Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia."
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular gender, religion, race, social background, social class, environmental, or other identifying factors, develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. The term is used in a variety of ways to describe phenomena as diverse as multiculturalism, women's movements, civil rights, lesbian and gay movements, and regional separatist movements.
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Because much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism, feminist separatism is often thought of as simply lesbian separatism, but many aspects of the feminist movement utilize and have been influenced by feminist separatism.
Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that [Black women's] liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy."
Barbara Smith is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, author, and publisher of Black feminist thought. She has also taught at numerous colleges and universities for 25 years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions and The Nation. She has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a lesbian feminist activist and writer.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections of women that identify as Chicana. Chicana feminism empowers women and insist that they challenge the stereotypes and boundaries that Chicanas face across lines of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality. Most importantly, Chicana feminism is a movement. It is also a theory and praxis that helps women reclaim their existence between and among the Chicano Movement and American feminist movements.
The National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays was the United States' first national organization for African American and Third World gay rights.
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press that was closely related to the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) which was started in 1980 following a phone conversation between Barbara Smith and at the suggestion of her friend, poet Audre Lorde. Beverly and Barbara Smith and their associate Demita Frazier together cofounded the Combahee River Collective (CRC). The Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was most active beginning in 1981, but the Press became inactive soon after Audre Lorde's death in 1992. Smith explains how the motivation for starting a press run by and for women of color was that "as feminist and lesbian of color writers, we knew that we had no options for getting published, except at the mercy or whim of others, whether in the context of alternative or commercial publishing, since both are white-dominated."
The Audre Lorde Project is a Brooklyn, New York-based organization for LGBT people of color. The organization concentrates on community organizing and radical nonviolent activism around progressive issues within New York City, especially relating to LGBT communities, AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, prison reform and organizing among youth of color. It is named for the lesbian-feminist poet and activist Audre Lorde and was founded in 1994.
Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians was a quarterly periodical for Black, Asian, Latina, and Native American lesbians published between 1977 and 1983 by the Salsa Soul Sisters, Third World Wimmin Inc Collective. The Collective also published the Salsa Soul Sisters/Third World Women's Gay-zette.
The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and, more specifically, as Black lesbians. Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, while Delaney and Manditch-Prottas argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation. The Collective are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity politics as used among political organizers and social theorists, and for introducing the concept of interlocking systems of oppression, a key concept of intersectionality. Gerald Izenberg credits the 1977 Combahee statement with the first usage of the phrase "identity politics". Through writing their statement, the CRC connected themselves to the activist tradition of Black women in the 19th Century and to the struggles of Black liberation in the 1960s.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, first published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The second edition was published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. The book's third edition was published by Third Woman Press until 2008, when it went out of print. In 2015, the fourth edition was published by State University of New York Press, Albany.
Womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a term developed during second-wave feminism to designate women who were assigned female at birth, were raised as girls, and identify as women.
Racism is a concern for many in the Western lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities, with members of racial, ethnic, and national minorities reporting having faced discrimination from other LGBT people.
Sister Namibia, formerly known as the Sister Namibia Collective, is a feminist nonpartisan non-governmental organization (NGO) located in Windhoek, Namibia. The organization was established in 1989 on the eve of the Namibia's independence from South Africa. Sister Namibia advocates for women's rights and engages in activities that promote full gender equality in a world free from violence, discrimination, and oppression. From its inception, the organization's main function has been to produce Sister Namibia Magazine. In the 1990s Sister Namibia expanded its operations to include educational programs, research, activism, media engagement, and cultural activities in support of women's rights.
Womyn's land is an intentional community organised by lesbian separatists to establish counter-cultural, women-centred space, without the presence of men. These lands were the result of a social movement of the same name that developed in the 1970s in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and western Europe. Many still exist today. Womyn's land-based communities and residents are loosely networked through social media; print publications such as newsletters; Maize: A Lesbian Country Magazine; Lesbian Natural Resources, a not-for-profit organisation that offers grants and resources; and regional and local gatherings.
Monica Simpson is a queer Black activist, artist, and executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the United States' largest organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color.
Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres is a non-profit community organization established in January 1985 in West Hollywood, California. The organization was co-founded by Adel Martinez and Lauren Jardine in 1984 as a women-run center in Los Angeles, providing quality and comprehensive services that [catered] to women, particularly lesbians, and a space in which lesbians could thrive professionally, personally, and socially. In January 1988, it opened an additional facility in East Los Angeles named Connexxus East/Centro de Mujeres. Made for outreach to the Latina and Chicana communities. The new facility providing services primarily to lesbians in Los Angeles County, Connexxus Women's Center facilitated information about, and access to, various human service agencies. It also provided counseling in developing and operating small businesses. The facility also sponsored and hosted cultural and educational activities. The 1400 square foot Center contained space for a library, workshops, rap groups, counseling meetings, and social activities.
