info
Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Semi-OT: "The Incredible Story of Del and Phyllis"
28 views
Skip to first unread message
Lenona
Oct 19, 2021, 4:16:57 PM10/19/21
to
Activist/author Dorothy L. "Del" Martin would have turned 100 this May, had she lived. (She died in 2008. Phyllis Lyon died in 2020, aged 85. Their wedding was the first legal same-sex marriage in San Francisco.)
Martin's the one with white hair, btw.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/incredible-story-lesbian-activists-del-martin-and-phyllis-lyon-180978309/
By Grace Anderson.
Excerpt:
...In the collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, a rolodex that once belonged to the couple is packed with contacts collected over their decades working together. The rotating file, filled with index cards scribbled with notes, home addresses and phone numbers, resides among a host of other items donated by Martin’s daughter, Kendra Mon.
Katherine Ott, a curator at the museum, explains that this relic of a pre-internet past is “chock-full of all of the era’s important queers.” The rolodex is only a glimpse into their long history of organizing around queer and women’s rights, which began with the formation of DOB.
Starting an organization by lesbians, for lesbians, in 1955 carried its share of risks. The McCarthy-era moral panic surrounding sexuality was ablaze in the form of Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, which barred queer people from working for government agencies. The Lavender Scare, named for a derogatory term used by Senator Everett Dirksen, became a kind of witch-hunt as the federal government used abusive tactics to discover and root out gay people—some 10,000 civil servants would lose their jobs. Queer people were described as perverts and sexual deviants. A 1955 film entitled Boys Beware, shown in high schools, warned young boys of homosexual predators who would try and take advantage of their unsuspecting innocence....
Martin's the one with white hair, btw.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/incredible-story-lesbian-activists-del-martin-and-phyllis-lyon-180978309/
By Grace Anderson.
Excerpt:
...In the collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, a rolodex that once belonged to the couple is packed with contacts collected over their decades working together. The rotating file, filled with index cards scribbled with notes, home addresses and phone numbers, resides among a host of other items donated by Martin’s daughter, Kendra Mon.
Katherine Ott, a curator at the museum, explains that this relic of a pre-internet past is “chock-full of all of the era’s important queers.” The rolodex is only a glimpse into their long history of organizing around queer and women’s rights, which began with the formation of DOB.
Starting an organization by lesbians, for lesbians, in 1955 carried its share of risks. The McCarthy-era moral panic surrounding sexuality was ablaze in the form of Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, which barred queer people from working for government agencies. The Lavender Scare, named for a derogatory term used by Senator Everett Dirksen, became a kind of witch-hunt as the federal government used abusive tactics to discover and root out gay people—some 10,000 civil servants would lose their jobs. Queer people were described as perverts and sexual deviants. A 1955 film entitled Boys Beware, shown in high schools, warned young boys of homosexual predators who would try and take advantage of their unsuspecting innocence....
Lenona
Oct 19, 2021, 8:27:40 PM10/19/21
to
Correction - Lyon was 95.
0 new messages