Liberation Letter : Pride

Pride

by Rep. Mauree Turner, Oklahoma HD 88

It’s June – so that means Pride & election season. I have been thinking about what they both mean – in general, but mostly to me. I talk a lot about the people that fought for us to be able to live and continue the fight. People that would never know our names – but knew and valued the importance of community preservation. Or at the very least, they were committed to their own survival in a way that allowed them to fight for a better future.

When I was younger, the future I saw for myself was either working hard for everyone around me & our collective liberation – because if they survive so do I. Or on the other hand if I wasn’t thinking about survival in a community way then I didn’t picture a future at all for myself. I have always been a better advocate for others than myself. The last 4 years have forced me to envision a future where I try to care for myself in the same way I do my communities. One big question I use as a guiding light: How do I honor the riots, boycotts, sit-in’s, clubs, individuals & communities that allowed me to be here today – and the rest that I need to keep going?

The First Pride Was a Riot:

We all know ‘the first Pride was a riot’, but what came before the first pride? I think about this, a lot. Because before there was Rosa Parks there was Claudette Colvin and before there was Mauree Turner there was Jasha Lyons Echo-Hawk, Ashley McCray, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, Josh Query, and so many others. Ultimately, there are always others before whom you end up hearing about as the ‘history maker’. In Oklahoma, and across the nation, we see folks limiting access to complete and accurate American history and especially queer history.

As a queer millennial I did what we were programmed to do, find community online…& as someone that loves quick research spurts (*so I can over share when my friends ask me a very surface level question): I’ll share with you a little of what I have found.

The Daughters of Bilitis:

Have you heard of The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB)? DOB is the earliest recorded lesbian rights group of the US starting in San Francisco 1955. (Side Bar: 1955 is also the same year the Montgomery AL bus boycotts started & roughly 6 years after the first Nakba the forced removal of Palestinians from Palestine)  For folks who aren’t members of our community, it seems like 2-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer + (2SLGBTQ+) communities have this societal perception of a party culture. I don’t know about you, but I would try to party whenever I got together with my community, especially if I didn’t know if I would see them again - and if I wasn’t so introverted. For so many of us our queer chosen families saw us when no one else would – and sometimes when we couldn’t see ourselves.  Our queer chose families created a place for acceptance and love when living authentically was life threatening.

When Rosalie Bamberger (Rose) first came up with the idea of The Daughters of Bilitis she was looking for a place to be openly lesbian without the danger of being openly lesbian, and a place for her and her partner Rosemary Sliepen to make other lesbian friends – iconic and ironic in my opinion.

Rose Bamberger - Iconic and Ironic:

Iconic because Rose was a Filipina lesbian that wanted to openly be with her partner, Rosemary Sliepen a white woman. *Reminder to think about this being 1955, 12 years before Loving V. Virginia was decided. So, to be Filipina, lesbian, and in an interracial relationship, and still have the nerve to say ‘I’m gonna do this because we deserve these spaces’…powerful to say the very least. I mean, the creation of DOB led to the dolls being under CIA and FBI surveillance. Ironic because over the last four years we have seen an increasing amount of anti-2SLGBTQ+ laws limiting queer access to life in real life (IRL) – from healthcare to public education. It has also been giving a lot of older queer folks (or maybe just myself?) glimpses to a political future recreating something that looks like our queer social past.

To create, or even grow, a movement you must have more than one person willing to stand in solidarity with you. So, Rose and Rosemary weren’t alone, they also were joined by Del Martin and her partner Phyllis Lyon, Marcia Foster and partner June (whose last name has been lost in history to the best of my knowledge), and Noni Frey & her partner Mary (a Chicana whose last name was also lost in the retelling of the story of DOB). It's very important to note - even though DOB was Rose’s idea, Rose and Mary were never listed as officers of the group. The only two women of color.

In 1955 there were places you could go and be socially lesbian, but not without of fear of undercover cops or cop raids in general. It makes me think about the amount of liberation that has come from folks of color who routinely become fed up with the attacks on their various identities. About how change is also made by trying to create safe spaces for us to see and be seen by each other. To hear and hold one another – and in the individual ways we need and value. Change isn’t solely made by directly pushing back against a system, but also by creating community – that is a radical revolution.

Rules to Join the Daughters of Bilitis:

Some of the rules they implemented for membership were birthed out of the same right-wing rhetoric we are facing today. For instance, you had to be over 21 to join because they didn’t want to be seen as a part of the ‘problem’ driving juvenile delinquency at the time. However, when we talk about juvenile delinquency in the 1950s, we’ve gotta bring it into context. In the 1950s WWII was over, the Cold War was in swing, and rock'n'roll started to bring youth who had time on their hands together. So, the scare of juvenile delinquency was something we saw perpetuated by white parents who were worried about their children learning too much from different cultures, the world around them, and their children no longer listening to solely their parents.

There was a rule that came out of their third meeting in November of 1955 – clothing. If you were a woman wearing slacks they must be “women’s slacks.” Which, I think was a level of protecting the social club from police raid or arrest – but also cut so many women who couldn’t afford “women’s slacks” out of community, or forced folks to conform in a space that was created to be free. You can only imagine what kind of internal conflict would come from a social club for lesbians that then dictated what type of lesbian you must be to join. This is also a reminder that two (2) out of the eight (8) women were women of color and every woman in the founding group had a white partner. Intersectional marginalized identities put you closer to harm at the hands of oppressive systems, especially when you engage in movement work like creating the 1st lesbian rights group of the US.

The End of The Daughters of Bilitis:

This ultimately led to a lot of conflict within the group. There were four white-collar members and four blue-collar members of the founding group. The two women of color, Rose Bamberger and Mary were a part of the blue-collar group. This is important because the women of color were looking solely for a place of joy, dancing, and community. The white-collar workers, all white women, were looking for a place where they could engage in more actions to integrate lesbians, and our lovers into everyday life. That's a big risk that you're asking women of color in the 50s to take, as we talked about intersectionality earlier.

There was a lot of internal conflict about who should be allowed in, and what people should wear. Essentially cherry picking who got to be lesbian and in which spaces they got to engage in. Despite all of this The Daughters of Bilitis existed for 14 years, the San Francisco chapter. It ultimately did exceed in helping young queer folks find their place in community, in journalism, and in action. I have been fascinated by this for a very long time, and I'd love to talk to you more about it. But we only get so many words and I have reached my limit, but there is something I want to leave you with: curiosity. 

Curiosity:

Curiosity comes naturally as children, and we must seek it out as we get older. We should always be curious about those who came before us, about those who will come after us, and how we fit into it all. We must be curious about people's intersecting identities and what it means to show up in the work in the different skill sets that we have.