S2 E1"Pacing,"
or,
"A Gay Girl of Good Moral Character"
Would you like to be part of a group of women like us? The Daughters of Bilitis office hours are open.
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon establish a meeting group for gay girls and kick off the movement for lesbian rights. A small office in the Tenderloin and the debut issue of their magazine The Ladder draw the attention of women across the world.
or your favorite podcast platform.
Original release: June 3, 2020
“The Gayest Songs on Wax” by Edythe Eyde
Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where fans of Queer Serial can support my new LGBTQ+ history projects!
Join for research dives, bonus episodes, & rewards!
Check it all out at Patreon.com/QueerSerial
Season 2 Bonus episodes
"A Murder in Midtown"
A 1930s true queer murder mystery in New York City.
Subscribe on Patreon or Apple Podcasts to listen to this bonus episode from spin-off podcast Forgotten Fairy Tales—and many more from Mattachine Meeting, Randy Wicker Radio, Infamous Crimes: White Night Riot Interviews, and more!
Check out these free bonus episodes from season 2:
“Live and Let Live:
6 Decades Later”
Interview w/ Randy Wicker
Featuring Sylvia Rivera, Randy’s friend Michael, and stories about Marsha P. Johnson, the Mattachine, and radical activism.
Recorded in Hoboken, New Jersey, January 16, 2020.
“Return to Normalcy”
•
2020 Election Day bonus!
The 1920 presidential election proves yet again that history repeats itself, from fear-mongering to political scandal, and even a sitting president infected by the pandemic he downplayed. Make sure you have a plan to vote!
“Trans-sexuals and the Police”
on KPFA,
April 10, 1968
Three transgender San Franciscans discuss police problems and their work as members of C.O.G., Conversion our Goal, with Police Community Relations Officer Elliot Blackstone of the San Francisco Police Department. Herb Kutchins of the San Francisco Bail Project moderates.
“A Step Higher”
w/ Mattachino
Wendell Sayers
Historian Eric Marcus interviews Wendell Sayers, an attorney, the first Black assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado, and one of few Black members of the Mattachine Society.
He attended the 6th annual Mattachine convention in 1959, a dramatic event featured in S2 E8.
Instagram @queerserial
JUNE 3, 2020
After quite a bit of thought and advice, I decided to still release the new season as scheduled, even though I’ve been concerned that this is not the time to be taking attention from more important matters. But I think this may be a story worth telling right now, if you have the time to listen.
It’s a story about police corruption and brutality, and the brave queer people who spoke up and did something about it. They were encouraged by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. As discussed in the first episode, the Daughters of Bilitis had their first boom in membership the same year Rosa Parks, secretary for the Montgomery NAACP chapter, led her historic bus boycott.
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black child, had recently been brutally lynched in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman in a grocery store. His murderers were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury after less than an hour of deliberation. There was outrage. The white woman later recanted her testimony, saying Emmett never touched or harassed her. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”
Rosa Parks knew it was time to push the movement forward, and LGBTQ+ people saw what could be possible: protest, civil disobedience, change. The bus boycott lasted 381 days, until the buses became legally integrated.
If you’re interested in hearing about the roots of peaceful protests and modern American civil disobedience — organized, funded, and fought by people of all sexualities, races, genders, classes, innumerable intersections of identities — then I hope this show inspires you to pick up the torch and fight against these relentless injustices in 2020.
Please also stay tuned in to @blklivesmatter @blmchi and similar organizations.
photo of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon @glbt_history
booking photo of Rosa Parks from the Montgomery County archives
JUNE 2, 2020
#BlackLivesMatter
Click through tags for direct links to donate.
JUNE 4, 2020
Salvio Gado voices Del Martin, co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis.
They are a VERY talented Chicago actor and one of my dearest judys. ⭐️ Salvio also voiced Dorr Legg and Reverend Wallace de Ortega Maxey in season 1! @salviogado ✨
JUNE 1, 2020
This (sort of) whodunnit case from 1939 stands alone from the rest of the show. Warning: there is some sexual violence.
Join me for some wild bonus stories on patreon.com/queerserial. Patreon subscribers get the first BONUS episode TODAY! Ahead of the full Queer Serial season 😘
photos from the New York Daily News, obviously.
JULY 11, 2020
Early artwork for “The Ladder” 💜
🗂 @glbt_history
JULY 8, 2020
This season is funded in part by a grant from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, San Francisco. ⛪️
The Sisters are a leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns who have been devoted to drag street performance and activism since 1979.
Learn more about their events and charity work at thesisters.org. Thank you, sisters! 💋
📸 David Green
JUNE 6, 2020
In the credits of ep 1, I mentioned that Edythe Eyde (Lisa Ben) had an additional pen name outside of her Lesbian magazine VICE VERSA. On my Patreon, I’ve shared a ton of her sci-fi and horror work, including these drawings by Eyde A.K.A. TIGRINA THE DEVIL DOLL.
🔥🔥🔥
Also, I’ve shared more music by Eyde not featured in the podcast! 🎶
patreon.com/QueerSerial
link in bio 💋
“It says here in the crystal ball that soon your feelings will be hurt by a brunette. I wonder who that would be?”
Drawings by Tigrina, from friend and fan of Eyde, Rob Hansen.
Music from Queer Music Heritage
JULY 28, 2021
Bonus! A 1930s murder mystery in Midtown 🔍 pop over to my patreon to hear the full story on the bonus podcast!
✨ patreon.com/queerserial✨
Link in my bio for TONS of upcoming new research dives and new bonus episodes for season 3! And a new show on her wayyyy
SEPTEMBER 9, 2020
Dozens of illustrators had their take on “Songs of Bilitis” by Pierre Louÿs. For the next several weeks on my Patreon, I’m taking deep dives on each artist’s NSFW creations. Today, Georges Barbier, whose work is part of the podcast’s cover art.
🎨
.
patreon.com/queerserial for tons more 🔥
🗂 Georges Barbier, 1922
SEPTEMBER 13, 2020
Famously banned book “The Well of Loneliness” on display at the Gerber/Hart Library & Archives here in Chicago in the Howard Brown Health waiting room. The book that brought many lesbians together, including several from the Daughters of Bilitis. (Swipe to see the British Attorney General say, “It is propaganda.”) And just behind her, “Spring Fire,” the groundbreaking lesbian pulp novel. 🔥
Follow Gerber/Hart’s insta, it’s terrific!
🗂 @gerberhart
Edythe Eyde a.k.a. Lisa Ben a.k.a. Tigrina the Devil Doll
JULY 11, 2020
“In these days of frozen foods, motion picture palaces, compact apartments, modern innovations and female independence, there is no reason why a woman would have to look to a man for food and shelter in return for raising his children and keeping his house in order unless she really wants to. Never before have circumstances and conditions been so suitable for those of lesbian tendencies.” 🍦
—Edythe Eyde A.K.A. Lisa Ben, “Vice Versa: America’s Gayest Magazine,” 1947 ☀️
JULY 9, 2020
Thank you to @makinggayhistorypodcast for allowing me to include Edythe Eyde’s voice in the podcast. Check out her songs, recorded by Eric Marcus, in episode 1 this season. 🎸
📸 queermusicheritage.com
JANUARY 27, 2022
Lisa Ben was the first lesbian activist I covered on the pod back in s1. Today you can hear some of her best songs covered by Lydia Légaré on Spotify!!
@lisabenssongbook
Lisa Ben (anagram for ‘lesbian’) was one of Edythe Eyde’s pen names. She wrote gay songs, the first American lesbian magazine, and science fiction!
AUGUST 4, 2021
“Perhaps even ’Vice Versa’ might be the forerunner of better magazines dedicated to the third sex, which in some future time might take their rightful place on the newsstands beside other publications to be available openly and without restriction to those who wish to read them.”
—Edythe Eyde AKA Lisa Ben AKA Tigrina the Devil Doll, horror and song writer, creator of the first lesbian magazine, and “fortune teller.” (Currently working on a Patreon research dive covering everything I’ve found about her over the years… there’s a lot to organize.)
📸🗞 @onearchives
🐈 October 7, 1973 Los Angeles Times.
OCTOBER 31, 2020
Singer of the songs for “gay gals,” Edythe Eyde (AKA Lisa Ben) had yet another pen name… Tigrina the Devil Doll! 🔥 Not only did she write the country’s first lesbian magazine, she also wrote sci-fi and horror stories. (You can see tons more of her work on my Patreon.) 🎃
Hear her “Gayest Songs on Wax” in episodes 1 and 9 of season 2.
✏️drawings by Tigrina, from friend and fan of Eyde, Rob Hansen.
📸 QueerMusicHeritage.com
📸 @onearchives
OCTOBER 31, 2020
Singer of the songs for “gay gals,” Edythe Eyde (AKA Lisa Ben) had yet another pen name… Tigrina the Devil Doll! 🔥 Not only did she write the country’s first lesbian magazine, she also wrote sci-fi and horror stories.
🎃
Hear her “Gayest Songs on Wax” in episodes 1 and 9 of season 2.
✏️drawings by Tigrina, from friend and fan of Eyde, Rob Hansen.
📸 QueerMusicHeritage.com
📸 @onearchives
OCTOBER 31, 2020
“It says here in the crystal ball that soon your feelings will be hurt by a brunette. I wonder who that would be?” 🔮
Hear her “Gayest Songs on Wax” in episodes 1 and 9 of season 2.
✏️drawings by Tigrina, from friend and fan of Eyde, Rob Hansen.
📸 QueerMusicHeritage.com
📸 @onearchives
NOVEMBER 22, 2020
ok bragging! But I want to show off my issue of ‘The Ladder’ that I bought a while back. The DOB reused the same cover from their debut issue for this one, Vol 1 Issue 8. (The one on the wall for the promo shoot is of course a reprint. No real docs were harmed in the making of the promo. Also, the debut issue says “1st Rung” in the top right corner.) 📒
Swipe through to see letters from readers (Jeannette Howard Foster!!) and ads for ONE and the Mattachine Review.
AUGUST 16, 2021
“One letter addressed simply to ‘Daughters of Bilitis, San Francisco, California’ reached us... Letters and subscriptions have been pouring into the DOB office.” 💌
📸 Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin, photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen @nyplpicturecollection
JULY 10, 2020
Keep up with the movement! 🗞