Lesbian History in the United States - Lesbian American History, Barbara Gittings, Daughters of Bilitis, the Ladder, Combahee River Collective (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 26. Chapters: Lesbian American history, Barbara Gittings, Daughters of Bilitis, The Ladder, Combahee River Collective, Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, Boston marriage, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, Vice Versa, Sewing circles, Sinister Wisdom, The Woman-Identified Woman, Home Girls, Van Dykes. Excerpt: Lesbian American history addresses the history of lesbians in the United States. Primary resources for lesbian American history are scant. In 1636, John Cotton proposed a law for Massachusetts Bay making sex between two women (or two men) a capital offense, but the law was not enacted . It would have read, "Unnatural filthiness, to be punished with death, whether sodomy, which is carnal fellowship of man with man, or woman with woman, or buggery, which is carnal fellowship of man or woman with beasts or fowls ." However, in 1649 in Plymouth Colony, Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were prosecuted for "lewd behavior each with other upon a bed"; their trial documents are the only known record of sex between female English colonists in North America in the 17th century . Mary was only admonished, perhaps because she was younger than sixteen, but in 1650 Sarah Norman was convicted and required to acknowledge publicly her "unchaste behavior" with Mary Hammon, as well as warned against future offenses . This may be the only conviction for lesbianism in American history . In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a law stating that, "Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least," but the law was not enacted. In the 19th century the term "Boston Marriage" was used to describe a committed relationship between two unmarried women who were usually financially independ...