Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon

thumb|200px|right|[[Wedding of Martin and Lyon, 2008]]

Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (May 5, 1921 – August 27, 2008) and Phyllis Ann Lyon (November 10, 1924 – April 9, 2020) were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists. They both acted as president and until 1963 successively as editor of The Ladder magazine, which they also founded. They were involved in the DOB until they joined the National Organization for Women (NOW), the first known lesbian couple to do so.

Both women worked to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) at Glide Memorial Methodist Church in northern California to persuade ministers to accept homosexuals into churches. The couple used their influence to decriminalize homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They became politically active in San Francisco's first gay political organization, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. This group influenced then-mayor Dianne Feinstein to sponsor a citywide bill to outlaw employment discrimination for gays and lesbians. Both women remained politically active, later serving in the White House Conference on Aging in 1995.

They were married on February 12, 2004, in the first same-sex wedding to take place in San Francisco after Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the city clerk to begin providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That marriage was voided by the California Supreme Court on August 12, 2004. Two months later on August 27, 2008, Martin died in San Francisco from complications of an arm bone fracture. Lyon died years later on April 9, 2020.

Del Martin

Del Martin was born as Dorothy Louise Taliaferro on May 5, 1921, in San Francisco. She was the first salutatorian to graduate from George Washington High School. She was educated at the University of California, Berkeley and at San Francisco State College, where she studied journalism. She earned a Doctor of Arts degree from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She was married for four years to James Martin and retained his name after their divorce. She had one daughter, Kendra Mon. Martin died on August 27, 2008, at UCSF Hospice in San Francisco, from complications of an arm bone fracture. She was 87 years old.

In 1977, Martin became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication among women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.

Martin was also one of the founders of the Lesbian Mothers Union.

Phyllis Lyon

Phyllis Lyon was born on November 10, 1924, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She held a degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, earned in 1946. During the 1940s, she worked as a reporter for the Chico Enterprise-Record, and during the 1950s, she worked as part of the editorial staff of two Seattle magazines.

On June 26, 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal, the 90-year-old Lyon "laughed and laughed when told the news. 'Well how about that?' she said. 'For goodness' sakes.'" She died on April 9, 2020, at the age of 95.

On February 12, 2004, Martin and Lyon were issued a marriage license by the City and County of San Francisco after mayor Gavin Newsom ordered that marriage licenses be given to same-sex couples who requested them.

The license, along with those of several thousand other same-sex couples, was voided by the California Supreme Court on August 12, 2004.

Activism

Daughters of Bilitis

In 1955, Martin and Lyon and six other lesbian women formed the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first national lesbian organization in the United States. Lyon was the first editor of DOB's newsletter, The Ladder, beginning in 1956. Martin took over editorship of the newsletter from 1960 to 1962. She was succeeded by other editors until the newsletter ended its connection with the Daughters of Bilitis in 1970. In 1970, she signaled in an essay the split of lesbian feminists from the male-dominated gay rights movement, characterizing the leaders of that movement as "hollow men of self-proclaimed privilege. They neither speak for us nor to us." Lyon and Martin worked to combat the homophobia they perceived in NOW, and encouraged the National Board of Directors of NOW's 1971 resolution that lesbian issues were feminist issues.

Lyon-Martin Health Services

Lyon-Martin Health Services was founded in 1979 by a group of medical providers and health activists as a clinic for lesbians who lacked access to non-judgmental and affordable health care. Named after Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the clinic soon became a model for culturally-sensitive community-based health care. Since 1993, Lyon-Martin also has provided case management and primary healthcare in programs specifically designed for very low-income and uninsured women with HIV, as well as services for transgender people.

Senior activists

thumb|right|250px|Pantsuits worn by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon to their weddings in San Francisco in 2004 and 2008; on display at the [[GLBT History Museum]]

In 1989, Martin and Lyon joined Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. In 1995 they were named delegates to the White House Conference on Aging, Martin by Senator Dianne Feinstein and Lyon by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, both from California.

Bibliography

Books are written by both Martin and Lyon except where noted:

Lesbian/Woman (1972), about lesbian life in modern America
Lesbian Love and Liberation (1973), about lesbians and sexual liberty
Battered Wives (1979), by Martin, blamed American domestic violence on institutionalized misogyny

The 1993 documentary Last Call at Maud's also featured Martin and Lyon.

Honors

In 2014, Martin was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."

In June 2019, Martin was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted and listed on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.

The Monument is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history. The wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

In June 2020, Lyon was added to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor.

Popular culture

Rosie O'Donnell plays Martin and Maddie Corman plays Lyon in the miniseries about LGBT rights called When We Rise.

Season 3, episode 7 of the podcast Making Gay History is about Martin and Lyon.

Shannon Purser plays Martin and Heather Matarazzo plays Lyon in the HBO Max series Equal, formally announced on August 24, 2020.

Archival sources

The extensive records of Lyon and Martin's professional and activist pursuits, including the administrative files of the Daughters of Bilitis, are preserved at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. The collection is fully processed and is available for use by researchers. The Online Archive of California (a project of the California Digital Library) offers the complete finding aid.