Published bi-monthly by the Daughters of ONCE MORE WITH FEELING Bilitis, Inc., a non-profit corporation, at THE I have discovered my most unpleasant task as editor . having to remind y. 'i P.O. Box 5025, Washington Station, now and again of your duty as concerned reader. Not just reader, concern« ' reader. Reno, Nevada 89503. UDDER VOLUME 14 No. 9 and 10 If you aren’t — you ought to be. JUNE/JULY, 1970 Those of you who have been around three or more years of our fifteen years n a t io n a l OFFICERS, DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS, INC know the strides DOB has made and the effort we are making to improve this magazine. To continue growing as an organization we need more women, women . Rita Laporte aware they are women as well as Lesbians. If you have shy friends who might be President . jess K. Lane interested in DOB but who are, for real or imagined reasons, afraid to join us — i t h e l a d d e r , a copy of WHAT i w r ■ ’ '^hich shows why NO U N t at any time in any way is ever jeopardized by belonging to DOB or by t h e LADDER STAFF subscribing to THE LADDER. You can send this to your friend(s) and thus, almost surely bring more people to help in the battle. Gene Damon Editor ....................... Lyn Collins, Kim Stabinski, And for you new people, our new subscribers and members in newly formed and Production Assistants King Kelly, Ann Brady forming chapters, have you a talent we can use in THE LADDER? We need Bobin and Dana Jordan wnters always in all areas, fiction, non-fiction, biography, poetry. We need Production Editors . • ...................... Tracy Wright Pn«j^oj^aphers and artists, and CARTOONISTS. We need you -- in any way you Secretary to the Editor t h e l a d d e r k For you whose time and talents will not allow you any other way to help, send r : ; us money . every dollar helps. We don’t like to ask, but as many of you know, if we did not beg, there would be no magazine. So, once more with teeling, we ask you to help us in our mutual fight for our rights. organization. Gene Damon June/July 1970 IN THIS ISSUE: ............................... .4 Poetry by Gabrielle L 'A u tr e .................. J- ■ ■ ■ A thouMnd adult readers regularly receive THE LADDER a magazine In the. Air Milk Rain short story by MUler . 11 throu^out this country featuring news and views of the homo*xua^ and the homophile movement of particular interest to women This is Not For You reeieie o f Jane Ral " ¡¡ay . 13 Western Homophile Conference Keyno - . , ii ................... 18 Most of our readers are women 21-45 years old who have devoted a major portion of their leisure time to assisting the Lesbian to become a more L fessions of a Pseudo Male Chauvinist by Martha Shelley . ................. citizen. Most of our readers believe that discrimination Bennett short story by Lemne Bosworth ............................. ......................31 E f - “ homosexual is unfair and unjustified. To these readers your We N.-ed This Now by Lorita J. Whitehead .............. .. ■ • .............................23 advertisement places you on record as an ally in their personal area of deep readers are apt to become and remain loyal customers. Charges for Nine Poems ¿>y hlsa Gidlow ........................ , . .27 single insertions of advertisement copy are given below. Ladies, Cowardice Docs Not become \on by Lennox S g • - • • • ............^8 The Best Women Are Thin and Rich A Guest EdUona . ................... Please mail your advertising copy and check in full to: Say It Isn’t So by Rita Mae Brown . .................................... THE LADDER Poetry by Carol Lynk, Susan Smpadian, .........................................3, P.O. Box 5025 — Washington Station and Marion G. N orm an................... ............................... 33 Reno, Nevada 89503 Cross C urrents..................................................... .......................................... 41 ADVERTISING RATES Readers Respond................................................ Half Page ..................................$45 . I . 11 ilANE RULE), by Photographer Lynn Inside Cover ..........................$100 COVER photo and photo on page t U Quarter P a g e .............................$25 Full Page ...............................$ 80 Vardeman. rR,/,/,, Inc San Francisco, California Repeated advertisements at reduced rates. Copyright 1970 by Daughters o f Bihtis, Inc., In tlie -A.ir Milk; I^ain P oet r 4 By LYNN LONIDIER by A friend of mine learned he had cancer. hair though closely cut held softly to her Gabrielle I went to emergency. The nurse had to head .she wore large earrings and .she had on ask me where it was, it was so small. The L'Autre PORTRAIT OF A LADY AS A CAMPSITE a ring that resembled an engagement ring doctor said scar ti.ssue - foreign matter but it was on the fourth finger of her right from a vaccination which had built up. I, too, would creep to your warmth. hand Carol wondered if perhap.s .some func­ It grew larger. My friend got worse. The Tent under your hair. tion of the left hand by M.D.’s made cancer spread. Invade your mouth. doctors prefer tlie right hand for their rings I returned to the hospital. The doctor Explore your apertures; the diamond was set higher on the ring than felt of it and said cyst. Carol recalled .seeing in engagement sets But these men and men have done. Was it? EXPLANATION Probably. Let them bivouac on your surface slopes. Jeanne joked to the receptionist about not Twice 1 cancelled tlie appointment while Light signal fires across your plains, operating on Carol (most cases in demia- Oh, yes, you stay quiet. imagining it was getting larger. Burrow into your trenchesi tology involve .slow clo.se examination or Keep properly to your side, My friend was taken away in a wheel mynah surgery) how flushed Jeanne became Contain your arms and legs. chair. He had a hood over his head. He was I want more: at causing laughter her neck then her checks There is room enough in the bed thirty-three years old. To tap your inner sources. then upward to her hairline Carol wondered For a gaping chasm between us. To swim in your arterial rivers. I felt the bump on my arm. Was it how Jeanne would react to intensification To breast the tides of your thought. possible I had contracted cancer from my of .some woman loving her Must you breathe? friend? We used the same bathroom and ate To swirl in the currents of your moods. I hang stubbornly to my ledge of precipice. from the same plates. To steep in the waters of your hidden depths Jeanne told Carol come in two mornings Your soft, soft breathing Till I take tone of your inner color. 1 kept the third appointment. later they agreed on 8:0(1 Jeanne said what Wafts towards me. Shape of your lost caverns. The nurse stepped out of the room. I we look for is a rising in the skin an‘a or a Impersonal as a stray breeze. Cadence of your secret rhythms. got the hospital smock on and peered at the brui.sing what we do is mea.siire it Caressing my face. remarks on the hospital chart. You stir ever so slightly. In short, 1 have heard of people avoiding going to While she .sal in a college class (iarol The covers move. I want to love you. the doctor when they had a mysterious wondered who was Jeanne’s lover Grazing my bare arm. bump on their bodies, and the bump proved Sliding along my hip. fatal. GABRIELLE L’AUTRE Carol may have dreamed about Jeanne 1 lay on my stomach. Two interns came So there is no contact to watch — one, a young man with a shaved All .she really knew was what she wanted And yet there is. head; one, a woman. Both felt of my arm Jeanne to be like Unless I arise and go, beforehand. 1 glimp.sed at tlie woman. I Breaking the invisible strands THE OUTSIDER thought of her while the needle was in my Maybe all this was just a dwelling on doctor That pull me towards you, arm. I thought of her as I felt a .surgical instead of diagnosis I know that I shall glide your way. I saw desire rise in his eyes. implement probe my leaden arm. This Nulling the void that separates us. Ignited by the sight of her olive skin woman asked me where I had gotten my Carol feared the skin test might read posi­ That I shall take you in my arms Vivid against the stark white of her dress. third right finger gold ring. tive And startle you to wakefulness Raising the blonde child in her arms Found it. With a ferocious want Above her head, she whirled slowly. Where? Two mornings later she will look at my arm You cannot or you will not or you dare Laughing, preoccupied with the child. In the ground. notate negative and tiuit will be all why am not share. His w ife, his son. I making so much out o f this yes Carol had GABRIELLE L'AUTRE His desire gone there with some .suspicion of illne.s,s For the body he had intimately possessed within her she had wanted a skin lest And smugly knew he would have again. in.stead of an X ray because slic feared Jeanne was holding Carol’s arm out­ radiation so much radiation was already in Oh, I must beat mine down. stretched Carol’s hand was lightly touching the air in the milk in the rain The desire whelming from my depths.