Phyllis Lyon and Wolfe Video founder Kathy Wolfe.

For the National Center of Lesbian Rights, Phyllis Lyon and her partner of 58 years, Del Martin, were guidestars. One of the proudest moments in NCLR’s history was representing Phyllis and Del in California’s marriage equality case. Phyllis and Del’s courage paved the way for marriage equality under the California Constitution.

Phyllis and Del were the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco on June 16th, 2008. Merely weeks later, Del passed away at age 87 with Phyllis by her side. What came before that moment was decades of activism, boldness, humor and love.

NCLR’s former executive director and dear friend of Phyllis Lyon, Kate Kendell, shared this incredible timeline of Phyllis’ life.

This moment to celebrate Phyllis is also a moment to reflect. In 1955, Del and Phyllis were founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian civil and political rights organization. They were the first lesbians to join the National Organization of Women. Phyllis, once an administrative assistant to Rev. Cecil Williams at Glide Memorial Church, and Del played key roles in launching the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) and the Alice B. Toklas Democrative Club and, in 1979, became the namesakes of an activist-created health clinic, Lyon-Martin Health Services. These are just a few examples of their activism and involvement.

As a feminist-founded organization, NCLR stands on the shoulders of Phyllis and Del. At our inception in 1977, the women’s rights movement and the Gay movement were changing the political landscape, but lesbians had difficulty finding a seat at either table. Phyllis Lyon was just what we needed. When Donna Hitchens founded NCLR, it was to meet the immediate and dire needs of women losing their children because of their sexual orientation. Today, NCLR’s mission is to hold the heart and create equity for our entire LGBTQ community. No one left behind. Period.

Phyllis Lyon knew no boundaries when it came to her intellectual and activist power and we are forever indebted to her for her bravery and leadership. She set an example for us all. We know for us at NCLR, we intend to do whatever it takes to follow her lead and hold up her legacy.

The post NCLR tribute to Phyllis Lyon first appeared on Lesbian.com.

“We lost a giant today,” tweeted California State Sen. Scott Weiner, who is chairman of the LGBTQ caucus. A giant is exactly what the ninety-five-year-old Phyllis Lyon was, along with her partner Del Martin, who died at age eighty-seven in 2008.

My friend the sailor broke the news to me. She e-mailed, Del and Phyllis made a difference in my life. Yours too? No finer compliment could be given.

I responded: Oh, this hurts. They certainly made a difference for me. I was able to read their creation, “The Ladder,” from age fifteen on. They were role models as a couple and in their activism. Thanks for breaking it to me.”

Yes, with my hair slicked back by my father’s Vitalis, in the hand me downs from a boy across the court, hoping to someday own a pinky ring, and waiting to reach an age when I could frequent the rough and tumble gay bars downtown, my girlfriend Suzy and I spotted the magazine founded by Phyllis and Del.

It was an unthinkable accomplishment then, the production of a periodical about ourselves. We weren’t even old enough to legally buy it. Suzy, the bolder of us, probably took it to the register anyway. Or maybe some other babydyke swiped it, afraid to take it to a cashier, and passed it on, afraid to take it home to Brooklyn or New Jersey where she lived with her parents.

If Suzy and I were afraid to purchase “The Ladder,” I cannot imagine the enormous courage of Del and Phyllis. They gathered material from closeted lesbians, signed their real names to their own writings, and, braver still, approached a printer. I remember the struggle Tee Corinne and I had twenty-five years later, getting our local copy shop to print our self-published works.

Where had this paper miracle come from? Who was behind it? I was a contributor to “The Ladder” before I knew its history. By 1960, the year I first read it, “The Ladder” was on Volume 5. It was published in San Francisco. How had it been distributed to a magazine store in New York? Of course, we were still children and adults ran the world, even our world. We might question and defy authority, but the magazine was a product of adults and whatever magic they supplied to make things work. I was in awe.

Today, “The Ladder” might look like a dinky little magazine. In 1955, when they first achieved this marvel, it must have represented a logistical obstacle course for Del and Phyllis, whose activism consisted of much more than the printed word. Like so many lesbian projects right up to the present day, the work they and their cohorts produced was all volunteer. They risked loss of their jobs, their birth families, their lovers, their homes, their very sanity, to assert the legitimacy of our condemned lives. There was nothing dinky about that magazine, or the men’s equivalent, “One.” Both periodicals were powder kegs fueling what was to become the gay rights movement, a movement that changed government, schools, religious institutions, the military, and the lives of fearful, confused, often self-hating individuals who found our way to fuller lives and healthier psyches.

Phyllis Lyon made a profound difference in my life. It was due to Phyllis that I survived my otherwise unguided, unmodeled teens. It was due to Phyllis I was able to resist the course of conversion therapy (not called that then) my college unofficially required of me. It was due to Phyllis that an outlet existed for my words. It was due to Phyllis and her union with Del that I saw I could commit to a woman I loved and stay for better or worse. It was due to the tenacity and victories of Phyllis Lyon and our other giants that I lived to embrace who I am because she so publicly embraced who she was.

So yes, my sailor friend, let’s just say she made it possible for me to be a very happy, stable, exultantly married woman and published lesbian writer today. I am one of her accomplishments. I hope she was just as proud of me as I’ve always been of her.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2020

The post The Amazon Trail: A Giant first appeared on Lesbian.com.

She and her partner Del Martin (who passed away in 2008) met in the 1950s. In partnership, this indomitable pair fought for same-sex marriage. Lyon and Martin were the first couple married in California in 2008. Now-Governor Gavin Newsom officiated their wedding.

Gov. Newsom paid tribute on Twitter, posting “Phyllis and Del were the manifestation of love and devotion. Yet for over 50 years they were denied the right to say 2 extraordinary words: I do. / Phyllis—it was the honor of a lifetime to marry you & Del. Your courage changed the course of history./ Rest in Peace my dear friend.”

Kate Kendall, activist and former executive director of the National Center from Lesbian Rights, tweeted, “She and Del are dancing again.”

The post Beloved LGBTQ+ pioneer, Phyllis Lyon, dies of natural causes at 95 first appeared on Lesbian.com.