–13 +.

6
.  Ohio woman quoted in Margaret Hunt, “A Fern’s Own Story: Interview With Joan Nestle,”
Gay Community News
(October 4–10, 1987), 15(12):16–17 +. Personal interview with L.J., age 57, Los Angeles, April 5, 1987.

7
.  Reported in “The Gay Bar …,” and “Sequel to the ‘Gay’ Bar Problem,”
The Ladder
(February 1960), 4(5):5~9 +.

8
.  Personal interview with Marlene, age 60, San Francisco, August 9, 1987. Interview with Rikki Streicher, 1981, New York Lesbian Herstory Archives, file: 1950s. Kelley’s raid reported in
The Ladder,
(November 1956), 1 (2):5. Personal interview with D.F., age 55, Los Angeles, April 5, 1987. Sea Colony information from Joan Nestle interview in
Neighborhood Voices,
producer Amber Hollibaugh, 1985.

9
.  Quoted in Bob Skiba, “Pansies, Perverts, and Pegged Pants,”
Gay and Lesbian Community Guide to New England
(n.p., 1982), p. 4.

10
. Oral interview with Peg. B. by Joan Nestle, New York Lesbian Herstory Archives, file: 1950s.

11
. Merril Mushroom, “Confessions of a Butch Dyke,”
Common Lives/ Lesbian Lives
(Fall 1983), 9:39–45.

12
. Personal interview with Shirley, age 60, San Francisco, January 31, 1987. Although many black women were, according to Lorde, “into heavy roles,” others like Lorde rejected them and felt especially resentful that white America’s “racist distortions of beauty” meant that in an interracial couple it was usually only the white woman who could be femme,
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
(Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1982), p. 224.