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  Phyllis and Del—A Lifetime of Lesbian Activism

  Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2008 5:53 PM | By E.J. Graff

  Dana, I love that you were moved by that picture of Del and Phyllis. They're revered as foremothers of the LGBT movement. In 1955, at a time when people were arrested and lost their jobs (and lives) for being gay, when police would rape women arrested for being lesbian (honest, I'm not making this up), this couple launched the Daughters of Bilitis, the first American lesbian activist organization, and founded The Ladder, a samizdat publication that was passed from hand to hand. They risked their lives back then by using their real names.

  That's the reason that Kate Kendall, who runs the National Center for Lesbian Rights, nominated this couple to be the first same-sex spouses in California—and everyone agreed. Phyllis and Del deserve the aliyah, the honor of being called to the Torah in front of the entire congregation. They've helped transform the country during the past 50 years—from what was probably the worst period in American history for lesbians and gay men, to what may now be the best.

About E.J. Graff

• E.J. Graff is associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, where she directs the Gender & Justice Project. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. As a journalist and author, her work has appeared in such venues as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Good Housekeeping, The Nation, The New Republic, and in more than a dozen anthologies. She collaborated on former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy's book Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men--and What To Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Her first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, has been widely cited in legal journals, reprinted for academic use, entered as courtroom exhibits, and quoted by government policymaking bodies.

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