The Ladder, 1962 - 1968

Founded in San Francisco, in 1955, as the first lesbian organization, the Daughters of Bilities was founded by Rose Bamberger, a Filipina who gathered a multiethnic group of eight women, including Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who were the only lesbians open enough to give their names. The Daughters of Bilitis (pronounced Bil-E-tis) took its name from a 19th-century poem by Pierre Louys, Song of Bilitis. The DOB was only open to women, whereas the two other homophile groups, the Mattachine Society and One, Inc., had both male and female members. At the 1959 Mattachine Conference, DOB had to defend its women-only status by explaining that the generic “he” did not fit them and that “lesbians were not satisfied to be auxiliary members or second-class homosexuals.” While the predominantly male organizations focused on criminal law and police entrapment, DOB focused on family and civil law and related issues. The purpose of the group was to self-educate lesbians and help them adjust to society, educate society to dispel myths, foster research on homosexuals, and promote legal reform. It also started to publish The Ladder in 1956, to reach more women. This publication existed until 1972. While the national DOB disbanded in the early 1970s, local chapters continued to exist. In some communities, DOB saw a slight rebirth in the late 1990s. (Meyers, 2013).