Editing Lesbian (section)

==== 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.]]