Activist, attorney and author Urvashi Vaid died of breast cancer on May 18, 2022. Born in New Delhi, India, Vaid moved to the USA when she was a child. She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating with degrees in English and Political Science in 1979. A year later she enrolled in law school … Read more
Writer Frances Eleanor Cherry died April 24, 2022 after fighting Parkinson’s disease, leaving an extensive legacy in literature and a life-long commitment to anti-establishment themes, which often accompanied her writing. Daughter Caitlin Cherry led funeral-goers in a rendition of one of her mother’s favourite songs, Ode to a Gym Teacher. The anthem was a … Read more
Lesbian icon and author Leslie Cohen passed away in Miami, Florida on March 16, 2022. Cohen was the author of the memoir The Audacity of a Kiss. She grew up in Queens, New York, and attended Buffalo State College, then Queens College. Cohen received her Master’s degree in Art History. She worked at Artforum magazine … Read more
On December 15, 2021, esteemed Black queer feminist author bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) passed away at her home in Berea, Ky. She was 69. Her sister Gwenda Motley said the cause was end-stage renal failure. The American activist and author was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. Her work focused on the … Read more
Lesbian athlete and author Angela Madsen has passed away after trying to row from California to Hawai’i. Her lifeless body was found in the Pacific Ocean after the US Coast Guard was contacted. Madsen had radioed her wife, sayng she was going into the water, but failed to check in again. Madsen had been at … Read more
Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian author and activist, died of natural causes at the age of 95, on April 9, 2020. Lyon was born on November 10, 1924, in Tulsa, Oklahoma and grew up in Sacramento, California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where she had been editor of the Daily Californian newspaper. Lyon continued … Read more
On February 21, 2020, author and publisher Lilian Mohin passed away. Lilian was a co-founder of Onlywomen Press in 1974. Independent lesbian feminist presses in the 1970s and 1980s were very important. In 1970, feminists tried to reject lesbians from their political and social action. Lesbians were a menace. We were distracting feminists from … Read more
Poet, academic and activist Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz was born in 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parent adopted the surname Kaye prior to her birth; she later appended the family name Kantrowitz to Kaye, linking the two together with a slash to recognize the multigenerational and ethnic histories within her family and within the larger experiences … Read more