lesbianartandartists:Judith Baca, The Origins of Gay Rights (section of the Great Wall, Los Angele
lesbianartandartists: Judith Baca, The Origins of Gay Rights (section of the Great Wall, Los Angeles) (1983) The Origin of Gay Rights section of the mural depicts the secrecy and paranoia of the McCarthy era and the emergence of homosexual community organization. Women forming the first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, meet in a kitchen and mimeograph copies of their newsletter, The Ladder, which float out of a closet above the heads of raiding police. In a gay bar, solitary men sit in front of mirrors, cautiously glancing at one another. Each wears a mask on the back of his head, representing the false front that gays had to assume to avoid persecution. In the mirror they seem themselves as they wish they could be - warm, affectionate, caring. Harmony Hammond, Lesbian Art in America (New York: Rizzoli, 2000), 69. -- source link
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