GAY LIBERATION FRONT WOMEN

Reprinted by permission, Karla Jay and Allen Young.

This 1970 call argues for the end of homosexual oppression, focusing particularly on the failures of the women's liberation movement to defend and support lesbianism as central to women's freedom.

Gay Liberation Front women welcome all women. In meetings and activities we maintain a flexible way of doing things to encompass our sisters of different social, economic, racial, religious, and political interests, and to permit individual freedom in actions and activities, both inside and outside of GLF.

We provide an opportunity for women to relate to other wornen- through political activities and community social activities, beginning with dances and moving out into new forms of socializing and communicating with our sisters.

GLF was the first group in New York to come together specifically to fight homosexual oppression. GLF Women, a caucus of GLF, are lesbian activists fighting oppression on two fronts: As homosexuals, we work with our gay brothers to fight oppression based on society's exclusion of individuals who love members of the same sex. As women, we work with women's liberation to fight the oppression of all women.

Our strongest common denominator and greatest oppression lie with society's injustice against us as homosexuals. We are discrimi- nated against as women, but lesbians who live openly are fired from jobs, expelled from schools, banished from their homes, and even beaten. Lesbians who hide and escape open hostility, suffer equal oppression through psychic damage caused by their fear and guilt. With this understanding, we focus on gay liberation, giving priority to gay issues and gay problems. We are part of the revolution of all oppressed people, but we cannot allow the lesbian issue to be an afterthought.

GLF Women are dedicated to changing attitudes, institutions, and laws that oppress lesbians, using all or any methods from reform to revolution. Actions and consciousness-raising achieve this goal. Gay liberation is a movement and a state of mind challenging history's basic legal and social assumptions about homosexuality. Openly pro- claiming ourselves lesbians is a revolutionary act and a threat to the prevailing society, which excludes people who live outside the norm. We work for a common understanding among all people that lesbianism is the most complete and fulfilling relationship with another woman and a valid life style.

Gay consciousness-raising is a primary interest:

1. So that our lesbian sisters understand our oppression and fight against it. To be effective the lesbian movement must be a grass roots effort. We denounce the fact that society's rewards and privileges are only given to us when we hide and split our identity. We encourage self-determination and will work for changes in the lesbian self-image, as well as in society, to permit the "coming out" of each gay woman into society as a lesbian. The new self-image or "gay consciousness" refers to our sense of pride, unity, life-style, and community.

2. Raising consciousness of people in all movements--to be aware of their sexism.

3. Raising the consciousness of our sisters active in women's liberation to openly acknowledge and actively support lesbians, with the attitude of solidarity and not reciprocity. We denounce the use of the word "lesbian" to divide us from our sisters, who should be united with us in our common struggle for the liberation of all women. We feel that the core oppression of women is the lesbian's oppression and the ultimate liberation of women is through the liberation of lesbians. Real freedom for lesbians will mean the end of all oppressive relationships based on male dominance and the compulsion women feel to seek male approval and support.

Women's liberation groups must undertake consciousness-raising on lesbianism. They must accept among their leadership admitted and publicly known lesbians. They must make explicit their acceptance of the lesbian life-style now implicit in their analysis.

a) Feminists speak of rejecting role-playing, but fail to see the pressures in society during children's formative years to love men over women.

b) They say that women should be free to govern their own bodies, but fail to grant freedom of sexual preference.

c) They denounce stereotyped male and female attitudes and characteristics, but fail to accept as natural the so-called masculine female and so-called feminine male.

d) They talk about being independent from men, but do not see that the lesbian life style is the ultimate form of independence.

e) They talk of love among women, but do not include physical expression of that love.

4. Education of the public to recognize homosexuals as an oppressed minority and to destroy stereotyped images based on and perpetuated by society's hostility. To fight prejudice with reason and love. Gay is Good. Sexuality is basic to all human beings, and hornosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. To teach children from the earliest years about homosexuality without bias.

To effect change, we advocate an open media policy, with media defined as lectures, demonstrations, leaflets, consciousness-raising, dances, and rapping in bars, as well as the press.