Phyllis Lyon was born on November 10, 1924, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and
raised primarily in northern California. She graduated from Sacramento High
School in 1943 and went on to the University of California-Berkeley, where she
received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1946. She served as a police-beat
and general reporter at the Chico Enterprise-Record during the 1940s.
In the early 1950s she served on the editorial staff at two building trades
magazines in Seattle, Washington.
Del Martin was born Dorothy L.
Taliaferro in San Francisco, California, on May 5, 1921, to Jones and Mary
Taliaferro. She was salutatorian of the first graduating class of George
Washington High School in San Francisco. She studied journalism at the
University of California at Berkeley and at San Francisco State College. Her
last name was changed to Martin during a four-year marriage to a man; she later
changed her first name to Del.
Lyon and Martin met in
Seattle, Washington, when Martin joined the staff of a business that published daily
construction reports where Lyon worked. They quickly became good friends and
within two years became romantically involved. They moved in together in San
Francisco in 1953. In 1955, they were part of a group of eight lesbians that
founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), in part to counteract the loneliness and
isolation they felt as lesbians. Lyon was the first editor of DOB's monthly
magazine, The Ladder, beginning in 1956 and into 1960. Del succeeded
Phyllis as editor in 1960 to 1962. She was followed by a number of
other editors until 1970 when the magazine was no longer a DOB project. Martin
was DOB national president from 1957 to 1960. Martin and Lyon were both instrumental
in organizing DOB's first national convention at a downtown San Francisco
hotel in 1960.
In 1962, Lyon, Martin and other early lesbian and
gay activists met with state legislators to urge them to change California sex
laws that criminalized homosexuals. The legislators encouraged them to secure
support from religious leaders. Shortly thereafter Phyllis and
Del met Ted McIlvenna, a Methodist clergy doing young adult outreach
at the Glide Urban Center, and some other young, progressive clergy. Lyon and
Martin accepted McIlvenna's invitation to participate in an historic
consultation between religious leaders and gay and lesbian activists in the
early summer of 1964. They insisted on a larger lesbian participation at
this consultation and got agreement for three other DOB members to join them
there. This consultation led to the formation of the Council on Religion and the
Homosexual (CRH) later that year.
Lyon and Martin both served on the initial
board of directors of CRH. They played key roles in organizing and staffing the
infamous Mardi Gras Ball on New Year's Day 1965 at California Hall where police
harassment of participants was challenged by CRH leaders. Phyllis was hired
at the Glide Foundation as McIlvenna's assistant and became the de facto staff
person for CRH for a number of years. With McIlvenna, she founded the National
Sex and Drug Forum (1968) and began a career as a sex educator. She was one
of the founding faculty members of The Institute for Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality, a graduate school that grants doctoral and other degrees in sexology,
in 1976.
Del and Phyllis were among the first out lesbians to join
the National Organization for Women (NOW), insisting on the couple's membership
rate. They helped lead efforts at the 1971 and 1973 NOW conventions to adopt
resolutions that linked the oppression of lesbians with feminist issues. Martin
was the first out lesbian elected to the NOW board.
In 1972, Lyon
and Martin wrote and had published Lesbian/Woman, a ground-breaking
book that portrayed lesbian lives in a positive, affirming way. Martin wrote
Battered Wives in 1976, that served as a catalyst for the organizing
movements against domestic violence and networks of shelters for battered
women.
Del was a
leader in the campaign that resulted in the 1973 decision of the American
Psychiatric Association to declare that homosexuality was not a mental illness.
Lyon chaired San Franciscans Against Proposition 6 (the Briggs
Initiative) in 1978 that defeated the initiative to ban gay and lesbian
teachers. They both attended the International Women's Year Conference in 1977
where they were instrumental in efforts to highlight the rights and concerns of
lesbians.
Published works that Lyon and Martin authored or co-authored on
religious issues that affect the well being of lesbians and gay men include:
"The Realities of Lesbianism," (originally appeared in motive
magazine, March-April 1969), published in The New Women, New York,
Bobbs-Merrill, 1970; "A Lesbian Approach to Theology," a short critique on a
paper by John von Rohr in Is Gay Good? A Symposium on Homosexuality,
Theology and Ethics, edited by W. Dwight Oberholtzer, Westminster Press,
1971; a chapter in Sexual Latitude, 1971; Lesbian/Woman,
San Francisco, Glide Publications, 1972, revised Bantam, 1983; updated, Volcano
Press, 1991; Lesbian Love and Liberation, San Francisco, Multi Media
Resource Center, 1972; "A Historic Consultation: The Church and the
Homosexual" in Open Hands,Winter, 1990. In addition, Phyllis
co-authored: with Rev. Ted McIlvenna, "What Do We Say About Pornography?" in
Church and Society, March-April 1970; and with Rev. Tom Maurer,
"Homosexuals Are Persons," in Spectrum, November-December,
1971.
They have continued their
activism in more recent years with Old Lesbians Organizing for Change and many
other local and national organizations. Among the many awards they have received are: Lyon-Martin Women's
Health Services in San Francisco was named for them in 1980; Earl Warren
Civil Liberties Award from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern
California in 1990; an Outstanding Public Service Award from the Society for the
Scientific Study of Sexuality in 1996; and grand marshals or special honorees
at many Gay & Lesbian Pride parades and festivals throughout the
U.S. They were honored as "Leading Voices" for LGBT people in faith communities by
the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at
its 2001 conference.
A documentary film about their
lives, No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon,
directed by JEB (Joan E. Biren) was premiered as part of their 50th anniversary
celebration on February 13, 2003. Phyllis and Del marked another historic
first one year later, when they became the first same-sex couple to officially
get a marriage license in San Francisco on February 12,
2004.
(Information for this
biographical statement taken from the finding aid to the Phyllis Lyon and Del
Martin Papers at the GLBT Historical Society and articles in the March 2003 and
June 2003 issues of The OLOC Reporter. Photo by Jane
Cleland.)