Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Word of the Gay: "Bilitis"

"Bilitis" is a collection of lesbian love poems from Chansons de Bilitis. It is more commonly known from the first lesbian advocacy organization Daughters of Bilitis.

2 comments:

miss wild thing said...

Phyllis says that when they came up with the name, the woman who suggested the name thought it would be code. Every lesbian would know what it meant. None of them had ever heard of the collection before so they just shrugged their shoulders and named themselves the Daughters of Bilitis.

Also, it is pronounced bill-ee-tis. I used to pronounce it wrong til I was politely corrected by Ms Martin and Lyon.

CrackerLilo said...

I love having that explanation for the name. I'm a bit of an amateur historian, and I only sort of vaguely knew what that name was about. Thank you.

Miss wild thing, what an honor to have your pronunciation corrected by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon! ;-) Seriously, it's so cool that you could meet them both in person.

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