Journal of Lesbian Studies

ISSN: 1089-4160 (Print) 1540-3548 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjls20

“How to stop choking to death”: Rethinking lesbian

separatism as a vibrant political theory and
feminist practice

Julie R. Enszer

To cite this article: Julie R. Enszer (2016) “How to stop choking to death”: Rethinking lesbian
separatism as a vibrant political theory and feminist practice, Journal of Lesbian Studies, 20:2,
180-196, DOI: 10.1080/10894160.2015.1083815

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2015.1083815

Published online: 25 Feb 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=wjls20

Download by: [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] Date: 26 February 2016, At: 04:03
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES
2016, VOL. 20, NO. 2, 180 196
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2015.1083815

“How to stop choking to death”: Rethinking

lesbian separatism as a vibrant political theory and feminist
practice
Julie R. Enszer

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In contemporary feminist discourses, lesbian separatism is often Diaspora Distribution;
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

mocked. Whether blamed as a central reason for feminism’s feminist theory; lesbian;
alleged failure or seen as an unrealistic, utopian vision, lesbian lesbian-feminism; lesbian
separatism is a maligned social and cultural formation. This separatism; lesbian theory;
Olivia Records; Sinister
article traces the intellectual roots of lesbian feminism from the Wisdom; Women in
early 1970s in The Furies and Radicalesbians through the work Distribution
of Julia Penelope and Sarah Lucia Hoagland in the 1980s and
1990s, then considers four feminist and lesbian organizations
that offer innovative engagements with lesbian separatism.
Olivia Records operated as a separatist enterprise, producing
and distributing womyn’s music during the 1970s and 1980s.
Two book distributors, Women in Distribution, which operated
in the 1970s, and Diaspora Distribution, which operated in the
1980s, offer another approach to lesbian separatism as a form of
economic and entrepreneurial engagement. Finally, Sinister
Wisdom, a lesbian-feminist literary and arts journal, enacts a
number of different forms of lesbian separatism during its forty-
year history. These four examples demonstrate economic and
cultural investments of lesbian separatism and situate its
investments in larger visionary feminist projects. More than a
rigid ideology, lesbian separatism operates as a feminist process,
a method for living in the world.

Lesbian separatism is a vibrant political theory and feminist practice, but histories
of feminisms and schematics that map strands of feminist theories and the influen-
ces of feminist thinking rarely recognize it. In fact, in contemporary discourses,
feminists often mock and ridicule lesbian separatism.1 Whether positioned as a
central reason for feminisms’ alleged failure during the 1970s and 1980s or as an
unrealistic, utopian vision, lesbian separatism is a maligned social and cultural for-
mation inside and outside of feminism with only a few exceptions. Dana R. Shu-
gar’s book-length study of separatism, Sep-a-ra-tism and Women’s Community,
engages key separatist discourse as enabling community work; Kathy Rudy’s arti-
cle, “Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory,” puts Rudy’s expe-
riences at Ladyslipper, a feminist music distribution company, in conversation
with radical feminist and queer theories; Scott Herring examines lesbian

CONTACT Julie R. Enszer [email protected]

© 2016 Taylor and Francis
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 181

separatism in the magazine Country Women as a critique that counters homonor-

mativity and metronormativity; and Greta Rensenbrink explores how lesbians
imagined parthenogenesis as a way of regenerating women’s communities.2 Join-
ing the work of Shugar, Rudy, Herring, and Rensenbrink, this article rethinks les-
bian separatism through its own statements of purpose and with four lesbian
organizations. By linking theory with material practices, lesbian separatism moves
from its pariah-like social location to a space of affirmative recognition with
important historical and contemporary contributions.
Separatism as a theory has animated social and political formations for hun-
dreds of years. Various religious groups have practiced separatism with different
social, economic, and spiritual meanings. Feminists in the late nineteenth century
and early twentieth century utilized separatism as an organizing strategy, as have
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

different racial-ethnic groups in the United States and around the world.3 Black
Nationalism and Jewish Nationalism offered inspiration to some lesbians as lesbian
separatism emerged in the 1970s.4 The intellectual roots of lesbian separatism are
rich, deep, and complex.
This article does not offer a comprehensive review of theories of lesbian separat-
ism, nor does it parse the many engagements of lesbian separatism. Elana Dykewo-
mon tells me “at some point in my life, I made notes about the seven different
kinds of separatism I could identify, and the problem of lumping them all
together.”5 Rather than a thorough mapping of lesbian separatist thought, this arti-
cle offers an idiosyncratic gathering of some key texts of lesbian separatist theories
to consider ideas that animated lesbian separatism in relationship to political, eco-
nomic, and cultural lesbian-feminist formations in the 1970s and 1980s.
Alongside this exegesis of theories are four histories of organizations that
enacted some type of lesbian separatism: Olivia Records, Women in Distribution,
Diaspora Distribution, and Sinister Wisdom. Each of these organizations offers
innovative, sustained engagements with lesbian separatism. Olivia Records oper-
ated as a separatist enterprise with great success (and much criticism), producing
and distributing womyn’s music during the 1970s and 1980s. Two book distribu-
tors, Women in Distribution, which operated in the 1970s, and Diaspora Distribu-
tion, which operated in the 1980s, approached lesbian separatism differently.
Women in Distribution was a form of economic and entrepreneurial engagement
for its two principles. Diaspora Distribution offered a political and cultural plat-
form for its principles to organize lesbians and activate their vision for a lesbian
future. Finally, Sinister Wisdom, a lesbian-feminist literary and arts journal, enacts
a number of different forms of lesbian separatism during its forty-year history.
These organizational stories take seriously the work of lesbian activists and suggest
ways that separatism activates lesbian imaginaries.
By intertwining theories of lesbian separatism with material practices, lesbian
separatism emerges not as rigid ideology rather as a process for living in the world.
The persistence of lesbian separatism and its linkages to material and economic
practices challenge current historiography of the Women’s Liberation Movement.6
 182 J. R. ENSZER

Lesbian separatism in theory and practice highlights economic and cultural invest-
ments of lesbians in visionary feminist projects.

Intellectual roots of lesbian separatism

A nascent definition of lesbian separatism comes from the 1970 statement, “The
Woman Identified Woman,” by Radicalesbians, a New York City based group.
Radicalesbians called on women to focus on “the primacy of women relating to
women, of women creating a new consciousness of and with each other which is at
the heart of women’s liberation, and the basis for the cultural revolution.”7 Center-
ing relationships with other women, Radicalesbians highlight early feminist atten-
tion to consciousness, liberation, culture, and revolution. For Radicalesbians,
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

women focusing on other women offered a strategy for women to discover their
“authentic selves,” which they believed had been “obscured” by patriarchy.8 Radi-
calesbians asserted the primacy of women to feminism, providing an intellectual
basis for lesbians to both join feminism and make it their own.
In 1971, two women in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Lois Anne Addison and her lover,
published for about a year a periodic paper named Spectre. They used the name
Revolutionary Lesbians to describe themselves and wrote that they were striving
for “a non-exploitive communist society.” As Revolutionary Lesbians, Addison
and her lover advocated separatism in a short piece titled, “How to Stop Choking
to Death,” published in the second issue of Spectre. Revolutionary Lesbians defined
separatism as “working directly only with women.”9 This definition becomes an
operational definition for lesbian separatism for the next three decades, but Revo-
lutionary Lesbians are rarely credited. Most often the popularizing of lesbian sepa-
ratism is attributed to The Furies.
In January 1972, The Furies: lesbian/feminist monthly hit the streets of Washing-
ton, DC. In a front-page manifesto written by Ginny Berson, The Furies declared,
We are angry because we are oppressed by male supremacy. We have been fucked over all
our lives by a system which is based on the domination of men over women, which
defines male as good and female as only as good as the man you are with. It is a system in
which heterosexuality is rigidly enforced and Lesbianism rigidly suppressed. It is a system
which has further divided us by class, race, and nationality.10

Speaking on behalf of The Furies, Berson expressed a number of important les-

bian-feminist views in this opening salvo: lesbianism as a necessary choice for fem-
inists, the failure of the “straight women’s movement” and the “male left” to
address lesbian issues, the necessity for lesbians to develop a “common politic” of
“Lesbianism as a political issue,” and the divisions of class, race, and nationality
that challenge feminism.11 These ideas provide a foundation for the theoretical
developments of The Furies over the next eighteen months.
Twelve women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight comprised The
Furies. Part communal living cooperative, part consciousness-raising group, part
revolutionary cell for radical feminism, part newspaper collective, The Furies were
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 183

a vital force in lesbian-feminism and extraordinarily influential. The newspaper

that they published in 1972 and 1973 traveled across the United States; lesbian-
feminists in communities around the country read it eagerly. The Furies analyzed
oppression and worked to develop a vision for broader social change using their
own live and work community as a site for experimentation. Anne Valk describes
The Furies playing “a pivotal role in bringing attention to lesbians’ presence in the
women’s movement and legitimizing lesbian feminism as a political issue.”12 The
Furies also articulated lesbian separatism as an important feminist theory and
practice. Through regular reports on their living and working arrangements in the
newspaper, The Furies promulgated the idea of lesbian separatism to feminists
around the United States.
Separatism for The Furies had two important characteristics: first, it expressed
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

the belief that every woman could be a lesbian; second, separatism was a strategic
mechanism for lesbians to create new political futures. Writing in The Furies,
Coletta Reid said, “women can choose not to be heterosexual, to not support the
power system that oppresses them.” The Furies theorized sexual orientation as a
choice with political implications. Heterosexuality put women in too much close
contact with male oppressors, whereas being a lesbian was “a choice for women
and against oppression.”13 The belief that sexual orientation was a choice was
foundational for The Furies. Today, of course, people are more likely to understand
sexual orientation as an innate, or biologically determined, characteristic.14
During the 1970s and 1980s, however, lesbian-feminists and lesbian separatists
recognized power in the possibility that women could choose to be lesbians. If every
woman could be a lesbian, then every lesbian could be a separatist—and according
to The Furies, separatism was a compelling proposition. In a fall 1972 article, Char-
lotte Bunch outlined reasons for separatism. After acknowledging the fissures of
‘Sisterhood is powerful’—the divisions of “race, class, heterosexuality, etc.”—Bunch
offers separatism as a way:
to escape the debilitating effects of being with one’s oppressor; to develop an analysis of
one’s particular oppression and force its recognition by others; to build pride and self-
dependence away from those who downgrade or ignore you; to rediscover and affirm
areas of experience and ways of thinking and doing things that are not recognized as legit-
imate by the oppressor’s standards; to create strength and unity of the oppressed as a base
for survival and power within the whole society; and to build a political ideology and
strategy more quickly with those who share certain oppressions and/or ideological
positions.15

Separatism was a political theory and practice that would ignite and accelerate
women’s liberation. The Furies advocated experimenting with separatism to
foment feminist revolution.
While The Furies were developing their analysis of lesbian separatism in Wash-
ington, DC, four women in Seattle, Washington were writing a 100-page polemic:
Lesbian Separatism: An Amazon Analysis. Four women—Alice, Debbie, Gordon,
and Mary—published Lesbian Separatism on July 4, 1973. This pamphlet begins
 184 J. R. ENSZER

with an exegesis of early matriarchal societies followed by an analysis of patriarchal

societies. From this analytic history, the four authors assert that the solution to end
the oppression of women is lesbian separatism. For these women, lesbian separat-
ism is the only viable ideology that can both “destroy patriarchy and male suprem-
acy and build an egalitarian matriarchal society.”16 The authors continue with an
analysis of the contemporary feminist and progressive movement and their limita-
tions in addressing the issues of lesbians.
While the language of this analysis is heightened and powerful, taking cues from
other contemporary feminist and lesbian manifestos, the projects that the four plan
to undertake are reasonable. The women outline three goals for their work as les-
bian separatists:
1. to build a sense of community among lesbians and a movement in that
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

community
2. to develop long-term durable structures for that movement
3. to begin the long-term struggles with racism, classism, ageism, etc.17
To achieve these goals, they want to work on projects together. They offer four
criteria for selecting projects to achieve their goals:
1. The project should be anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-agist, and anti-sexist in
its form.
2. It should be composed solely of lesbians
3. It should relate to real needs or problems confronting LESBIANS and not be
just a straight women’s project grafted onto the lesbian community
4. It should attempt to build roots and contacts in the lesbian community and
involve lesbians not already politicized.18
As well as reasonable, the goals and projects criteria outlined are laudable. They
imagine a separatist community in Seattle of lesbians working on projects that use
an intersectional analysis and address the material realities of lesbians. The practi-
cality of their ideas is striking—and may explain why lesbian separatism has made
so many lasting contributions to feminist communities.
The mid-1970s were a fecund moment for lesbians to think about and envision
lesbian separatism. Lesbian separatism as a theory, ideology, political, social, and
economic practice was in use across the country. In Chicago, Vernita Gray recalls,
“Lesbian separatism was really springing up in that era…. I called myself a separat-
ist. … I felt and feel to this day that it’s important for women to have power. That’s
so important because once you take and claim your own power it’s very difficult
for people to oppress you[.]”19 If the Revolutionary Lesbians defined separatism as
“working directly with only women,” Gray captures its significance: claiming
power.
“Working directly with only women” to “claim your own power” is an effective
working definition of lesbian separatism. Rather than rigid and unyielding, lesbian
separatism, in this fecund intellectual environment of the 1970s and 1980s, imagi-
nes itself as malleable and adaptive. Lesbian separatism is a generative project,
enabling the creation of projects with value for lesbians. Hundreds of projects
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 185

emerge during the 1970s and 1980s that use lesbian separatism as a theory to shape
their work; many of these projects deserve additional attention and analysis. Here I
consider four lesbian separatist experiments: Women in Distribution (WinD), Oli-
via Records, Diaspora Distribution, and Sinister Wisdom.

Four lesbian separatist experiments

Two significant lesbian separatist projects stem directly from The Furies. Members
of The Furies founded both Olivia Records, a music production company, and
Women in Distribution (WinD), a book distribution company. Both projects were
originally based in Washington, DC, and founded in the mid-1970s. Olivia
Records and WinD centrally concerned themselves with how revolutionary femi-
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

nism could provide economic opportunities for lesbians, using separatism as a

political—and economic—practice.

Women in Distribution
In the last issue of The Furies, Lee Schwing and Helaine Harris wrote an article
titled “Building Feminist Institutions.” They argue that feminism and lesbian-femi-
nism should address “money and survival” in “an extensive, concrete way.”
Schwing and Harris argue for building lesbian-feminist institutions to “meet our
economic and survival needs.” They analyze the many benefits of these imagined
institutions, including freeing women’s time, giving women control of the bodies
and their lives, “providing economic security for women” and opportunities to
learn new skills. They conclude, “These institutions will kindle our energies and
give us space to research, talk and have insights into developing our ideology and
strategy. This should help create another step towards a feminist society.”20 WinD
was one important step that Harris, Schwing, and their colleague Cynthia Gair
took toward creating a feminist society.
WinD operated from 1974 until 1979. With revenues of about $120,000 a
year in 1977 and 1978, WinD proved the viability of a secondary market for
women’s literary production and provided employment for Helaine Harris
and Cynthia Gair, the two owners and operators of the business. WinD was
one of the “host of new feminist businesses [that] have come into being since
the women’s liberation movement began to gather steam in the late 1960s,”
according to The Wall Street Journal reporter Bill Hieronymus. In a feature
article on feminist businesses, Hieronymus explains separatism to readers
using feminist printer and publisher Diana Press as an example. Hieronymus
writes, “Diana Press not only shows male job applicants the door, it refuses to
accept male customers. (The owners say they have more business than they
can handle from women.)”21 Diana Press co-owner, Coletta Reid, was a mem-
ber of The Furies with Harris and Gair.22 Like Harris and Gair after The Fur-
ies, Reid turned her attention to transforming U.S. capitalism, using
separatism as a strategy to achieve economic independence for women.
 186 J. R. ENSZER

Similar to Diana Press, WinD worked “directly only with women” and relied on
various “feminist separatist” strategy (as Hieronymus described it in the WSJ arti-
cle) to achieve their business objectives. WinD developed their business strategy
from observations and discussions about needs within the feminist community
and built the enterprise through their feminist social and political networks. In an
important strategy to grow the business, Harris and Gair asked feminist publishers
to use WinD exclusively for their distribution of their books, driving more business
through WinD and ideally building distribution for small presses.
Between 1977 and 1979, WinD’s distribution network increased substantially. In
1979, the mailing list for WinD was “100C pages long and contain[ed] 2,500
names and addresses.” Within the list were 700 bookstores, approximately
900 1,200 libraries, 200 400 women’s studies departments, and a variety of pub-
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

lishers and individuals.23 There was an eager audience of readers for feminist crea-
tive work, and WinD was an important part of an increasingly sophisticated
network of businesses selling feminist products. Unfortunately, WinD could not
survive the recession in 1978 and 1979. During the summer of 1979, Gair and Har-
ris shuttered WinD’s operations.24
While WinD did not survive, its dissolution was not the result of any theoretical
flaw in a business model embracing separatism. Rather broad economic conditions
effected WinD as they did thousands of other small businesses. Lesbian separatist
ideas formulated initially in The Furies and extended at WinD demonstrate the
vibrancy of separatism shaping the lives and work of women as they resisted
patriarchy.

Olivia Records
Olivia Records produced women’s music—over forty albums that collectively sold
close to two million copies.25 Four members of The Furies, Jennifer Woodhul, Lee
Schwing, Ginny Berson, and Helaine Harris, started Olivia Records in 1973.26
Shortly after Olivia Records’ genesis in Washington, DC, Woodhul and Berson
realized that, to be successful, the business needed to be in Los Angeles, the center
of the music industry. Woodhul and Berson moved west where Olivia Records
grew to be a vibrant and influential women’s music company.27
The first two albums from Olivia were Meg Christian’s I Know You Know,
which sold 100,000 copies, and Cris Williamson’s The Changer and the Changed,
which sold 300,000 copies.28 In addition to producing and releasing albums, Olivia
produced concerts. Olivia organized four concerts at Carnegie Hall, including the
iconic ten-year anniversary concert with Williamson and Christian.29 Olivia
Records continues to operate today as a lesbian entertainment and travel company;
the bulk of their current activities are cruises.
Olivia Records was an important site to work through the ideas and values of
lesbian separatism—what audience restrictions could be maintained and still have
an audience and a viable production company? In other words, could women alone
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 187

buy enough concert tickets to support the business? Would they buy enough albu-
ms? The daily work of building the business also raised important questions about
separatism in business, including what happens when there are not women with
the needed expertise to produce music? While Olivia quickly found women musi-
cians and performers, finding women who were technical experts in music produc-
tion and recording proved challenging.
One of the controversies at Olivia during the 1970s surrounded Sandy Stone, a
sound engineer, who came to work with Olivia in 1974. Janice Raymond outed
Stone as a transwoman while she researched her book, The Transsexual Empire:
The Making of the She-Male. In the book, Raymond described Stone as playing “a
very dominant role” at Olivia.30 Prior to the book publication, Raymond, with a
group of feminists, wrote an open letter to Olivia Records in 1976, demanding that
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

Olivia account for Sandy Stone. They wrote,

We feel that it was and is irresponsible of you to have presented this person as a woman
to the women’s community when in fact he [sic] is a post-operative transexual. The deci-
sion to work with a transexual is one issue in itself; but the omission of this information
from the public of women who support you was an unwise choice. We feel that it was
deceptive not to share this process with the women’s community. Many women give you
their financial support precisely because they trust you to work with women exclusively,
and you are not being accountable to these women.31

In this letter Raymond et al. echo Revolutionary Lesbians’ definition of lesbian

separatism—“work with women exclusively”—and demand accountability from
the Olivia Records collective for their implementation of the theory. The collective
of Olivia Records responded to the circulation of this letter by noting that, while
they initially had questions and concerns about working with Stone when they
hired her, when they began working together, “Our daily political and personal
interactions with her have confirmed for each of us that she is a woman we can
relate to with comfort and with trust.”32 Moreover, the collective said that they did
not account to the community because, “Sandy Stone is a person, not an issue.”33
Stone worked with Olivia Records through 1978.
The Olivia Records collective asserts a vision of lesbian separatism that is rela-
tional and evolving, while Raymond and the other feminists named in the letter
ask for clear and definite boundaries. This controversy was one of a handful of
skirmishes about boundaries; another was Robin Morgan’s call for the expulsion of
Beth Elliot from the West Coast Women’s Music Festival. These incidents—highly
publicized in feminist newspapers and newsletters—combined with similar bound-
ary issues at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival during the 1990s and 2000s,
cleave lesbian separatism to trans-exclusion and transphobia. While I understand
the political exigencies of these linkages in the past and even today, lesbian separat-
ism within Olivia Records operated in concert with Sandy Stone—and the separat-
ist Olivia collective defended Stone’s work and membership. The stories of lesbian
 188 J. R. ENSZER

separatism and transgender women, historically and today, are complex and
nuanced.
Ultimately, Olivia Records created economic opportunities for women musi-
cians, music producers, engineers, and an array of music professions; they did that
work, in part, using theories of lesbian separatism. Olivia Records and Women in
Distribution both used separatism as a mode of economic engagement to support
lesbians to make a living resisting patriarchy, if not living outside it. While WinD
had powerful relationships with booksellers and an important niche, their role as
an intermediary business enterprise and not a direct-to-consumer business made it
more difficult to adapt to changing market conditions. Olivia, on the other hand,
survived as a company as a result of the close relationship they built with lesbian
customers and lesbian communities; Olivia transformed its business from record
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

and concert production to travel and entertainment.

Diaspora Distribution
From 1979 through 1984, Elana Dykewomon and Dolphin Waletzky operated a
small, lesbian separatist company called Diaspora Distribution. Based in Coos Bay,
Oregon and later in Oakland, California, Diaspora distributed materials by and for
lesbians only; Waletzky described it as “the first and only and ever [lesbian distri-
bution company]… in the existence of the world and galaxies that we know of.”
During its six years of operation, Diaspora distributed about a dozen items, includ-
ing two books that Diaspora published, Dykewomon’s collection of poetry, Frag-
ments from Lesbos, and Judy Freespirit’s book, Daddy’s Girl, about incest; a
collection of short stories by lesbian writer Jess Wells; hand-spun, wool menstrual
pads, pillowcases, and audio tapes, among other items.34
Dykewomon became a separatist during the 1970s. Questions raised by her sep-
aratist practice influenced how she published her second book, They Will Know
Me By My Teeth (1976). She designed and printed the book through Maegara
Press, with the line, “To Be Sold To And Shared With Women Only,” at the bot-
tom of the back cover next to the price. Distributing the book in that spirit became
a challenge. Persephone Press, the lesbian publishing enterprise in Watertown,
Massachusetts, distributed Dykewomon’s book. Dykewomon and Gloria Z. Green-
field of Persephone discussed the terms of Dykewomon’s separatism—and how to
distribute the book—on a number of occasions. On April 7, 1980, Greenfield wrote
to Dykewomon, “Persephone’s accounts have grown tremendously over the past
year, and it is only fair to tell you that we cannot have the same control over which
bookstores receive TEETH. As you know, our brochure says that the book is for
women only. After that, we cannot guarantee anything.”35 While the idea of the
book being sold to and shared with women only was important to Dykewomon,
for the book to reach a wider audience in the world, other organizations had to be
involved. With Persephone, Dykewomon grappled with how to implement her
vision of separatism in relationship to her own cultural product. In conversation
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 189

with one another, Dykewomon and Greenfield outlined different views of separat-
ism—as a strategy and practice. Greenfield recognized the differences and affirmed
her respect for Dykewomon’s practices while explicating those of Persephone. She
wrote,
While we respect your position of defining lesbian separatism as being apart from all
others, we have a different definition, and respect both positions. We have had t-shirts
printed, saying “PERSEPHONE PRESS__A LESBIAN STRATEGY.” We want to use Per-
sephone (i.e. lesbian publishing) to open up communications for lesbian thought and
new ways of thinking. We want to change this world, and we want to establish a Lesbian
Presence.36

This communication demonstrates how even in the 1980s, lesbian separatism

Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

continued to be emergent and contested. Greenfield and Dykewomon were each

shaping separatism as a theory that informed their different political and
economic activities.
By the early 1980s, Dykewomon wanted to create more limits to implementing
her vision of lesbian separatism than Persephone could offer her. The idea of only
selling to lesbians presented real, material challenges to Persephone during the
1970s and to Diaspora in the 1980s. In printed materials, Diaspora said that they
only distributed products to lesbians, but the challenge of course is how do you
know? Dykewomon and Waletzky both recognized that while they said that they
were only distributing to lesbians, “We didn’t you know, check.”37 It was difficult
to verify that they were distributing to only lesbians, and questions arose routinely.
Waletzky remembers, “What if it was a gay bookstore?”38 The challenges of operat-
ing a lesbian separatist business were a site of struggle and engagement for both
Dykewomon and Waletzky.
Dykewomon described her vision for lesbian separatism in a 2013 interview: “I
had come to believe that if we developed a private network of communication, we
could develop language and symbols. In that way, we would have to subvert the
dominant paradigm. Or to make the revolution in a way. Or both.” Dykewomon
continued explaining about the power of objects made only for lesbians. She
explains, “Nobody had ever done that for women or lesbians.” Generally lesbians
were “the incidental audience” but in the case of products made by lesbians and
lesbian separatists, lesbians became “the chosen audience.” While she recognizes
this aligning with empowerment, she said, “I think the better word is encourage, to
encourage and see love in that way.”39 For Waltezky, “[lesbian separatism] was
really an attempt to create accessibility for people who might not necessarily have
those avenues open to them, to have their words spread out as a distribution thing.
So it was like making and acknowledging a culture for lesbians that would be acces-
sible to lesbians. And would encourage them to create more of that culture and
spread it out.”40
Both Dykewomon and Waletzky recall being righteous about the issue of selling
to only lesbians but not knowing how to enforce it. Generally, statements like
 190 J. R. ENSZER

“selling only to lesbians” suggest ideology—firm and fixed ideas—but if we regard

them as a process, then the understanding of the work is radically different. The
intention of Dykewomon and Waletzky at Diaspora Distribution was to find ways
not only to sell to lesbians but also to prioritize working with lesbians. Waltezky
remembers, Diaspora “was making and acknowledging a culture for lesbians that
would be accessible to lesbians. And would encourage them to create more of that
culture and spread it out.” Both Waletzky and Dykewomon wanted to create “a
sanctuary” to “nourish people” not “to let them just be escaping from but [instead]
to create something new and feel safe in the process.” Dykewomon and Waletzky
both saw their work as inspiring lesbians to create new things and imagine new
worlds. Lesbian separatism was a strategy to promote lesbian creation—in litera-
ture, the arts, political analysis, and new forms of consciousness. More than refusal,
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

separatism was an embrace of new possibilities generated through space and time
devoted to only lesbians. These generative ideas are often lost in narratives about
separatism.

Sinister Wisdom
Harriet Desmoines and Catherine Nicholson started Sinister Wisdom in Charlotte,
North Carolina, in 1976. The publication date of the first issue was July 4, 1976, the
U.S. bicentennial; Desmoines and Nicholson liked to imagine what the United
States might look like two hundred years into the future after a lesbian revolution.
Desmoines and Nicholson situated Sinister Wisdom as a separatist project in their
first “Notes for a Magazine.” They wrote, “We’d become lesbian separatists because
no other political position satisfied. But that left us with scattered beginnings of a
culture and no viable strategies.”41 They envisioned Sinister Wisdom playing a cru-
cial role in the project of developing a culture and promoting viable transformative
strategies for lesbian separatists.
The second editors of Sinister Wisdom, Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, strug-
gled with separatism. Rich wrote an extended consideration of separatism in 1981
in her “Notes for a Magazine,” considering the philosophy writings of Marilyn
Frye and the political organizing work of Vicky Gabriner and especially the view
of the Combahee River Collective that separatism was a racist ideology.
The Combahee River Collective’s critique of lesbian separatism in the 1978 pub-
lication of “A Black Feminist Statement” echoes through many subsequent discus-
sions of lesbian separatism—and it loomed large for Rich in 1981 when she wrote
about separatism. The Collective’s substantive engagement with separatism is min-
imal, however, and worthy of close examination. First published in 1978 in Zillah
Eisenstein’s edited collection Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Femi-
nism, “A Black Feminist Statement” was reprinted in This Bridge Called My Back
where it reached hundreds of thousands of readers.42 The Combahee River Collec-
tive makes two arguments about lesbian separatists. First, they write, “Although we
are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 191

not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists
demand.”43 In this statement, the Collective suggests that separatism creates frac-
tionalization and frames separatists as demanding White women. Both of these
suggestions are partial truths. While separatism prompts women to separate—or
fractionalize—from men, fractionalization is an issue that feminists had discussed
for years—and various feminists often ascribed the cause of fractionalization to
groups they opposed. Lesbian separatists did not corner the market on
fractionalization.
Rhetorically, the Collective also suggests in this statement that only White
women are separatists. Again, this is a partial truth. While a preponderance of sep-
aratists appear to be White women from existing published materials, there were
prominent women of color who identified with separatism as theory and practice,
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

including Vernita Gray, mentioned previously, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, who wrote

in 1976 “we must for now embrace separatism, at least psychically, for health and
consciousness sake,” and Amoja Three Rivers, author of the influential pamphlet
“Cultural Etiquette.”44 While the rhetoric of a racial binary between separatists
and non-separatists has political appeal, reality is more complex.
In the final paragraph of this same section “What We Believe,” the collective
writes, “As we have already stated, we reject the stance of lesbian separatism
because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out far too
much and far too many people, particularly Black men, women, and children.”45
Certainly, many skirmishes around lesbian separatism centered on men of color
and male children; these were questions hotly debated in various separatist com-
munities. This concern actually aligns The Combahee River Collective with lesbian
separatists rather than contradicting envisioned separatist processes.
The Statement continues by eschewing any type of “biological determinism” as a
“dangerous and reactionary basis” for politics. Again, ideas about biological deter-
minism within lesbian separatist and lesbian-feminist communities are much
more nuanced that this Statement suggests. Early separatist writing rejects biologi-
cal determinism. Bunch and members of The Furies argued that any woman could
choose to be a lesbian. Shugar notes that essentialism is “perhaps the most frequent
charge levied against separatism.”46 Close examination of separatist writing, how-
ever, indicates that while there are essentialist gestures, many separatists had
nuanced thinking about biological determinism, essentialism, and nature versus
nurture debates.
The Statement concludes, “We must also question whether lesbian separatism is
an adequate and progressive political analysis and strategy, even for those who
practice it, since it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of women’s
oppression, negating the facts of class and race.”47 Women advocating separatism
took pains to nuance lesbian separatism as concerned with multiple issues, yet the
Combahee River Collective paints the project of lesbian separatism with the brush
of absolutism to negate it rhetorically. “A Black Feminist Statement” is, of course,
in its entirety a polemical document—and an important one. Only one small part
 192 J. R. ENSZER

of it is about lesbian separatism, but the idea that lesbian separatism is a priori rac-
ist follows from this statement and the intellectual framework it uses. Examining
lesbian separatism through the lens of race is one of many crucial reappraisals nec-
essary to resituate lesbian separatism historically, but even the brief review of les-
bian separatist thinking in this article demonstrates that dismissals of separatism
as racist are too facile.
In her role as editor, Rich grapples with separatism and ultimately elides the
question, “What does separatism mean?” She muses in conclusion, “how and
when and with what kinds of conscious identity it [separatism] is practiced, and to
what degree any act of separation is more than an act of withdrawing from differ-
ence with whose pain we can choose not to engage.”48 While Rich struggled with
the issue of separatism, the pages of Sinister Wisdom during the years of their edi-
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

torship, from 1981 through 1983, are filled with conversations about it.
Subsequent editors of Sinister Wisdom reaffirmed separatism as a vital part of
the journal. In 1987, Elana Dykewomon became the editor of Sinister Wisdom.
She, with a collective of editors and volunteers, defined the focus of Sinister Wis-
dom as publishing work by, for, and about lesbians. Fran Day, during her editor-
ship from 2004 through 2010, also ensured that only lesbian work was included in
the journal during her tenure. The material and economic commitments of sepa-
ratism, however, of working only with women printers and typesetters, for
instance, waned in the mid-1980s. Sinister Wisdom went to a commercial printer
in the mid-1980s.
Sinister Wisdom continues to publish today; I am the current editor and pub-
lisher. Thus, I have particular investments in thinking about separatism. Am I a
separatist as an editor of the journal? Is separatism what allowed the journal to
continue to operate now for nearly forty years? Does separatism have a space out-
side of the past? Is it viable today? My answers to these questions are only partial.
What I do know is that lesbian separatism, particularly with its focus on economic
empowerment for lesbians, is a vital way of thinking about the world and it contin-
ues to influence me in positive and transformative ways.

Lesbian separatism—From ideology to process

These four organizational engagements with lesbian separatism, WinD, Olivia
Records, Diaspora Distribution, and Sinister Wisdom, demonstrate a variety of
ways that lesbians engaged the ideas of lesbian separatism. They also demon-
strate the long-term viability of lesbian separatism as a flexible and malleable
practice. Both Olivia Records and Sinister Wisdom continue to operate
today—albeit in very different ways than they did during the 1970s and
1980s. In addition to these organizations, a variety of other lesbian organiza-
tions with separatist practices continue to operate today including Ladyslipper
and Goldenrod, two record distribution companies, Lesbian Connection, the
Lesbian Herstory Archives (see Smith-Cruz et al. in this issue), the journal
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 193

Calyx, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (see Trigilio in this issue) and
many others.49 Moreover, organizations that have ceased to exist, like WinD,
Mountains Moving Coffeehouse for Womyn and Children in Chicago, Illinois,
and an array of feminist bookstores, positively influenced generations of les-
bians and activists. Separatist experiments within feminist and lesbian organi-
zations are a vibrant part of our history—and may offer models for future
activism.
Many of the intellectual roots of lesbian separatism were in community newslet-
ters and hand-printed pamphlets circulated within lesbian communities. The 1988
publication of For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology by Sarah Lucia Hoagland
and Julia Penelope, thus, was an important milestone for separatist thought. Hoag-
land and Penelope gathered nearly six hundred pages of arguments about lesbian
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

separatism, including a boisterous refutation of lesbian separatism as prima facie

racist. For Hoagland and Penelope, lesbian separatism is a materialist practice for a
variety of feminist, lesbian, and lesbian-feminist groups. Rather than rigid ideology
as lesbian separatism becomes in popular imaginaries, for separatists themselves,
including Hoagland and Penelope, separatism is less ideology and more process: a
mode of prioritizing women and lesbians in one’s life and work. Hoagland and
Penelope write, “Separatism is a chosen response…. Separatism is a challenge to
what counts as fact and the beginning of the creation of new value.”50 Similarly,
Lois Anne Addison, reflecting on her separatism in Sinister Wisdom in 1982 wrote,
“I called myself a separatist because I was “separating” like crazy… It wasn’t ideol-
ogy. It was activity! In becoming a separatist I made enormously powerful and
energy-giving decisions… It was done in the process of living and fighting.”51
By examining these four organizational instantiations of lesbian separatism in
conversation with the emergence of theories about lesbian separatism, the eco-
nomic and cultural investments of lesbian separatism emerge, situating lesbian
separatism’s investments in larger visionary feminist projects. More than a rigid
ideology, lesbian separatism operates as a feminist process, a method for living in
the world. As such, lesbian separatism, particularly its focus on economic empow-
erment for women, continues to influence feminism positively today. Ultimately,
by understanding lesbian separatism as a vibrant contributor to not only feminism
but also other projects of radical social transformation, new forms of visibility for
and appreciations of lesbian separatism become possible in histories of feminisms
and in U.S. histories. Lesbian separatism as ideology generates conflicts and irrec-
oncilable challenges, but lesbian separatism as process generates utopian possibili-
ties that even if not achieved transform the field of the possible for lesbians.

Acknowledgments
This article began as a conference paper presented at the American Historical Association in
January 2015 on a panel titled “Queer Intimacies and the Remaking of Late Twentieth-
Century Politics.” David Palmer organized the panel and presented some of his fine work; Tim
Retzloff presented on his groundbreaking work on LGBT communities in Detroit; Marcia Gallo
 194 J. R. ENSZER

provided insightful and incisive comments. I am grateful to them all and to the Committee on
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History, which sponsored the panel. I appreciate enor-
mously time and feedback from Elana Dykewomon and Dolphin Waletzky. Two anonymous
reviewers provided excellent feedback on an early draft and Beth Currans has been a generous
editor; her feedback strengthened this article significantly. Intellectual companions and interloc-
utors Martha Nell Smith and Agatha Beins, as usual, contributed in ways known and unknown;
thank you.

Notes on contributor
Julie R. Enszer’s book manuscript, A Fine Bind: Lesbian-Feminist Publishing from 1969 through
1989, tells stories about a dozen lesbian-feminist publishers to consider the meaning of the theo-
retical and political formations of lesbian-feminism, separatism, and cultural feminism. Enszer
is the author of Sisterhood (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and Handmade Love (A Midsummer
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

Night’s Press, 2010). She is the editor of Sinister Wisdom and a regular book reviewer for
Lambda Literary and Calyx. You can read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.

Notes
1. For recent examples see Terry Castle, The Professor A Sentimental Education (New York:
Harper Perennial, 2011) and Ariel Levy, “Lesbian Nation,” New Yorker, vol 85, iss 3 (March
2009), 30 37.
2. Dana R. Shugar, Sep-a-ra-tism and Women’s Community (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1995); Kathy Rudy, “Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory,”
Feminist Studies, vol 27, no 1 (Spring 2001), 191 222; Scott Herring, “Out of the Closets,
into the Woods: ‘RFD’, ‘Country Women’, and the Post-Stonewall Emergence of Queer
Anti-Urbanism,” American Quarterly, vol 59, no 2 (June 2007), 341 372. Greta Rensen-
brink, “Parthenogenesis and Lesbian Separatism: Regenerating Women’s Community
Through Virgin Birth,” Journal of the History of Sexuality vol 19, no 2 (May 2010),
288 316.
3. Estelle Freedman, “Separatism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Fem-
inism, 1870 1930,” Feminist Studies, vol 5, no 3(Autumn 1979), 512 529.
4. See for example K. Hess, Jean Langford, and Kathy Ross, “Comparative Separatism” (1980):
125 132; and Bette S. Tallen, “Lesbian Separatism: A Historical and Comparative Perspec-
tive” (1983): 132 145, both in For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology (London: Only-
women Press, 1988), Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope, editors.
5. Personal communication with the author, January 31, 2015.
6. The wide range of histories of the Women’s Liberation Movement overall fail to take seri-
ously lesbian separatism including books such as Gail Collins’s When Everything Changed:
The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (New York: Little,
Brown and Company, 2009); Judith Ezekiel’s Feminism in the Heartland (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 2002); Ruth Rosen’s The World Split Open: How the Modern Wom-
en’s Movement Changed America (New York: Viking, 2000); and Benita Roth’s Separate
Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second
Wave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Important exceptions include
Anne Enke’s Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007) and Becki L. Ross’s The House that Jill Built
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), both consider lesbian separatism with gener-
osity and grace.
7. “The Woman Identified Woman,” Radicalesbians (Pittsburgh: Know, Inc. 1970), 4.
8. Ibid.
 JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES 195

9. “How to Stop Choking to Death or: Separatism” Spectre 2 (May-June 1971), 2.

10. Ginny Berson, “The Story of the Furies,” The Furies: lesbian/feminist monthly vol 1, no 1
(January 1972), 1.
11. Ibid.
12. Anne Valk, Radical Sisters: Second Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, D.
C. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 153.
13. Coletta Reid, “Ideology: Guide to Action” The Furies vol 1, iss 3 (March-April 1972), 6.
14. This perceptual shift of the etiology of sexual orientation serves the political and legal
agenda of the LGBT community. Recent testimony in the Proposition 8 case and the Wind-
sor case affirmed popular view of sexual orientation as innate and immutable. See, for
example, Marc Solomon, Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of how Same-Sex Couples
Took on the Politicians and Pundits—and Won (Boston: ForeEdge, 2014) and Jo Becker,
Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality (New York: Penguin Press, 2014),
177 183, in particular. Popular culture also embraces biological determinism as many
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

young people sing and dance to Lady Gaga’s popular anthem “Born This Way.”
15. Charlotte Bunch, “Perseverance Furthers: Separatism and Our Future” The Furies (Fall
1972), 3.
16. Alice, Debbie, Gordon, and Mary, Lesbian Separatism: An Amazon Analysis (Seattle, WA:
Lesbian Separatist Group at It’s About Time, 1973), 43.
17. Ibid., 87.
18. Ibid.
19. Tracy Baim and Owen Keehnen, Vernita Gray: From Woodstock to the White House (Chi-
cago, IL: Prairie Avenue Productions, 2014), 62.
20. Lee Schwing and Helaine Harris, “Building Feminist Institution,” The Furies, Final Issue
(May June 1973), 2.
21. Bill Hieronymus, “For Some Feminists Owning a Business is Real Liberation,” The Wall
Street Journal (April 15, 1975).
22. For a complete history of Diana Press, see Julie R. Enszer, The Whole Naked Truth of Our
Lives: Lesbian-Feminist Print Culture 1969 through 1989 (University of Maryland, 2013).
23. Dear Publisher-who-until-recently-distributed-with-WIND, October 7, 1979, Folder: Sinis-
ter Wisdom Bookstore Copies of Possible interest, 1976 1980, Catherine Nicholson
Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.
24. For a complete discussion of the history of WinD, see Julie R. Enszer, “‘What Made Us
Think They’d Pay Us for Making a Revolution?’ Women in Distribution (WinD),
1974 1979,” in Outrageous, Dangerous, and Unassimilable, edited by Jaime Harker and
Cecilia Conchar Farr (Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 66 86.
25. Patrick Lettelier, “Judy Dlugacz: Olivia President and Founder Talks about Women’s
Music, Lesbian Travel, Retirement Resorts and the Job of a Lifetime,” Lesbian News, Janu-
ary 2006, 22 23: 22.
26. Valk, Radical Sisters, 154.
27. For an excellent overview of Olivia Records see Bonnie Morris, “Olivia Records: The Pro-
duction of a Movement,” Journal of Lesbian Studies vol 19, no 3(Fall 2015), 290 304.
28. Lettelier, “Judy Dlugacz,” 22.
29. Ibid.
30. Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male [Reissued with a
new introduction on transgender] (New York: Teacher College Press, 1994, 1979), 102.
31. “Open Letter to Olivia,” Sister, June 1977 and August September 1977, 6.
32. Olivia Response, Sister (August September 1977), 6.
33. Ibid.
 196 J. R. ENSZER

34. Interview with Elana Dykewomon and Dolphin Waletzky, June 29, 2013, in person inter-
view (Oakland, CA).
35. Gloria Z. Greenfield, “Letter to Elana Dykewomon,” Outgoing Correspondence Januar-
y June 1980, Carton 2, Persephone Press Papers, Schlesinger Library.
36. Gloria Z. Greenfield, “Letter to Elana Dykewomon, May 1980,” Outgoing Correspondence
January June 1980, Carton 2, Persephone Press Papers, Schlesinger Library.
37. Dykewomon and Waletzky Interview.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. “Notes for a Magazine,” Sinister Wisdom 1 (July 1976), 2.
42. This Bridge was one of the best-selling edited feminist collections from an independent
feminist publisher. For more on the anthology, see “Feminist Publishing/Publishing Femi-
nism: Experimentation in Second-Wave Book Publishing,” in This Book is an Action: Femi-
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:03 26 February 2016

nist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics, Jaime Harker and Cecilia Konchar Farr, editors
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 23 45; Barbara Smith, “A Press of Our Own:
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press,” in Communications at the Crossroads: The Gender
Gap Connection (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1989), 202 207; Barbara
Smith, “A Rose,” in The Truth that Never Hurts (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1998), 191 209; Kayann Short, “Coming to the Table: The Differential Politics of
This Bridge Called My Back,” in Eroticism and Containment Notes from the Flood Plain,
Caro Siegel and Ann Kibbey, editors (New York: New York University Press, 1994); and
Enszer, Whole Naked Truth (2013), 205 228.
43. Cherrıe Moraga and Gloria Anzald ua, This Bridge Called My Back (New York: Kitchen
Table Women of Color Press, 1981, 1983), 213.
44. Margaret Sloan-Hunter, “The Issue is Woman Identification,” in For Lesbians Only: A Sep-
aratist Anthology, Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope, editors (London: Onlywomen
Press, Ltd, 1988): 148; Amoja Three Rivers, Cultural Etiquette (Indian Valley, VA: Market
Wimmin, 1991).
45. This Bridge, 214.
46. Shugar, Sep-a-ra-tism, xii.
47. This Bridge, 214.
48. Adrienne Rich, “Notes for a Magazine: What Does Separatism Mean?” Sinister Wisdom 18
(1981), 90.
49. The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival announced that the fortieth anniversary of the fes-
tival in August 2015 will be the last. For more on women’s music festivals see Bonnie Mor-
ris, Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women’s Music Festivals (New York: Alyson Books,
1999), Laurie J. Kendall, The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival: An Amazon Matrix of
Meaning (Spiral Womyn’s Press, 2013), and Kath Browne, “Beyond Rural Idylls: Imperfect
Lesbian Utopias at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival,” Journal of Rural Studies (January
2011), 13 23.
50. Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope, For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology (Lon-
don: Onlywomen Press, 1988), 5.
51. Lois Anne Addison, “Separatism Revisited,” Sinister Wisdom 21 (1982), 30.