page_title: Lesbian feminism
section_title: Black lesbian feminism
hierarchical_section_title: Lesbian feminism / Lesbian of color feminism / Black lesbian feminism
caption_attribution_description: English: A banner in support of Black Lesbian Feminism. “Lesbian &amp; Gay Caucus member holds a sign that reads "Black Lesbian Feminist” at the 1980 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. August 11-14, 1980.“
context_page_description: Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective, most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, 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.
  Some key thinkers and activists are Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Marilyn Frye, Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, Cheryl Clarke, Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Monique Wittig, and Sara Ahmed.
  Lesbian feminism arose in the early 1970s out of dissatisfaction with second-wave feminism and the gay liberation movement.
  As stated by lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, "Lesbian feminism emerged as a result of two developments: lesbians within the [ Women's liberation movement ] began to create a new, distinctively feminist lesbian politics, and lesbians in the [ Gay Liberation Front ] left to join up with their sisters".
context_section_description: Black lesbian feminism originates from black feminism and the Civil Rights Movement in the beginning of the 1970s. Kaila Adia Story, a contemporary black lesbian feminist scholar, defines black lesbian feminism "as the thought and praxis of an intersectional gendered and sexual analysis of the world's relationship to queer women of color specifically, both cis and trans". The prominent authors who were at the roots of black lesbian feminism include Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Kate Rushin, doris davenport, Cheryl Clarke, and Margaret Sloan-Hunter.
  Black lesbian feminism emerged as a venue to address the issue of racism in the mainstream feminist movement, which was described as white, middle-class, and predominantly heterosexual. According to a 1979 statement by Barbara Smith, "the reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism", which is "the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women." Later, in 1984, she extended her views on black lesbian feminism mission to "a movement committed to fighting sexual, racial, economic and heterosexist oppression, not to mention one which opposes imperialism, anti-Semitism, the oppressions visited upon the physically disabled, the old and the young, at the same time that it challenges militarism and imminent nuclear destruction is the very opposite of narrow.”
  Most prominent black lesbian feminists were writers rather than scholars and expressed their position in literary ways. Allida Mae Black states that unlike black feminism, in 1977 the position of black lesbian feminism was not as clear as the position of black feminism and was "an allusion in the text." Apart from this, the position of black lesbian feminists was expressed in their interviews and public speeches. As such, in a 1980 interview published in American Poetry Review, Audre Lorde stated that a "true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women", as well as that all black women, whether they admit it or not, are lesbians because they are "raised in the remnants of a basically matriarchal society" and are still oppressed by patriarchy.
  Pat Parker's work reflected the oppression she suffered and observed in lives of other women. In her poem Have you Ever Tried to Hide, Parker calls out racism in the white feminist movement. In her multiple works, including the poem "Womanslaughter", she drew attention to the violence Black women experience in their lives. Among others, Parker defended the idea of complex identities and stated that, for her, revolution will happen when all elements of her identity "can come along."
caption: 1980 Democratic National Convention
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