Dreams of a New World: The Intimate Spaces of Lesbian Movement Building in the 1970s

This paper chronicles the lives of a generation of lesbian-identified baby-boomer women in the 1970s.  Women who came of age in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s constitute a racially diverse cohort that was instrumental in the creation of a newly visible lesbian identity and community. As young women, they aspired to create models of family, gender, and sexuality based on the concept of “women-loving-women.” Their stories represent a kaleidoscope of experiences connected by the shared aspiration to find new ways to live and love as women, played out in the spaces of bars, cafes, private dwellings, and women’s organizations throughout the Bay Area. 

This generation of women has garnered some scholarly attention that either looks at these women through the lens of lesbian-feminism or the gay and lesbian rights movement.  While most work on social change focuses on political activism and organizations, I take into account the everyday experiences of women as they formed same-sex relationships, social networks, and communities that developed, articulated, and put into practice the social ideals of their generation.  In particular, this paper highlights the early 1970s when a “new” lesbian identity begins to appear with and against the emergence of lesbian feminism.  While acknowledging the influence of that strand of feminism, I focus on young baby-boomers’ daily experiences as they began to change the look and meaning of being lesbian and woman in what I call the intimate processes of social change.