Martha Shelley (born December 27, 1943) is an American activist, writer, and poet best known for her involvement in lesbian feminist activism.

Life and early work

Martha Altman was born on December 27, 1943, in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, to parents of Russian-Polish Jewish descent. In 1960, she attended her first women's judo classes in New York City, trying to meet lesbian women. Two years later, at age 19, she moved out of her parents' home to a hotel and went to lesbian bars, where she "was miserable". She did not find herself fitting in to the roles of "butch" or "femme", common lesbian gender roles during this period. During this period, she was exposed to

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan (; February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book '' The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the s ...

's famous work, ''

The Feminine Mystique ''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by American author Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, i ...

'', a text which inspired many feminists. She was also involved in a group based on the work of

Harry Stack Sullivan Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan (February 21, 1892 – January 14, 1949) was an American neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that "personality can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal relationships in which person liv ...

which led to her first

Anti-Vietnam War movement Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1965 with demonstrations against the escalating role of the United States in the war. Over the next several years, these demonstrations grew into a social movement which was ...

protest. In 1965, she graduated from City College. In November 1967 she went to her first meeting of the New York City chapter of the

Daughters of Bilitis The Daughters of Bilitis (), also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States. The organization, formed in San Francisco in 1955, was initially conceived as a secret soc ...

(DOB), of which she later became president, despite her feelings of resistance to events like the " Annual Reminder" held by the organization. Due to

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

surveillance, members of the DOB were encouraged to take aliases, and Altman took Shelley as a surname. While working as a secretary in the office of fundraising for

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

, she joined the Student Homophile League and worked with bisexual activist Stephen Donaldson, who she was also dating at the time. Shelley has described the affair as causing a scandal, stating, "We used to walk into these meetings arm in arm... because the two of us were so blatant and out there in public being pro gay, they certainly couldn't afford to throw us out." In approximately 1969, the first major essay of Shelley's appears in the newsletter ''

Liberation News Service Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Asso ...

'': " Stepin' Fetchit Woman". This same essay later appeared in other publications under alternate titles including "Women of Lesbos" and "Notes of a Radical Lesbian"; it was called "Notes of a Radical Lesbian" in '' Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From The Women's Liberation Movement''. Shelley states that she did not choose the title under which it first appeared. In 2023, she published a memoir, ''We Set the Night on Fire: Igniting the Gay Revolution''.

Gay Liberation Front

While in a leadership role with the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), Shelley sometimes provided tours to women who were in New York City to learn about how to make their own chapter of the organization. While giving one of these tours to women from Boston the night of the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

, Shelley and her visitors walked past the beginnings of the riots outside of the

Stonewall Inn The Stonewall Inn (also known as Stonewall) is a gay bar and recreational tavern at 53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which led to th ...

. Shelley dismissed them as anti-war protests initially, but was later informed about the actual cause. Activist Mark Segal recounts that Shelley and Marty Robinson stood and made speeches from the front door of the Stonewall on June 29, 1969, the second night of the riot. Recognizing the significance of the event and being politically aware, Shelley proposed a protest march and, as a result, DOB and Mattachine sponsored a demonstration. With time, it became clear to those involved that Shelley and others desired a new organization to better serve their political goals; she was one of the twenty or so women and men who formed the Gay Liberation Front after Stonewall and was outspoken in many of their confrontations. Over time, the Gay Liberation Front's name was used in similar organizations but without any inherent direct connection to Shelley or other organizers in New York City at this time. Shelley also wrote for '' Come Out!'', the New York City Gay Liberation Front's newsletter, and helped get the issues printed. The newsletter published essays, reports, art, and poetry of submitters and members of the organization. It ran, however inconsistently, for three years. Shelley’s work appears in all eight issues of the newsletter, with a variety of genres, including essays on the movements she was participating in, reports on the Gay Liberation Front in other cities and related organizations in New York City, and some of her poetry. Many of her essays, including “More Radical Than Thou” and “Subversion in the Women’s Movement - What is to be Done?” involve critiquing the competitive and cutthroat nature of the women’s movement, gay liberation movement, and other adjacent movements. ''Come Out!'' is one of the places in which Shelley was first published, providing insight into her developing political ideology as well as the events around her. The Gay Liberation Front allied itself with other movements going on at the time, including black liberation and women's liberation. For some, this unity was not desirable, and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) formed as a splinter group from GLF, and sought to focus more exclusively on gay rights. In addition to GAA, members of GLF also formed subgroups—cells—with different goals and purposes. One of the groups that formed primarily out of GLF women was

Lavender Menace Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included ...

, named after the comment made by Betty Friedan (then president of NOW) regarding lesbians as a "lavender menace" in the feminist movement. Lavender Menace was later renamed Radicalesbians.

Feminism

In 1970, Lavender Menace, later Radicalesbians, organized the

zap of the Second Congress to Unite Women. Shelley played an instrumental role in the zap itself, and some have claimed she assisted in the writing of the Radicalesbians manifesto, " The Woman-Identified Woman", which introduced "women-identified" and "male-identified" terminology to the lesbian feminist discourse community. Later that same year, Shelley wrote "Subversion in the Women's Movement", which was published in both ''Come Out!'' and in ''

off our backs ''Off Our Backs'' (stylized in all lowercase; ''oob'') was an American radical feminist periodical that ran from 1970 to 2008, making it the longest-running feminist periodical in the United States. Marilyn Salzman-Webb and Marlene Wicks we ...

'', a feminist publication. Beginning in 1972, Shelley produced the radio show ''Lesbian Nation'' on New York's WBAI radio station. The Library of Congress claims ''Lesbian Nation'' to be, most likely, the first lesbian radio show. She contributed the pieces "Notes of a Radical Lesbian" and "Terror" to the 1970 anthology '' Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From The Women's Liberation Movement'', edited by

Robin Morgan Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key Radical feminism, radical feminist member of the American Feminist movement, Wom ...

. After moving to Oakland, California in October 1974, she was involved with the Women's Press Collective where she worked with Judy Grahn to produce ''Crossing the DMZ'', ''In Other Words'', ''Lesbians Speak Out'' and other books. Her poetry has appeared in ''

Ms. Ms. (American English) or Ms (British English; normally , but also , or when unstressed)''Oxford English Dictionary'' online, Ms, ''n.2''. Etymology: "An orthographic and phonetic blend of Mrs ''n.1'' and miss ''n.2'' Compare mizz ''n.'' The pr ...

'' magazine, ''Sunbury'', ''The Bright Medusa'', ''We Become New'' and other periodicals. Shelley appeared in the 2010 documentary ''

Stonewall Uprising ''Stonewall Uprising'' is a 2010 American documentary film examining the events surrounding the Stonewall riots that began during the early hours of June 28, 1969. ''Stonewall Uprising'' made its theatrical debut on June 16, 2010, at the Film Fo ...

'', an episode of the ''

American Experience ''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...

'' series.

Activism and political views

Despite being involved with lesbian feminism, Shelley does not describe herself as a lesbian separatist: though she liked the idea of lesbian-only spaces, she has said that the splitting of gay liberation into splinter groups weakened the movement as a whole. She also was allied to many other left-wing causes of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the pro-choice movement, and civil rights groups such as the

Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California ...

and Young Lords, and has described herself as a socialist. Shelley was also a strong critic of the prevailing psychiatric views of

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

in the 1960s and argued that the

stigmatization Stigma, originally referring to the visible marking of people considered inferior, has evolved to mean a negative perception or sense of disapproval that a society places on a group or individual based on certain characteristics such as their ...

of homosexuality as a mental illness was a major contributing factor to psychological issues within the gay and lesbian community.

Works and publications

Articles

In ''Come Out!''

* "Stepin' Fetchit Woman" (Vol. 1, No. 1) * “More Radical Than Thou” (Vol. 1, No. 2) * “The Young Lords” (Vol. 1, No. 3) * “Gay Youth Liberation” (Vol. 1, No. 4) * “Gays Riot Again! Remember Stonewall!” (Vol. 1, No. 5) * “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” (Vol. 1, No. 5) - Co-authored by Bernard Lewis * "Subversion in the Women’s Movement: What is to be Done?” (Vol. 1, Issue 7) * “Power… and the People!” (Vol. 2, No. 7b)

Other works

* "Notes of a Radical Lesbian" in * "Gay is Good" in * "Our Passion Shook the World" in

Books

* * * * * * * * ''We Set The Night On Fire: Igniting The Gay Revolution.'' 2023. ISBN 9781641609418

Short stories

*"Her wild barbarian heart" in * *"Walking the rim" in *"The cart o'tea belove" in

Poetry in anthology

* * *

Notes

External links

Interview with Martha Shelley in WGBH's public television series "American Experience: Stonewall Uprising", 2011

Ebisu Publications

''Stonewall Uprising'' website

Then and now
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shelley, Martha 1943 births American feminist writers American people of Polish-Jewish descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent Daughters of Bilitis members Bisexual women writers Bisexual poets Bisexual feminists American bisexual writers Gay Liberation Front members Jewish American feminists Jewish socialists Bisexual Jews American LGBTQ rights activists American LGBTQ poets Living people Radical feminists Lavender Menace members The Bronx High School of Science alumni American anti–Vietnam War activists City College of New York alumni Barnard College faculty Jewish American poets Jewish women writers American women poets Jewish LGBTQ women LGBTQ socialism