Bilitis

From Homolexis Glossary

"Bilitis" is the name given to a fictional lesbian poet, a contemporary of Sappho by the French poet Pierre Louÿs in his 1894 work Les chansons de Bilitis..

The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which ranks as the first lesbian rights organization, was formed in San Francisco in 1955. The group was conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were considered illegal and thus subject to raids and police harassment. The founders claim that they had no knowledge of the male-oriented homophile groups, such as the Mattachine Society, when they first established the organization in 1955.

Influential throughout the 1950s and 1960s, DOB but was riven by factionalism in the 1970s. Its members split over whether to give primary support to the gay-rights movement or to feminism.

"Daughters" was meant to evoke association with other American sororal associations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution. The organization began publishing a weekly, The Ladder in 1956. This was, however, not the first lesbian magazine. That honor belongs to Lisa Ben’s Los Angeles effort Vice-Versa of 1947.