The Ladder
by Susan Stryker, Director, GLBT Historical Society
The Ladder, the first regularly published lesbian periodical to
have a
national readership, was published by the Daughters of Bilitis beginning
in
1956, shortly after Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded the pioneering
lesbian organization. Lyon had had previous editorial experience as an
editor at
The Daily Cal -- UC Berkeley's student newspaper.
This issue of The Ladder (v. 10 n.4) from May 1966 features a fetching
photo
of "Carol" and her totally groovy sunglasses, shot especially for The
Ladder
by art director Kay Tobin.
The biggest stories of May '66? The Fourth National Convention of the
Daughters
of Bilitis, coming up in August, got a prominent plug on the back cover.
The
convention would be held at the Jack Tar Hotel on Van Ness Avenue, and
focus
on the relationships between the homophile community and allies in the
straight community. Speakers were to include Rev. Cecil Williams of
Glide
Memorial Methodist Church, chairman on the pioneering cop-watch group
Citzen's Alert, which monitored anti-queer police violence; Dr. Joel
Fort, a
public health specialist who offered a wide range of medical,
psychological,
and social services to GLBT people at the city-funded Center for Special
Problems -- including free hormones to pre-op transsexuals; and Robert
Gonzales, president of the Mexican-American Political Association. One
can
only hope there were more lesbians in the audience than at the podium.
This issue of The Ladder featured one of Gene Damon's "Lesbiana"
columns,
reviewing recent sapphic literature. Damon (a pseudonym for Barbara
Grier of
Naiad Press noteriety) gave thumbs up to the campy classic The
Killing of Sister George, which she described as "very funny" and
"sympathetic to lesbianism,
although it apparently was intended to be so." Damon also liked a few
other
works that have since faded into oblivion, like the competition-winning
short-story "Lestrygonian" by Judy Kayon, published in
Mademoiselle in 1964,
which dealt with an explicity lesbian college couple visiting one of the
women's maiden aunts.
A short feature best captures the pre-liberation zeitgeist -- a brief
article
instructing Ladder readers how to "select the most heterosexual
answers
possible" on personality tests used in employment interviews.
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