Editing Lesbian (section)

=== Postwar ===
[[File:The Ladder, October 1957.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|The 1957 first edition of ''[[The Ladder (magazine)|The Ladder]]'', mailed to hundreds of women in the San Francisco area, urged women to take off their masks.|alt=A drawn illustrated magazine cover of a woman in half shadow with short, wavy hair holding a harlequin mask under the title "The Ladder" and the date "October 1957" underneath it.]]

Following World War II, a nationwide movement pressed to return to pre-war society as quickly as possible in the U.S.<ref name="Adam1987">{{cite book |last1=Adam |first1=Barry |title=The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement |date=1987 |publisher=G. K. Hall & Co. |isbn=0-8057-9714-9 |pages=56, 59}}</ref> When combined with the increasing national paranoia about [[communism]] and psychoanalytic theory that had become pervasive in medical knowledge, homosexuality became an undesired characteristic of employees working for the U.S. government in 1950. Homosexuals were thought to be vulnerable targets to [[blackmail]], and the government purged its employment ranks of open homosexuals, beginning a widespread effort to gather intelligence about employees' private lives.<ref name="Edsall2003"/>{{rp|p=277}} State and local governments followed suit, arresting people for congregating in bars and parks, and enacting laws against [[cross-dressing]] for men and women.<ref name="Adam1987"/>

The U.S. military and government conducted many interrogations, asking if women had ever had sexual relations with another woman and essentially equating even a one-time experience to a criminal identity, thereby severely delineating heterosexuals from homosexuals.<ref name="Faderman1991"/>{{rp|pp=150–155}} In 1952, homosexuality was listed as a pathological emotional disturbance in the [[American Psychiatric Association]]'s ''[[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual]]''.<ref name="Edsall2003"/>{{rp|p=247}} The view that homosexuality was a curable sickness was widely believed in the medical community, general population, and among many lesbians themselves.<ref name="esterberg">{{cite journal |last1=Esterberg |first1=Kristin Gay |title=From illness to action: Conceptions of homosexuality in ''The Ladder'', 1956–1965 |journal=[[Journal of Sex Research]] |date=1990 |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=65–80 |doi=10.1080/00224499009551542}}</ref>

Attitudes and practices to ferret out homosexuals in public service positions extended to Australia<ref name="Willett2000">{{cite book |last=Willett |first=Graham |date=2000 |title=Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia |publisher=[[Allen & Unwin]] |isbn=1-74115-113-9 |pages=10–11}}</ref> and Canada.<ref name="Warner2002">{{cite book |last=Warner |first=Tom |date=2002 |title=Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |isbn=0-8020-8460-5 |page=27}}</ref> A section to create an offence of "gross indecency" between females was added to a bill in the United Kingdom [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] and passed there in 1921, but was rejected in the [[House of Lords]], apparently because they were concerned any attention paid to sexual misconduct would also promote it.<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|pp=109–114}}

==== Underground socializing ====
Very little information was available about homosexuality beyond medical and psychiatric texts. Community meeting places consisted of bars that were commonly raided by police once a month on average, with those arrested exposed in newspapers. In response, eight women in San Francisco met in their living rooms in 1955 to socialize and have a safe place to dance. When they decided to make it a regular meeting, they became the first organization for lesbians in the U.S., titled the [[Daughters of Bilitis]] (DOB). The DOB began publishing a magazine titled ''[[The Ladder (magazine)|The Ladder]]'' in 1956. Inside the front cover of every issue was their mission statement, the first of which stated was "Education of the variant". It was intended to provide women with knowledge about homosexuality—specifically relating to women and famous lesbians in history. By 1956, the term "lesbian" had such a negative meaning that the DOB refused to use it as a descriptor, choosing "variant" instead.<ref name="Gallo2006">{{cite book |last=Gallo |first=Marcia |date=2006 |title=Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement |publisher=Seal Press |isbn=1-58005-252-5 |page=3}}</ref>

The DOB spread to Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, and ''The Ladder'' was mailed to hundreds—eventually thousands—of DOB members discussing the nature of homosexuality, sometimes challenging the idea that it was a sickness, with readers offering their own reasons why they were lesbians and suggesting ways to cope with the condition or society's response to it.<ref name="esterberg" /> British lesbians followed with the publication of ''[[Arena Three (magazine)|Arena Three]]'' beginning in 1964, with a similar mission.<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|pp=153–158}}

[[File:Thirdsex bookcover 1959.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Though marketed to heterosexual men, [[lesbian pulp fiction]] provided an identity to isolated women in the 1950s.|alt=A brightly painted book cover with the title "The Third Sex", with a sultry blonde wearing a red outfit showing cleavage and midriff seated on a sofa, while a redhead with short hair places her hand on the blonde's shoulder and leans over her, also displaying cleavage wearing a white blouse with rolled-up sleeves.]]

==== Butch and femme dichotomy ====
{{Further|Butch and femme}}

As a reflection of categories of sexuality so sharply defined by the government and society at large, early lesbian subculture developed rigid gender roles between women, particularly among the [[working class]] in the United States and Canada. For working class lesbians who wanted to live as homosexuals, "A functioning couple ... meant dichotomous individuals, if not male and female, then butch and femme", and the only models they had to go by were "those of the traditional female-male [roles]".<ref name="Faderman1991"/>{{rp|pp=167–168}} Although many municipalities enacted laws against [[cross-dressing]], some women would socialize in bars as [[Butch and femme|butches]]: dressed in men's clothing and mirroring traditional masculine behavior. Others wore traditionally feminine clothing and assumed the role of femmes. Butch and femme modes of socialization were so integral within lesbian bars that women who refused to choose between the two would be ignored, or at least unable to date anyone, and butch women becoming romantically involved with other butch women or femmes with other femmes was unacceptable.<ref name="Faderman1991"/>{{rp|pp=167–168}}

Butch women were not a novelty in the 1950s; even in [[Harlem]] and [[Greenwich Village]] in the 1920s some women assumed these personae. In the 1950s and 1960s, the roles were pervasive and not limited to North America: from 1940 to 1970, butch/femme bar culture flourished in Britain, though there were fewer class distinctions.<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|pp=141–143}} They further identified members of a group that had been marginalized; women who had been rejected by most of society had an inside view of an exclusive group of people that took a high amount of knowledge to function in.<ref name="Faderman1991"/>{{rp|pp=170–174}} Butch and femme were considered coarse by American lesbians of higher social standing during this period.<ref name="Faderman1991"/>{{rp|pp=175–178}}

==== Fiction ====
{{See also|Lesbian literature}}
Regardless of the lack of information about homosexuality in scholarly texts, another forum for learning about lesbianism was growing. A paperback book titled ''[[Women's Barracks]]'' describing a woman's experiences in the [[Free French Forces]] was published in 1950. It told of a lesbian relationship the author had witnessed. After 4.5 million copies were sold, it was consequently named in the [[House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials]] in 1952.<ref name="Stryker2001">{{cite book |last=Stryker |first=Susan |date=2001 |title=Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback |publisher=Chronicle Books, LLC. |isbn=0-8118-3020-9 |pages=49, 54–57}}</ref> Its publisher, [[Gold Medal Books]], followed with the novel ''[[Spring Fire]]'' in 1952, which sold 1.5 million copies. Gold Medal Books was overwhelmed with mail from women writing about the subject matter, and followed with more books, creating the genre of [[lesbian pulp fiction]].<ref name="Stryker2001"/>

Between 1955 and 1969, over 2,000 books were published using lesbianism as a topic, and they were sold in corner drugstores, train stations, bus stops, and newsstands all over the U.S. and Canada. Literary scholar, Yvonne Keller created several subclasses for lesbian pulp fiction, to help highlight the differences between the types of pulp fiction being released.<ref name=Keller>{{cite journal |last1=Keller |first1=Yvonne |title="Was It Right to Love Her Brother's Wife so Passionately?": Lesbian Pulp Novels and U.S. Lesbian Identity, 1950-1965 |journal=[[American Quarterly]] |date=June 2005 |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=385–410 |doi=10.1353/aq.2005.0028 |jstor=40068271 |s2cid=144844572 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068271 |issn=0003-0678 |oclc=1480637}}</ref> Virile adventures were written by authors using male pseudonyms, and almost all were marketed to heterosexual men. During this time, another subclass emerged called "Pro-Lesbian". The emergence of pro-lesbian fiction began with authors seeing the voyeuristic and homophobic nature of virile adventures. With only a handful of lesbian pulp fiction authors were women writing for lesbians, including [[Ann Bannon]], [[Valerie Taylor (novelist)|Valerie Taylor]], [[Paula Christian]], and [[Marijane Meaker|Vin Packer/Ann Aldrich]]. These authors deliberately defied the standard of virile adventures by focusing on the relationship between the pair, instead of writing sexually explicit material like virile adventures.<ref name=Keller />

The differences between virile adventures and pro-lesbian covers and titles were distinct enough that Bannon, who also purchased lesbian pulp fiction, later stated that women identified the material iconically by the cover art.<ref name="forbidden">''[[Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives]]''. Dir. Fernie, L., Weissman. Videocassette. Women Make Movies Home Video, 1994.</ref> Pro-lesbian covers were innocuous and hinted at their lesbian themes, and virile adventures ranged from having one woman partially undressed to sexually explicit covers, to demonstrate the invariably salacious material inside.<ref name=Keller /> In addition to this, coded words and images were used on the covers. Instead of "lesbian", terms such as "strange", "twilight", "queer", and "third sex", were used in the titles, and cover art was invariably salacious.<ref name="Zimet1999">{{cite book |last=Zimet |first=Jaye |date=1999 |title=Strange Sisters: The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction, 1949–1969 |publisher=Viking Studio |isbn=0-14-028402-8 |pages=17–24}}</ref> Many of the books used cultural references: naming places, terms, describing modes of dress and other codes to isolated women. As a result, pulp fiction helped to proliferate a lesbian identity simultaneously to lesbians and heterosexual readers.<ref name="nestle">[[Joan Nestle|Nestle, Joan]] (1983). "Desire So Big It Had to Be Brave", [[Lesbian Herstory Archives]].</ref>