Lesbian Press Research Articles

Translation as Consciousness-Building in the Portuguese Lesbian Press (1990–2002)

Translation as Consciousness-Building in the Portuguese Lesbian Press (1990–2002)

Shame, Desire, and Queer Jewish Girlhood in Annette Eick's Semiautobiographical Fiction, 1929–1930

Abstract: Annette Eick (1909–2010) is best known as a Jewish lesbian writer and poet who managed a miraculous escape from Nazi Germany in November 1938. However, her fiction and poetry published in the late Weimar Republic have been hitherto neglected. This article examines two of her serialized novellas, Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft (The study circle; 1929) and Petra (1930), which were published in the lesbian periodical Die Frauenliebe when Eick was in her late adolescence. Both works center adolescent girls whose inability to confide in the adults around them about their desires for other women produces paralyzing shame and loneliness. This article situates these works within the context of interwar-era antisemitism and Jewish communal efforts to mitigate antisemitism through gendered performance of bourgeois respectability. It argues that through these works Eick mounts a dual critique of antisemitism in the lesbian press and of German-Jewish commitments to respectability and the silences and shame the requisite self-repression imposed.

“There is not a Government on Earth that doesn’t Oppress Lesbians:” Searching for Mariel Lesbian Migrants in the U.S. Lesbian Press

The Mariel Boatlift is well known for having included an unprecedented number of queer Cuban refugees. But while the stories of gay male Mariel migrants have been widely studied and documented—in part because media at the time sensationalized hypervisible expressions of their sexuality—the stories of the lesbian Mariel migrants prove harder to piece together, as their experiences left few written traces. This exploratory paper begins to fill the gaps by turning to the U.S. lesbian press, one of the only sources at the time to report on lesbian Cuban migrants, albeit through testimonies and reports that are often difficult to corroborate. Using articles and interviews from several activist publications, and critically interrogating their intentions, this paper explores how the criminalization of lesbian sexuality was a prominent motivation for leaving Cuba. So, too, did the lesbian migrants face multiple forms of ostracism once in the United States, and in turn U.S. lesbian organizations stepped up to try to situate and support them by forming networks of solidarity. Far from purporting to answer all questions about the topic, this article suggests that it is ripe for further research.

Dutch women and the Lesbian International

ABSTRACT This article examines the work of Dutch women in transnational lesbian organizing during the 1980s and 1990s, with a particular focus on the crucial role they played in establishing the International Lesbian Information Service (ILIS), an early offshoot of the International Gay Association (later ILGA). Drawing upon organizational records, personal papers, and published accounts in the gay and lesbian press, it shows how and why Dutch women became a potent force on the international scene, leveraging organizational resources available in the Netherlands in order to build coalitions and to support the expansion of lesbian political networks around the world.

Chanacomchana também é bacana! Imprensa lésbica e suas pedagogias culturais

This work aims to analyze the cultural pedagogies present in cartoons, comic strips and images present in the Brazilian Lesbian Press of the 1980s, more specifically in the ChanaComChana newsletters. Through the qualitative content analysis and the reading of images that constitute this cultural artifact, we seek to elucidate how ChanaComChana served as a space to build new knowledge and resignification about lesbian performativity.

Remembering George W. Smith’s “Life Work”: From Politico-Administrative Regimes to Living Otherwise

This article revisits activist ethnographer George W. Smith’s intellectual and political legacy, with a focus on his engagement with and conception of “life work.” In the context of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Smith contributed to reframing the way in which AIDS was problematized and confronted. Rather than treating people living with HIV/AIDS as “disease vectors” to be isolated from the general population, as had been the case under the prevailing public health regime, he started his research and organizing from the standpoint of people living with HIV/AIDS – investigating the everyday work that they did in accessing the services that they needed in order to survive. Drawing from archival research, activist interviews and his published works, this article traces how Smith deployed the concept of life work in his research as part of the “Hooking Up” Project, in his public writing in the gay and lesbian press, and in his organizing with AIDS ACTION NOW! in Toronto. Beyond the reproductive labour of individuals in accessing particular politico-administrative regimes, which Smith focused on in his research, we explore how life work can be theorized more broadly to include collective efforts to confront social, biomedical and institutional barriers to living. Hence, in considering Smith’s AIDS activism, we argue that his theorizing and political organizing, taken together, should themselves be seen as forms of life work.

Fireworks in the Graveyard by Joy Ladin

Reviewed by: Fireworks in the Graveyard by Joy Ladin Freesia McKee Joy Ladin. Fireworks in the Graveyard. Headmistress Press, 2017. It doesn’t take a long foray in adulthood to realize it takes a lifetime to get to know oneself. Each human has personal themes she returns to and grapples with repeatedly. “I’m becoming what I’ve always been / dust and silence, but also earth,” Joy Ladin writes in the final poem of her newest book Fireworks in the Graveyard. Perhaps one of life’s primary actions is growing into one’s fullness. In Fireworks, the poet tugs on her vital threads, reflecting on the inevitable fact that each one has two ends. “I’m learning to live by learning to die,” Ladin writes. The book lives in this paradox. Fireworks is about facing death while living a life. “I want to say goodbye to my body / before my body says goodbye to me,” Ladin writes in “Corpus.” The poems in Fireworks do both, grieving the body as a deteriorating vessel, but celebrating the wonder of having that body. In another poem Ladin writes, “I could talk about being sick, but I always talk about being sick, / because I’m always sick, but today I’m sick / and happy…” How does one appreciate what she still has as she mourns physical losses? Ladin pulls typically private questions out into the public. “I, like you, became myself in darkness, // in carbon seams and basalt basements. / None of us is pure, we all have traces,” she writes. She ponders various deaths— not only the death of the body, but the deaths of former selves, of ways of seeing, of relationships and phases of a relationship, and the inevitability of each moment’s death. Ladin delivers keen observances and celebrations of temporariness. “Spring unbanking banks of snow, it won’t be long / before you vanish / into leaves. How can I trust // what comes and goes?” How do we appreciate sweetness without obsessing about its end? Ladin crafts space for these and other questions. One can find endless examples of art about temporality. It’s comforting to ask questions instead of passively worrying about them. What differentiates Fireworks is the historical moment into which the book is published. In 2017, we find ourselves asking how we got here. How do we undo the forces that are trying to stuff us back into “carbon seams and basalt basements?” These forces that kill and deport and incarcerate? “The city is full of people like me / who survived the winter / and people like me who didn’t.” I cannot read Ladin’s Fireworks, published by a lesbian press, the author a woman who is trans, and not think about how many of our friends have killed or attempted to kill themselves, how many perish due to structural oppression, and how many women especially hold together friend groups and families and our survivor selves. “I didn’t kill myself last night…” Ladin writes in “Sabbath.” How do we resist killing (parts of) ourselves when it seems that the world wishes we didn’t exist? When we must look death in the face, how do we continue to grow and thrive? As a women and as a poet, the speaker, break[s] apart like a family, my members wandering off in different directions, my reptilian nature from my conscience, my stupidity from my intelligence. She continues, “I think of this as dying, though none of me is dead.” There is a strange and poignant beauty in this look at the evolution of the self as a good death. Ladin writes, “Listen, the blossoming evening sang, / you have no reason not to die, / but you have reasons to live.” Much of Fireworks is a litany of reasons to live, listed in lyric fashion, wind-combed, bee-haunted, burrowed barrowed lissome lawless legless legions marching without moving, many and no one. Such litanies are necessary. We have to share and connect with each other. We must avoid too much time inside. We have to shine while we have these bodies. Fireworks lives outside in the graveyard, the meadow, the spring and summer, the quarry. Ladin shows you how you’re...

Organa: The First Portuguese Lesbian Magazine

ABSTRACTOrgana magazine (1990–1992) is the first known lesbian publication in Portugal and exemplifies the distinct course of lesbian activism in Portugal, namely the late emergence and consolidation of a national lesbian community and subculture. Organa also bears similarities with the international gay and lesbian press regarding its alternative character, objectives, editorial contents, and trajectory. Despite having adopted an assimilationist strategy during most of its existence, it is argued that Organa fostered the political mobilization of Portuguese lesbians.

“The Book Was a Revelation, I Recognized Myself in it”: Lesbian Sexuality, Censorship, and the Queer Press in Weimar-era Germany

In Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s, stories in the lesbian press suggested that women became lesbians by reading about lesbianism. Oral histories confirm that reading was central to the formation of lesbian identities, the recognition of lesbian desires, and the building of lesbian subcultures.

Echantillons de convenance par Internet et par la presse - Enquête Presse Gays et Lesbiennes 2011

Convenience Samples by Internet and the Press - Gay and Lesbian Press Survey 2011. Since 1985, the Gay Press Survey, based on a convenience sample, has collected data through an anonymous self-administered questionnaire on lifestyles and preventive sexual behavior among Men having Sex with Men or MSM (Bochow et al., 2003). First broadcast in the gay press, the questionnaire, since 2004, has also been available online via information or gay dating sites. From 15 May to 15 July 2011, the survey Gay News was renewed and collected a total of 10,587 questionnaires MSM residing in France, 1,084 via the press and 9,503 via the Internet. This article describes the methodology developed and the main results by comparing the two collection methods. The advantages and limitations of Internet use over paper in convenience sample surveys are discussed.

Nuevos Ambientes, ¿Historias Compartidas? Sexuality, Cultural and Sexual Identity and Practices among Gay-identified Latin American Migrants in Sydney

This study analyses the results of a research project on gay-identified men of Latin American origin who have migrated to Sydney, Australia. The findings are the product of a year of collection and analysis of data from surveys and in-depth interviews carried out with those who answered the initial call for participation at the beginning of 2010, published in the gay and lesbian press in as well as Spanish-speaking periodicals in Sydney. The theoretical bases of the project find their inspiration in the newly emergent framework of so-called sexual migration studies and the work of sexual fields theory. The conclusions show the importance of ethnic and racial images in Latin American migrant interaction in gay spaces and the value that the study’s participants gave to multiculturalism in their experiences of new socio-sexual sites and identity constructions post-migration.

Infectious ideas: U.S. political responses to the AIDS crisis

This book discusses about confronting AIDS at home and abroad. In Infectious Ideas, Jennifer Brier convincingly argues that the AIDS epidemic had a profound effect on the American political landscape. Viewing contemporary history from the perspective of the AIDS crisis, she provides rich, new understandings of the complex social and political trends of the post-1960s era. Brier describes how AIDS workers - in groups as disparate as the gay and lesbian press, AIDS service organizations, private philanthropies, and the State Department - influenced American politics, especially on issues such as gay and lesbian rights, reproductive health, racial justice, and health care policy, even in the face of the expansion of the New Right. Indeed, the book shows that efforts to deal with AIDS produced significant fissures in the conservative movement during this period, especially when the State Department and USAID adopted AIDS as a centerpiece of its diplomatic strategy, including the distribution of millions of condoms overseas. Infectious Ideas places recent social, cultural, and political events in a new light, making an important contribution to our understanding of the United States at the end of the twentieth century.

Sapphism on Screen: Lesbian Desire in French and Francophone Cinema by Lucille Cairns

866 Reviews the rejection of literarymovements and stated doctrines. Noel's poetry interrogates identity,time, and thepower and failings of language. Itsmaterialism emerges from his intense engagement with the physical, and his insistence on the bodily basis of thought as he explores mental space and processes. La Chute des temps(I983) and L'Ete languemorte (I982), included here along with the short text 'encore', are among Noel's most significantworks, exemplifying his poetic preoccupations and individual style. The long texts are divided into three cantos and, in La Chute des temps, two intercalated 'counter-cantos'. The short, unpunctuated lines lead to frequent instances of enjambment that contribute both touncertainty of interpretation and to a sense of acceleration, 'falling' (discussed by Rothwell, pp. I8-23), or, touse Noel's preferred term, 'precipitation'. Noel's writing performs the passing of time even as itattempts to lay itbare. He writes of poetry that 'quelque chose appelle dans lemouvement I de sa propre disparition' (p. 70). La Chute des tempsisalsomotivated by a constant questioning each section opens with the line 'qui'-and it implicates a 'tu' figurewho is simultaneously an other within the text, the subject itself, the reader, and an evocation of silencing. L'Ete languemorte more clearly involves an interlocutor, and this poem explores love and desire through the lens ofmemory. Rothwell's approach as translator is 'mildly foreignising' (p. 41), which is help ful for readers of French who are offered new interpretations and ambiguities. It is particularly effective in revealing the earthiness ofNoel's language thatunderpins its more abstract formulations, and itdoes full justice toNoel's own tendency to render French strange in the experimental 'contre-chants'. The introduction traces Noel's poetic writing since the late I950s, bringing out the continuities and developments between volumes, and explicating complex images and concepts with great lucidity.An ideal introduction toNoel's poetry, italso forges links between diverse texts for those readers already familiarwith this challenging and compelling body ofwriting. UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM EMMA WAGSTAFF Sapphism on Screen: Lesbian Desire in French and Francophone Cinema. By Lu CILLE CAIRNS. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2oo6. 223 pp. /50. ISBN 978-o-7486-2 I65-I. Despite the increase in representations of lesbians in recent French and francophone cinema, scholarly attention to these images has mainly been restricted to journal ar ticles and chapters inedited volumes. Lucille Cairns's characteristically eloquent and well-researched monograph thereforemakes a decisive contribution toknowledge in the field of 'lesbian/gay/queer cultural studies within a French language cinematic context' (p. 19 ) . Cairns's corpus spans theperiod I936-2003 and encompasses both avant-garde and mainstream productions. Moreover, she includes a range of genres, both fictional and factual, and examines short-,medium-, and full-length features. The incorporation of non-French francophone filmsallows Cairns to engage in enriching transnational comparisons, although these are unavoidably within Western cultures; Cairns was able to findjust one filmabout lesbians in a developing francophone country-Joseph Gai Ramaka's Karmen Gei fromSenegal (200I). The book is underpinned by an impressive array ofwritings on sexuality by key psychoanalysts and philosophers, including Freud, Lacan, Deleuze, Kristeva, and Foucault. Additionally, Cairns engages with a broad range of scholarly debates on filmicmediations of lesbianism. Furthermore, she includes reviews from both the MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 867 mainstream and lesbian press, thus usefully adding the voices of others to her film readings. Structurally, thebook groups the films into the fourmost prominent modes of representation: 'criminality', 'pathology', 'liminality', and 'lesbo-affirmativemise en-scenes of desire'. These chapters are then subdivided into smaller units; forex ample, Chapter 2, entitled 'bad girls', categorizes the images into the subsections of 'sin', 'vice', and 'aggression, violence, bestiality'. The reader can thus construct a nuanced understanding of thedominant representational modes of lesbianism. Some films are included inmore than one chapter, as is the case with Jean-Pierre De nis's Les Blessures assassines (2000), which simultaneously conforms to stereotypes of lesbians as both criminals (p. 33) and incestuous (p. 76), but which offers explicitly erotic 'scenes [that] are none the less ripe forthe lesbian viewer's delectation' (p. I69). Cairns thereforereflectstheambiguities of screen depictions of lesbianism which can not be pigeon-holed into single,monolithic...

Hipparchia's Choice: An Essay concerning Women, Philosophy, Etc. by Michèle Le Dœuff, Trista Selous

MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 867 mainstream and lesbian press, thus usefully adding the voices of others to her film readings. Structurally, thebook groups the films into the fourmost prominent modes of representation: 'criminality', 'pathology', 'liminality', and 'lesbo-affirmativemise en-scenes of desire'. These chapters are then subdivided into smaller units; forex ample, Chapter 2, entitled 'bad girls', categorizes the images into the subsections of 'sin', 'vice', and 'aggression, violence, bestiality'. The reader can thus construct a nuanced understanding of thedominant representational modes of lesbianism. Some films are included inmore than one chapter, as is the case with Jean-Pierre De nis's Les Blessures assassines (2000), which simultaneously conforms to stereotypes of lesbians as both criminals (p. 33) and incestuous (p. 76), but which offers explicitly erotic 'scenes [that] are none the less ripe forthe lesbian viewer's delectation' (p. I69). Cairns thereforereflectstheambiguities of screen depictions of lesbianism which can not be pigeon-holed into single,monolithic categories. The challenge for the reader, however, is tobuild an awareness of evolutions across different time-periods. In amost welcome move, Cairns acknowledges the importance of audience recep tion from thebeginning, stating firmlythat 'whatmakes a film"lesbian" isnot direc torial intentionbut audience reception' (p. 7). She adopts an assertive political stance, espousing on several occasions theneed toassume a 'principledapproach' in interpret ing images, and challenges 'resisting readings' and appropriations that amount to, in herwords, 'semantic violence' (p. 5). Cairns isjustified in suchwarnings, particularly given thepejorative nature of somany images of lesbianism, but a furthersophistica tionwould have been adequately to recognize thather 'responsible' stance is informed by the high level of cultural and subcultural capital she brings to each filmviewing. Moreover, theprioritizing of lesbianism as themost significant socio-cultural factor informing reception risks understating the other tastes, preferences, pleasures, and subject positions thatmay motivate the textual appropriations Cairns discourages. Elsewhere, the effectsof genre-play, camp aesthetics, and parody could have benefited fromgreater reflection. For instance, Cairns argues that in 8femmes (2001) Francois Ozon locates 'lesbianism in socially marginalised characters' (p. 94). Nevertheless, it could equally be asserted that the film's explicit nods to cinema's queer past including Sirk's hyperbolic melodramas, Minelli's camp musicals, and kitsch adapta tions ofAgatha Christie-alongside itsuse of excess, irony,and provocation, create a cinematic universe inwhich all gender identities and sexualities are destabilized. The above comments notwithstanding, Cairns provides us not onlywith a richand extensive overview of her subject, but also with an apposite starting-point for future fertile debates. As a consequence, this book will be of great value for the fields of French and francophone screen and cultural studies. UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER DARREN WALDRON Hipparchia's Choice: An Essay concerningWomen, Philosophy, etc. By MICHELE LE DEUFF. Trans. by TRISTA SELOUS. New York: Columbia University Press. 2007. 4I6 pp. ?i6. ISBN 978-0-23I-I3895-6. This second edition of the translation intoEnglish ofL'Etude et le rouet (Paris: Seuil, I989) is a testimony to the continuing importance ofMichele Le Dzeuff's ground breaking work. It was published in France in i989 and Trista Selous's translation firstappeared in i99 i. This new edition, followed by an epilogue written in 2006 by the author, brings the book to a new generation of readers. In itLe Dceuff continues her investigation into the language of Western philosophy, focusing her attention on the related questions ofwomen inphilosophy and women philosophers, and demon strates how philosophical language has constructed a community ofmale subjects, excluding women. 868 Reviews The book isbyway of being an intellectual autobiography. Both subject and object of her discourse, Le Dceuff, establishing an instant rapportwith her reader by adopt ing a familiar and conversational mode of discourse, demonstrates thehistory of one woman's intellectual and discursive trajectory against thebackdrop of feministmove ments and concerns. It isdivided into four 'Notebooks'. In the first,entitled 'which makes a problem out of everything. . .', Le Daeuff situates herself as the exemplum of her discourse. Adopting an anti-essentialist position, she explores how Sartre, the best-known philosopher of his generation, has systematically excluded women from discourse. Sartre's 'we', as she shows, is a narrow and elitist category-that of the European male philosopher. The second 'Notebook', 'which isanalytical...

Queensland's Queer Press

Since the 1970s, there has been a strong and active gay and lesbian press in the southern parts of Australia. This press emerged later in Queensland than in the southern states but today it reaches many queer Queenslanders and performs a vital and multifaceted role. While this press provides essential representation and visibility for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) population of Queensland, it also embodies a number of tensions inherent in this community. This article charts the development and history of the print media run by and for the queer community of Queensland, particularly focusing on the two major GLBTIQ periodicals currently available in Queensland. These are Queensland Pride, published monthly, and Q News, published fortnightly. The article explores the conflicts that exist in that queer print media, arguing that Queensland's queer press has struggled to adequately represent what has become an increasingly multifarious and diverse GLBTIQ ‘community’.

STAR Interview with Josh Gamson 10/10/2003

JG: Because they're both different. The colloquium talk is sort of the beginning of a project I've been working on for, I guess, a year and a half now—it's taking me a long time to get the data analyzed—that was sparked by, I think it was sparked by an e mail that I'll quote to you guys in the colloquium, written by an activist, by a guy who used to be publisher of OUT magazine, about the specter of monopoly in gay and lesbian press. And it sounded just like the things people were saying when AOL and Time Warner merged. You know, every time there is a big merg er, there is the specter of monopoly from left-wing media critics. And I can identify with that side of media criticism, but I thought that was just kind of weird for a couple of reasons. First of all, the idea that gay and lesbian culture was developed enough that we could have our own media giant was funny—I'm used to just the little bar newspapers. So whereas, on the one hand this is a weird, hopeful sign—almost a backward hopeful sign—that we

II. Lesbian Visibility in Slovenia

The article surveys lesbian culture and movement in Slovenia. Both are coinciding with media representations of lesbianism and lesbian visual arts, the latter beginning with the shocking exhibition ‘Obscene Women’ by Austrian photographer Krista Beinstein in 1986. The international lesbian exhibition ‘Lesbian Conne Xions’, which visited the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana in October 2000, represented images of lesbians in a very broad and realistic spectrum, in contrast with the asexual lesbian photographs by unknown authors in the Slovenian main-stream press and in accordance with the depictions of lesbians in Slovenian lesbian press. The photographs from ‘Lesbian Conne Xions’ were, like Beinstein's exhibition, not very well accepted; even some lesbians argued that some of the photos, especially those of gender-benders, did not represent real and everyday lesbian life but rarities and odd exceptions. But lesbian life in general, far from being an ‘ordinary’ Slovenian lifestyle, may easily become unrecognizable to lesbians themselves and obscured by the dominant culture.

A “Labor from the Heart”

SUMMARY While it is true that publications targeted to gay males historically were glossier, had more consistent advertising income, and claimed higher circulations than lesbian periodicals, the number of lesbian newsletters, newspapers, and magazines grew significantly during the nearly 50 years covered in this study. This study chronicles that origin, growth and disappearance of four significant lesbian publications-Vice Versa, The Ladder, Focus: A Journal for Lesbians, and Sinister Wisdom-from 1947 to 1994. These magazines illustrate varied genre in lesbian publishing history and represent three distinctly different geographical areas. They also span almost five decades during the inauspicious beginning and rapid growth of the lesbian press. This study argues that lesbian publications, although often tied to politically active organizations, existed primarily to help individual lesbians come to terms with a homophobic world and to provide social connections and essential support systems. Less financially secure than their counterparts in the gay male magazine industry, lesbian publications were labors of love and rarely survived.

Selling out: the gay and lesbian movement goes to market

Preface Introduction Caveat Emptor, or Buyer Beware! The Gay and Lesbian Press and the 'Business of Liberation' Advertising and the Promise of Consumption Boycotts will be Boycotts Strings Attached: How Money Moves the Movement Stealing This Show: Away from Identity and Toward Economic Justice Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America.

Journal Article Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. By Rodger Streitmatter. (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995. xviii, 424 pp. $27.95, ISBN 0-571-19873-2.) Get access Marguerite Moritz Marguerite Moritz University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 85, Issue 3, December 1998, Pages 1169–1170, https://doi.org/10.2307/2567370 Published: 01 December 1998