YOUR FAVORITE LOGO TV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

National Park Service Names First Landmark Honoring Lesbians' Role In American History

“Lesbians, in particular, are so often forgotten when people talk about gay liberation and the gay movement.”

President Obama is expected to make the Stonewall Inn a national monument this year, but a lesser-known site in the nation’s capital has just gotten an long overdue honor as well.

219 11th Street SE in Capitol Hill, the onetime home of the Furies Collective, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places, reports the National Park Service.

The Furies were a separative feminist collective from the 1970s—members lived in the brownstone between the fall of 1971 and summer 1973. In the basement they published The Furies newspaper and a lesbian religious magazine called Motive.

Now owned by tour guide-historian Robert Pohl, the house is the first landmark to specifically honor the role of lesbians in American culture.

“Lesbians, in particular, are so often forgotten when people talk about gay liberation and the gay movement,” onetime member Ginny Berson told The Washington Post.

The Furies' manifesto was pretty extreme by today’s standards—Berson wrote in the debut issue of their paper:

Sexism is the root of all other oppressions, and Lesbian and woman oppression will not end by smashing capitalism, racism, and imperialism.

Lesbianism is not a matter of sexual preference, but rather one of political choice which every woman must make if she is to become woman-identified and thereby end male supremacy."[1]

While the 12-woman group only existed for a few years, she says "it had an impact that was much greater than the time that we existed."

Among its members were longtime activist Charlotte Bunch, writer Rita Mae Brown (Rubyfruit Jungle) and documentarian Joan E. Biren (No Secret Anymore the times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon).

The women shared clothes and pooled money, sleeping on mattresses in the living room. They also started classes on auto and electrical repair for women so they wouldn’t be dependent on men.

Mark Meinke of the Rainbow Heritage Network nominated the site for the register, and says the Furies “start[ed] the discussions on what it meant to be a lesbian." It was the time of the Equal Rights Amendment and more mainstream feminist groups like the National Organization for Women were purging themselves of gay women to appear less radical.

The 11th Street building was unanimously voted into the Inventory of Historic Sites by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board earlier this year.

The National Park Service also announced that the Edificio Comunidad de Orgullo Gay de Puerto Rico in San Juan, the site of the island nation’s first gay organization, was also being added to the register.

Latest News