Photo – LGBTQ+ Visibility

Diana Davies’ photo of Donna Gottschalk, taken at the 1971 Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in New York City, is a captured outcry for women-loving-women’s liberation. Donna Gottschalk demands to be seen and recognized as a women-loving-woman and given visibility outside of pornography. Donna Gottschalk’s sign references the shunned attitude towards women-loving-women in every single aspect of daily life except to perform sex with another woman for a male audience. A women-loving-woman cannot exist, as she is underrepresented, mistreated, and ignored because her sheer existence denies men to use her as a service, and Donna Gottschalk firmly places herself in the spotlight by forcing her way into public domains and existing as an outright lesbian, unregulated by anyone.

Photo credit: Davies, Diana. 1971, New York Public Library.

The Lavender Menace Zap was a protest organized by a group of lesbian activists named the RadicaLesbians. They organized after Betty Friedan, the founder of The National Organization for Women, referred to lesbians as a “lavender menace”. To protest the erasure that they experienced in women’s organizations such as NOW, these activists attended The Second Congress to Unite Women on May 1, 1970. Here, they turned off the lights and appeared onstage with “lavender menace” T-shirts. This event was the beginning of a new era in which lesbian concerns began to be taken into account in women’s organizations.

http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/1969/radicalesbians.html
“The Lavender Menace” by Diana Davies

Tag: Photo

YOUR WORST FEAR: YOUR BEST FANTASY

The Lavender Menace Zap