The Politics of Identity and the Formation of Lesbian of Color Organizations in the Late 1970s through Early 1980s

Despite the active publication and the institutional recognition of lesbian of color scholars, theorists, and activists such as Gloria Anzalduá, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, and Merle Woo, there have been relatively few historical studies on political organizing among lesbians of color. Alice Hom documents the emergence of a lesbian of color identity and traces the histories of organizing and community building by lesbians of color during the 1970s as well as into the 1980s. During this period, the terms “third world lesbian” and “lesbian of color” came to denote not only a common population but also a politicized understanding of race, gender, and sexuality as mutually constitutive and dynamic. Hom highlights the formation of multiracial lesbian organizations including the Salsa Soul Sisters in New York, explaining how lesbian of color activists formulated a politics of identity as a site of accommodation, negotiation and resistance, and how they expressed this politics through social justice campaigns.