The lesbian presence in feminist, gay and queer social movements in Australia, 1970s-1990s.

This thesis provides the first major Australian history of lesbian feminism between the 1970s and 1990s. Lesbian feminism emerged from within Women’s Liberation, Campaign Against Moral Persecution and Gay Liberation, three social movements that wanted to challenge sex roles, the nuclear family and other oppressive systems of patriarchy. Homophobia and sexism within these movements, reflecting broader social and cultural prejudices, caused lesbian activists to explore their dual oppression and differing political futures compared to gay men and heterosexual feminists. The lesbian feminism which emerged was political, cultural and experimental, as the women in it explored radically new ways of relating to one’s self, to other women and to society more broadly. Lesbian feminism was thus compelling, erotic and transformative, as well as highly contested. As I trace, by the 1980s, lesbian feminism intersected with other social movements beyond Women’s Liberation, CAMP and Gay Liberation, including anti-nuclear and anti-violence activism during the 1980s which further dovetailed with a flourishing of ‘women’s culture’ in Australia that in many ways was lesbian-identified. By the 1990s, lesbian feminism was both less cohesive and more diverse, manifesting in one form via proto-queer sex radical communities in which lesbians could further explore their sexual and political subjectivities. As such, this thesis redefines lesbian feminism as it extended into queer and sex radical activism. Drawing from a diverse archive of feminist, gay and queer historiography, ephemera and personal memoirs, as well as thirty oral history interviews and off-the -record conversations with lesbian activists, gay men, and one trans man, I offer an episodic yet immersive account of lesbian feminism’s diverse origins and transformations in an Australian context