Abstract
Historians studying lesbian activism typically place the origins of lesbian identity politics at the end of the 1960s. This focus, however, ignores the full story of sexual politics that begins in the 1950s with lesbians finding a voice, forming a collective identity, and creating a community. The activism of Daughters of Bilitis through its publication, the Ladder, provides clear evidence that in creating an activist organization and claiming agency to define their sexuality, lesbians in the 1 950s were the first women's liberationists. Through their creation of a collective identity and feminist ideology, lesbians asserted their rightful place in the women's liberation movement of the 1 970s and changed feminist mentalities about sexuality. Within this movement, women's ability to explore alternative sexualities and assert sexual identity as political was a result of early lesbian activism.