Lesbian Avengers
The group was founded in 1992 in New York City by six individuals: Ana Maria Simo, Anne Maguire, Anne-Christine D'Adesky, Marie Honan, Maxine Wolfe, and Sarah Schulman.
[3][4] At the organization’s peak, there were over 60 chapters of the Lesbian Avengers in the United States, including New York, San Francisco, and Denver.
The Lesbian Avengers disbanded in 1997, though some groups continue to hold demonstrations, including the still-ongoing annual Dyke March.
[4] The Lesbian Avengers was founded by six women: Ana Maria Simo, Anne Maguire, Anne-Christine D'askey, Marie Honan, Maxine Wolfe, and Sarah Schulman.
The co-founders sought to create an inclusive movement that focused on lesbian issues, something they felt was not properly addressed in other organizations.
The handbook "made it possible for lesbians across the world to start Avenger chapters without having a huge pool of experienced activists.
NY Avengers have used a wide range of visuals such as fire eating, a twelve-foot shrine, a huge bomb, a ten-foot plaster statue, flaming torches, etc.
In the early years, the group opposed attempts to legitimize gay marriage, protesting the notion at an Andrew Sullivan book signing in 1995.
[16][17] On their first action (September 9, 1992), the Lesbian Avengers targeted right-wing attempts to suppress a multicultural "Children of the Rainbow" curriculum for elementary schoolchildren.
Ostensibly under attack for including lesbians and gay men in its lessons about diversity,[18] some activists like Ana Maria Simo charged that opponents, besides being homophobic, also had a racist agenda in battling the multicultural curriculum.
[14] Conflicts over the handling of the press coverage of the Dyke March also occurred within the New York gay and lesbian political community.
In an interview, Simo said that a press release sent out by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) after Stonewall 25 initially did not have anything in it about the Dyke March.
"[23] The Avengers also collaborated with Las Buenas Amigas and African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change in a series of actions against homophobic and racist radio programs at La Mega 97.9 in New York, and its parent company, the Spanish Broadcasting System, informing advertisers, staging demonstration, and briefly taking over the radio station and broadcasting their own message.
[26] This was done in honor of Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock, to "...transform the image of their deaths by learning to eat fire.
Last year, a lesbian and a gay man, Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock, burned to death in Salem, Ore., after a Molotov cocktail was tossed into the apartment they shared.
A month later, on Halloween, at a memorial to the victims in New York City, the Avengers (then newly organized) gave their response to the deaths.
[30] Currently, the marches still exist and are held in June and are done in honor of the Stonewall riots and other notable events in LGBT history.
The Avengers in New York worked from 1992 to 1995, their last action involved protesting comments Joseph Bruno made toward the LGBT community.
Members re-created Romeo and Juliet will a full lesbian cast and protested homophobic groups and organizations across London.
