UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities: A Podcast

Season 8 Ep 6: The Lavender Menace

• History UnErased

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In May 1970, a group of badass women organized a direct-action "zap," a surprise protest, at the Second Congress to Unite Women. Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Lavender Menace," they transformed the conference － and the women's movement － by forcing its members to confront a question they had largely avoided. 

History UnErased is putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place — the classroom — and uniting all "We the People" with a more complete story of America. UnErased.org

Deb Fowler: Hello, and welcome to UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities: A Podcast. I’m Deb Fowler, co-founder of History UnErased.

In May 1970, a group of lesbian activists walked into a major feminist conference wearing purple shirts emblazoned with the words "Lavender Menace." Within hours, they had forced the women's movement to confront a question it had largely avoided: Could feminism truly fight for all women while excluding lesbians? Take it away, Kathleen! 

Kathleen Barker: The late 1960s witnessed the simultaneous rise of two transformative social movements in the United States: the gay liberation movement and second-wave feminism. While each emerged in response to distinct forms of oppression, they developed alongside one another, often sharing activists, strategies, and a common critique of traditional gender roles. The catalyst for the modern gay liberation movement was, of course, the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted a routine police raid. The uprising galvanized LGBTQ communities across the country, inspiring the formation of dozens of organizations such as the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, which rejected earlier assimilationist approaches in favor of direct action and demands for full social and political equality.

At the same time, second-wave feminism was expanding its focus beyond legal equality to challenge the broader structures of sexism embedded in American society. While first-wave feminism had focused primarily on securing women's right to vote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, second-wave activists challenged a much broader range of social, political, economic, and cultural inequalities, transforming American society and expanding the fight for women's equality beyond the legal gains achieved by earlier generations. Feminists argued that discrimination against women was embedded in everyday life, from the workplace and educational institutions to family structures, media representations, and laws governing reproductive rights. Inspired in part by the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War activism, women increasingly organized to demand equal opportunities and challenge traditional gender roles.

A major catalyst for the movement was the publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan criticized the widespread expectation that women should find fulfillment exclusively through marriage, motherhood, and domestic life. Her work resonated with many middle-class white women who felt constrained by these expectations, and the book helped spark renewed feminist activism. As the movement grew, women advocated for equal pay, access to higher education and professional careers, affordable childcare, reproductive freedom, and protection against gender discrimination.

One of the most influential organizations to emerge during this period was the National Organization for Women (NOW), founded in June 1966, by Betty Friedan and other activists at the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women, held in Washington, D.C. Pauli Murray played an important, though sometimes underrecognized, role in the founding and early intellectual development of the National Organization for Women. Although Murray was not among the organization's most visible leaders, their legal scholarship, activism, and advocacy helped shape NOW's goals and strategies.  

The organization worked to enforce the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, particularly Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, as well as race, color, national origin, and religion. Well before NOW was founded, Murray developed many of the legal arguments that became central to the women's rights movement. Along with legal scholar Mary Eastwood, Murray co-authored the influential 1965 article "Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII."  Drawing on her experience as both a civil rights lawyer and an advocate for women's rights, Murray emphasized the similarities between racial and sex discrimination. They argued that both systems relied on stereotypes, legal barriers, and unequal treatment that denied individuals equal opportunities. Just as courts had begun recognizing that racial segregation violated constitutional guarantees of equality, Murray believed they should apply the same constitutional principles to discrimination based on sex. This legal framework heavily influenced NOW's commitment to pursuing gender equality through litigation and constitutional challenges.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, NOW became a leading voice in campaigns for workplace equality, reproductive rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Its approach reflected the movement's efforts to secure institutional change through established political and legal channels. At the same time, second-wave feminism was not a unified movement. Many women criticized mainstream feminist organizations, like NOW,  for overlooking issues related to race, class, and sexuality. Lesbian activists, in particular, often found themselves marginalized within both feminist and gay rights organizations.  Many lesbians participated in feminist organizations but experienced exclusion and silence regarding lesbian issues.

In the early years of NOW, some leaders worried that association with lesbian activists would damage the organization's public image. In 1969, Friedan used the phrase "Lavender Menace," likely during a NOW meeting or in conversations with feminist colleagues, to express her concern that the growing visibility of lesbian activists within the women's movement could be exploited by opponents to discredit feminism. Friedan worried that the media and critics would portray the women's movement as being primarily about lesbianism, making it more difficult to attract mainstream support for issues such as employment discrimination, equal pay, childcare, and reproductive rights. Well, news of her remark spread quickly among women involved in NOW (and beyond). Rather than accepting this characterization, lesbian activists reclaimed the phrase as a symbol of resistance, transforming what was intended as an insult into a declaration of pride and political solidarity.

The Second Congress to Unite Women was a national feminist conference held May 1–3, 1970, in New York City. Organized by feminist activists from a variety of women's liberation groups, its purpose was to bring together women from across the country to discuss strategy, share ideas, and strengthen the rapidly growing women's liberation movement. Ironically, despite the movement's emphasis on equality and inclusion, the conference largely ignored lesbian issues, so workshops and discussions about lesbian rights were excluded from the conference agenda.

In response, a group of lesbian feminists planned a dramatic protest on the conference's opening night. As the conference began, the lights in the auditorium were unexpectedly turned off. When they came back on, approximately twenty women wearing matching purple T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Lavender Menace" had taken control of the stage. They distributed copies of the manifesto The Woman-Identified Woman, which argued that women's liberation could not succeed while lesbians were marginalized or treated as a political liability. 

This type of action was known as a "zap,” a form of direct-action protest popularized by LGBTQ activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rather than holding a traditional demonstration, activists would stage a surprising, attention-grabbing confrontation at a public event or in front of a politician or institution, using humor, disruption, and media coverage to expose discrimination and demand change. 

You might be wondering why they wore purple T-shirts? Well, the distinctive color made the group immediately identifiable once they took the stage and created a unified presence. Those matching shirts also helped transform a disruption into a powerful visual statement. Of course, purple and lavender were queer-coded colors in America. Purple had already been associated with feminism, alongside green and white in some suffrage-era symbolism. The color choice helped signal both feminist politics and lesbian visibility without requiring a long explanation in the moment.

Rather than derailing the conference, the protest transformed it. After the demonstration, conference organizers agreed to hold an impromptu workshop on sexism, homophobia, and the place of lesbians within the feminist movement, which became one of the conference's most energetic and well-attended sessions. The event marked a turning point in second-wave feminism, helping persuade many activists that lesbian rights belonged within the broader feminist agenda. 

Just who were these badass women calling themselves the Lavender Menace? They were a diverse group of writers, organizers, scholars, and activists whose efforts transformed both the women’s movement and the struggle for lesbian visibility. Rita Mae Brown brought her talents as a writer and activist to the group and later gained recognition as a novelist. Brown's first novel, Rubyfruit Jungle, is widely regarded as a landmark in lesbian literature. The novel follows Molly Bolt, an intelligent, ambitious young woman who refuses to apologize for her sexuality or conform to traditional expectations of women. The novel became a bestseller despite initially being rejected by several publishers, and it introduced countless readers to a positive lesbian protagonist. 

Karla Jay played a key role in organizing early actions and would later document the movement’s history through her scholarship and memoirs. She worked to build alliances between the feminist and gay liberation movements while also challenging the sexism she encountered within predominantly male LGBTQ organizations. Jay became one of the most important chroniclers of the lesbian feminist movement. Her memoir, Tales of the Lavender Menace, provides one of the most detailed firsthand accounts of lesbian activism during the late 1960s and 1970s. The book documents the origins of the Lavender Menace, the Gay Liberation Front, and the challenges lesbian activists faced within both feminist and gay organizations.

Martha Shelley emerged as one of the collective’s most visible voices, using her writing and public advocacy to challenge the exclusion of lesbians from mainstream feminism. Beginning in 1972, Shelley produced the radio show Lesbian Nation on New York's WBAI radio station, likely the first all-lesbian program to be broadcast anywhere on the radio.

 Barbara Love contributed her skills as an organizer and educator, helping to build networks that connected lesbian feminists across the country. In 1971, Love co-authored the first non-fiction book about lesbianism from a positive perspective, Sappho Was a Right-on Woman. She also researched and published the book Feminists Who Changed America, 1963–1975, a collection of 2,200 biographies of second-wave feminists. Other important members included Lois Hart, Ellen Shumsky, Cynthia Funk, and Artemis March. Together, their work helped redefine feminism to include lesbian voices and laid the foundation for a more inclusive women’s liberation movement. 

Let’s return to the manifesto these amazing women created and distributed at the conference: The Woman-Identified Woman. Published in 1970, The Woman-Identified Woman became one of the founding documents of lesbian feminism. Written in response to the exclusion of lesbians from the women's movement, the 10-paragraph manifesto argued that society defined women primarily through their relationships with men—as wives, mothers, girlfriends, or sexual partners. The authors asserted that true women's liberation required women to prioritize their relationships with one another and reject male-centered definitions of female identity.

The document represents a pivotal intersection of the feminist movement and the lesbian rights movement. Rather than presenting lesbianism solely as a sexual orientation, the manifesto framed it as a political challenge to patriarchy. The authors argued that lesbians had been stigmatized because they represented women who existed outside traditional expectations of dependence on men. They argued that by confronting sexism and compulsory heterosexuality, lesbians occupied a unique position within the struggle for women's liberation. 

One of the manifesto's most famous lines defines its central idea:

"A woman-identified woman is a woman who has committed herself to other women."

The authors also challenged the stereotypes used to marginalize lesbians within the feminist movement:

"The lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion."

The manifesto criticized the ways society encouraged women to seek validation from men rather than from themselves or other women:

"As long as male acceptability is primary—both to general society and to the individual woman—the term lesbian will be used effectively against women."

Ultimately, The Woman-Identified Woman called on feminists to recognize lesbian oppression as a women's issue and argued that the liberation of all women depended on dismantling systems that defined women in relation to men. The document helped shift feminist politics in the 1970s, making lesbian rights and identity a central part of the broader women's liberation movement. The document challenged feminists to confront prejudice against lesbians inside the movement itself, and prompted organizations to reconsider exclusionary practices. Sidenote: you can hear the entire manifesto in our bonus episode. 

So what happened next? After the success of the protest, the group continued meeting and organizing. But the name Lavender Menace was now closely tied to one specific action. Once the protest had succeeded in drawing attention to lesbian concerns, the activists wanted a name that reflected their long-term political vision rather than a single event. As they shifted to developing a broader political philosophy of lesbian feminism, the group of activists adopted a new name: Radicalesbians. As Radicalesbians, they focused on developing lesbian feminist theory, organizing consciousness-raising groups, challenging sexism within the gay liberation movement, challenging homophobia within feminism, and articulating a vision of women's liberation centered on relationships among women. 

Many of the same women belonged to both groups, and historians generally distinguish the two based on function rather than membership. Lavender Menace generally refers to the activist coalition that organized the protest at the Second Congress to Unite Women in May 1970. Radicalesbians refers to the continuing lesbian feminist collective that emerged from that action. In other words, the Lavender Menace was the public protest, while the Radicalesbians became the organization and intellectual movement that carried the protest's ideas forward. 

The Lavender Menace lasted only a short time as an organization, but its challenge to exclusion transformed feminist history. By insisting that lesbian voices belonged in the movement, these activists expanded the meaning of equality and helped reshape the future of both feminism and LGBTQ rights. Their activism helped transform feminism by insisting that lesbian rights were inseparable from women's rights. As a result, feminist organizations increasingly embraced lesbian inclusion, while lesbian activists helped broaden the movement's understanding of gender, sexuality, and equality. Within a year of the protest, organizations such as the National Organization for Women had adopted resolutions affirming lesbian rights, reflecting the lasting impact of the Lavender Menace's action.

The questions posted by their action, however, are still just as relevant today as they were in 1970: who gets left out when movements define themselves too narrowly? And what can history teach us about creating broader coalitions for change?

DF: Be sure to check out our bonus episode featuring nine voices reading The Woman-Identified Woman Manifesto. 

Kathleen Barker is History UnErased’s program director and podcast host, and is a library and information specialist and public historian with over 20 years of experience as a museum and library educator.  This podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack, our youth equity program director and podcaster. Our theme music is “1986” by BrothaD via Tribe of Noise. 

We would love to hear from you! Email hello@unerased.org and let us know where in the world you are listening, or what history we can highlight in a future episode from your corner of the world. That’s hello@unerased.org - and please rate this podcast and share! 

I’m Deb Fowler. Thanks for listening. 

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