Lesbian Feminist Liberation
| Founded | 1972 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
|
Key people
|
Jean O'Leary |
|
Formerly called
|
Lesbian Liberation Committee |
Lesbian Feminist Liberation was a lesbian rights advocacy organization in New York City formed in 1972.
Lesbian Feminist Liberation was originally the Lesbian Liberation Committee and a part of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). In 1972, when the members felt the GAA was not giving enough focus to lesbian and feminist issues, they left GAA and formed the Lesbian Feminist Liberation. The departure was coordinated by Jean O'Leary. The formation of Lesbian Feminist Liberation left the Ridcalesbians (RL) group with few members. The Lesbian Liberation Committee, and initially the Lesbian Feminist Liberation as well, met at an old firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in SoHo, the location was known as "The Firehouse."
In 1973, Lesbian Feminist Liberation participated in the campaign to lobby the New York City Council to add sexual orientation to the city's anti-discrimination city ordinance.
Twenty-five members of the organization attended The Dick Cavett Show and disrupted his interview with George Gilder, an author the organization believed was anti-feminist and anti-lesbian.
The organization also organized a demonstration with 200 participants, and a large fake lavender colored dinosaur outside the National Museum of American History to protest sexism at the museum.
They picketed at a Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts movie theater that was showing Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, which some feminists found offensive for its depiction of lesbian sadomasochism.
The organization opposed the performance by drag queens at the 1973 LGBT Pride March in New York City. As they passed out flyers, Sylvia Rivera, of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, took the microphone from emcee Vito Russo and spoke against the sentiment and spoke of the harassment and arrests of drag queens on the street, some of whom had been involved with the Stonewall riots. Lesbian Feminist Liberation's Jean O'Leary then insisted on responding by denouncing drag as misogynist and criticizing the march for being too male-dominated. This prompted Lee Brewster of Queens Liberation Front to denounce anti-transgender lesbian feminists. The increasingly angry crowd only calmed when Bette Midler, who heard on the radio in her Greenwich Village apartment, arrived, took the microphone, and began singing "Friends". This was one of many events in early 1970s where lesbian and transgender activists clashed.
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