“Separated, but far from alone”: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s

During the 1970s and 1980s, lesbians were actively building in-person communities but still faced significant barriers to meeting other women-loving-women. On the national level, this period was marked by an ascendant conservative movement that was hostile to queer communities and their nascent claims on equality; at a local scale, lesbian institutions—established as part of widespread feminist activism at the time—included coffeehouses, bookstores, community groups, softball leagues, and women’s centers.²⁶ Although these vital resources for network- and community-building helped lesbian feminist communities survive, not all lesbians had ready access to these kinds of establishments, especially if they lived in rural or conservative areas. For others, socializing took place through going to bars—one woman named Kristi wrote in 1975 that gay and lesbian bars were often “the only port in the storm of heterosexuality.”²⁷ Still, not everyone wanted to rely on alcohol for socializing; and more pointedly, queer bars were often targeted for police harassment and arrest or extortion from organized crime.²⁸ For many lesbians of this era, in-person interactions left them with a choice between distance and isolation or exposure and risk.

Enter Lesbian Connection. Readers expressed gratitude for how LC made them feel like they were part of a larger community of people like them. As one closeted woman from a small town in upstate New York wrote, “I’ve felt so alone, but not since I read my first issue of LC! Now I realize I’m ‘separated,’ but far from alone.” The arrival of the magazine every two months became a kind of lifeline, easing isolation without having to find a far-off women’s center or risk going to a gay bar. In one 1977 issue, a middle-aged lesbian born in the 1930s reported crying every time she opened a new issue, thinking about “those letters you print from lesbians in isolation who depend on you for some contact, no matter how fragile, with other lesbians…[and] how grateful I would have been through the years to have had the same opportunity.” Another reader who lived in the Maryland suburbs, grief-stricken after the unexpected death of her lover, brought the latest issue of Lesbian Connection to a park, “had a cleansing cry,” and spent the next week “carrying LC in my backpack to remind me that I’m not alone.”²⁹

Lesbian Connection created a diffuse and reassuring sense of connection over distance. The letter-writer from Chatham, Massachusetts, expressed this sentiment when she lauded the geographic diversity of its readership by proclaiming “WE ARE EVERYWHERE!!”³⁰ In the same 1988 issue that printed the Chatham reader’s proclamation, there were some 150 place names scattered across thirty-six pages of letters, advertisements, and other content submitted by readers. The map of these locations, from Abington, Pennsylvania, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, illustrates the spatial solidarity that Lesbian Connection brought to its readers as they saw content flowing in from so many different lesbians living in so many different places (fig. 4).

The long-distance spatial connections that LC readers described were different from the localized connections that coalesced in particular towns, cities, or regions of the country.³¹ Through its reader-generated content and discussions that spanned multiple issues, LC served as a kind of discursive public square. From its inaugural issue, LC raised points of conversation and debate that helped define lesbian identity and community. Although the periodical’s readership developed its own set of norms, its dispersed and far-flung geography along with the publication’s largely “open-mic” moderation policy meant that LC printed a wide range of reader opinions on contentious topics like monogamy, separatism, or pornography that were roiling the larger lesbian and feminist communities.³² After an outcry about an ad for a pornographic video “made by and for women” that included unusually explicit imagery for the pages of Lesbian Connection, the editors wrote, “isn’t this the beauty of LC—a forum for all lesbians—even those who are annoying and maddening at times?”³³ These different voices helped readers locate themselves within a vast constellation of lesbian viewpoints and identities beyond what they might otherwise find in their local area.

In a pre-internet age, LC served as an informal reference guide for different facets of lesbian identity across the continent. One woman from Florida described how she savored the arrival of every issue:

That same Florida reader could flip through the issue in which her letter was printed and read a book review of a new collection of writings by radical women of color, musings on life as a closeted lesbian in rural Canada, and news of a Missouri woman’s successful petition to get a vanity license plate inscribed with “DYKE.” In the words of one Wisconsin woman grappling with her own identity as “a lesbian who is attracted to men,” Lesbian Connection’s conversations captured “the vast array of what it means to be a lesbian.”³⁵

The dominant demographics represented in Lesbian Connection’s readership and written conversations meant that readers had unequal abilities to see themselves reflected in its pages. As the largely white editors acknowledged when looking back at their founding, “we certainly didn’t represent all lesbians.” Women of color wrote in to make this point and their letters instigated conversations about race and racism, while also inspiring others to speak up. In an essay titled “Have You Ever Asked a Black Lesbian to Dance?,” Julie Jenkins in Lansing took her white peers to task, describing “a subtle system of stereotyping that exists in most lesbian communities” when it came to Black lesbians.³⁶ Others emphasized the lack of women of color in their local communities or at festivals, conferences, and other in-person gatherings.

Even with these limitations, lesbians of color still managed to use the publication and its national reach to connect with each other. In one 1988 letter, an Asian American reader from Honolulu described feeling “very alone” and wondered “am I the only one who writes from Hawaii?” Over the next several issues, responses poured in from other women of Asian descent offering support and advice, along with the names of local lesbian bars and community organizations in Hawai‘i—thereby deepening Asian American and Pacific Islander representation. In 1987, a Lakota couple, Beverly and Charlene, wrote to explain the rejection they faced from their home community when they came out. Having participated in the Sundance ceremony for over a decade, they were now excluded. “We have a vision for a Native Womyn’s Lesbian gathering,” they wrote from Mesa, Arizona. “Any Native Womyn who are reading this let us hear from you. We hold sweat lodge ceremonies weekly and so far only non-native womyn have accepted our offer to pray with us.” Their letter illustrated both the need for and the usefulness of a lesbian communications network, as well as how the persistence of a majority-white lesbian community limited some of that utility for women of color.³⁷

The magazine’s ability to provide information and alleviate loneliness proved particularly useful for self-proclaimed “rural dykes.”³⁸ For them, in-person venues like women’s coffeeshops or bookstores were few and far between, making long-distance communication channels like Lesbian Connection even more vital. In seemingly every issue of the magazine, one can find letters from “Rural America,” “a small town in Missouri,” “nowhere LA [Louisiana],” “rural farm country,” “a very conservative and isolated area,” or “this small town backwater.”³⁹ These readers all expressed gratitude for how Lesbian Connection plugged them into a wider community despite living far from other lesbians. As one reader wrote from rural Indiana: “Thanks to LC even small towns can be devine [sic].”⁴⁰

Perhaps more surprisingly, even women who did live in big cities with established lesbian communities and institutions described similar feelings of isolation as their rural counterparts—feelings that Lesbian Connection’s network of readers helped alleviate. As JP in Brooklyn wrote in 1983, “I live an incredibly isolated, closeted existence and LC is a form of communication with other lesbians for me.…Things in New York City for lesbians have hit an all time low. So many lesbian spaces have closed.” Another Brooklynite echoed these sentiments, writing that Lesbian Connection “acquainted me with what was happening in the lesbian world and helped me to feel less isolated.” Or, from Carol in Philadelphia: “We wanted to let you know that you are also very important to women in large cities.” These letters from urban readers are a reminder that lesbians from all backgrounds moved through their daily lives facing a hostile society, especially during the Reagan-era backlash against feminism and gay rights.⁴¹

Finally, Lesbian Connection served an especially important connective function for another group of lesbians experiencing even more extreme isolation: those in prison. In just its third issue, in 1975, a reader wrote from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women to share that “Your L.C. is a source of strength and light to me while I am locked away from the rest of the world.” Incarcerated readers throughout the 1970s and 1980s thanked the editors for their “free to any lesbian” policy that allowed them to subscribe to the periodical despite their circumstances. This policy made LC a “lifesaver,” “a connection with my sisters,” and “the emotional support we so dearly need.” The publication provided more than just a sense of connection, however. Incarcerated lesbians also used it to broadcast injustices and discover information about prison conditions and legal battles taking place across the country. In 1983, an interracial lesbian couple incarcerated in Idaho wrote a lengthy letter explaining why they wanted to file a lawsuit against the prison for racial discrimination and mistreatment. They had already contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but they feared the organization would shy away from giving aid to lesbians. They turned to Lesbian Connection and its thousands of readers across the country to bring light to their situation. Incarcerated readers may have represented the extremes of isolation experienced by lesbians in the 1970s and 1980s, but their use of the magazine pointed to the wide continuum of connections it facilitated.⁴²

In addition to intangible feelings of connection, women also relied on LC for a variety of economic purposes. LC facilitated resource-sharing outside of a traditional capitalist marketplace, such as exchanging free temporary housing, as well as more conventional marketing and sales. From the beginning, the magazine included advertisements submitted by readers. Within a few years of publication, it began producing spring and winter catalog sections—eventually comprising an entire annual winter supplemental issue—that featured lesbian- and women-owned businesses and producers. In one catalog from 1988, for instance, readers could purchase suede work gloves made by the Womanwork company out of Kennebunkport, Maine, or buy pottery adorned with “strong matriarchal imagery” from the California-based Amazon Earthworks. The catalogs proved immensely popular. As Jan in Pittsburg wrote, “I blew my summer budget, but it was nice to support lesbian artists, and have a clearer idea of what I was ordering!”⁴³ Lesbian Connection created a consumer network that would both funnel dollars to lesbian-run enterprises and connect consumers with goods that they may not have been able to access locally (fig. 5).

The predominant way historians have understood feminist economics has been through local or regional in-person contexts, examining institutions such as bookstores, co-ops, restaurants, or land communes.⁴⁴ Indeed, these brick-and-mortar establishments often served as clearinghouses for information and as centers for political organizing in addition to sites for promoting, curating, and distributing goods and services produced by and for women. But a localized reach kept these enterprises constrained to more populous centers with nearby potential customers that could support them. With LC, however, lesbian women were able to market their products to a national network of subscribers.

Long-distance marketing was especially beneficial for feminist bookstores and publishers, which developed an extensive mail-order catalog business. Bookstores frequently advertised their latest titles in Lesbian Connection, giving them another way to provide both economic support and further their political goals of promoting voices of women, particularly underrepresented women writers, across a broad readership. Lesbian Connection’s readers—especially those living outside of big cities—were hungry for these kinds of products. One reader in Pennsylvania, for instance, extolled the books and publications listed for purchase through LC and echoed a frequent refrain from readers: “Loved your advertising issue and would love to see more. There are so many things not accessible here in State College.”⁴⁵

In addition to brick-and-mortar businesses, many of the advertisers in Lesbian Connection were individual women selling goods out of their homes. The magazine’s catalog issues provided a way for these tiny enterprises to market their wares to thousands of potential customers. Writing from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, one letter explained “My womon and I love reading our LC aloud together when it comes in the mail. We live in a very conservative and isolated area.” These “two middle-aged dykes who fell madly in love” added that they “recently received our order for matching wedding bands made by an artist listed in your last winter catalog.”⁴⁶ The vulnerability experienced by consumers like this couple shopping for commitment rings would have made in-person shopping prohibitive. Purchasing from an artist advertising in LC not only assured them of their personal and emotional safety but likely furthered a feeling of community through such personal purchases.

The consumer element of Lesbian Connection helps explain how certain aspects of lesbian culture became so ubiquitous—how a collective lesbian identity was recognizable in disparate places like State College, Sheboygan Falls, and many others outside any specific regional landscape. Alongside other key venues for cultural creation and transfer—especially women’s music festivals—LC’s catalogs communicated and provided access to a shared consumer landscape.⁴⁷ The advertisements in Lesbian Connection reflected the widespread popularity of music by artists like white folk singer Alix Dobkin; writing by Black feminist theorist Audre Lorde; jewelry with lesbian symbols like a labrys (the iconic double-headed ax of female warriors); and astrological calendars for alternative spiritualities. Other sellers merged with the feminist health movement to focus on non-disposable, non-commercial menstrual products. Ladyslipper Music in Durham, North Carolina, meanwhile, advertised “essential lesbian music” by pointedly asking readers, “Tired of Being Left Out of Your Culture?”⁴⁸

As many other scholars have established, culture, much like space, is socially constructed rather than existing a priori.⁴⁹ Unlike identities inherited from families of origin, most queer people have had to self-consciously learn and create their gender or sexual identities. As one woman in Eugene remembered, “when I came out as a lesbian, it became clear to me that the protocol was: cut your hair, get some army boots, get a flannel shirt, and learn about racism and antisemitism, and all that. Classism.”⁵⁰ Her words exemplify the combination of transgressive gender performance, progressive politics, and aesthetics that shaped lesbian feminist culture.⁵¹ The inclusion of clothing items in particular underscored an especially important aspect of that culture: consumer choices that highlighted “lesbian distinctiveness,” different from a patriarchal capitalist mainstream society. As historian Heather Murray explains, consumer goods “invited lesbian consumers into a rather exclusive lesbian culture, perhaps understandable in such a besieged climate for lesbians.”⁵² A coherent culture that transcended regional specificity, however, could feel narrow for those who stood apart from those emerging norms. In response to the 1987 winter catalog, for example, an “urban-professional-lesbian looking to support dyke culture” in Baltimore demanded to know “Where are the products/publications/resorts for the non-rural, non-goddess-worshipping, non-crystal-bearing lesbians?”⁵³ The fact that this reader was able to use a recognizable shorthand illustrates a consistency even as she pushed to expand its consumer “dyke culture.”

Lesbian Connection’s long-distance network facilitated the growth of transformative and utopian-inspired communities where lesbian culture could coalesce. One of the most important examples of these were land groups.⁵⁴ In the early 1980s, LC began publishing an intermittent directory of women’s back-to-the-land communities. The first of these directories published in 1983 encompassed “close to 3000 acres of women-owned land,” and subsequent directories in 1986 and 1988 were similarly expansive.⁵⁵ Meanwhile, each year brought more women’s music festivals, writers’ gatherings, and lesbian conferences, which attracted women from all over the country.⁵⁶ These gatherings were also sites for LC to reach new subscribers and for attendees to purchase the music, literature, and products of lesbian feminist culture. Summer became “festival season” for many lesbians, as festivals, in addition to touristing vacationers, fueled a high rate of movement and travel. Accordingly, a significant subset of vendors in Lesbian Connection were travel-related businesses, especially lodging.⁵⁷

Lesbian-owned bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) increasingly appeared in Lesbian Connection, paralleling the national uptick in B&Bs while also responding to specific needs among LC’s readership. For those who could afford it, lesbian-friendly housing promised vacationers safety, comfort, and privacy that was not guaranteed by “mainstream” lodging.⁵⁸ The very same factors that could appeal to vacationers—rural natural beauty, the personal touch of a B&B’s domestic setting—made queer travelers more vulnerable. Same-sex couples, gender-transgressive people, or anyone easily identifiable as lesbian could face harassment or the threat of violence in overnight stays. Even before arriving, simply booking travel—and anything that involved a moment of coming out in some way to a potentially hostile vendor—could add stress and uncertainty. By advertising in Lesbian Connection, businesses renting cabins and rooms helped lesbians access wilderness and pastoral peace in safety and privacy. One couple from Washington, Pennsylvania, wrote glowingly of their stay at a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast in the Poconos. Reporting on their hosts’ warmth and the home’s secluded hot tub, they wrote “If it weren’t for LC, we would have never discovered this paradise only 7 hours from home.”⁵⁹ Their words revealed the economic importance of advertising in LC for lesbian business owners as well. Lesbian-owned vacation guesthouses helped build a leisure infrastructure that expanded the locations accessible to middle-class lesbians.

Vacation lodging is one example of the ways that Lesbian Connection’s long-distance communication network facilitated in-person experiences. The consumer culture that Lesbian Connection helped create through its advertisements and special catalog sections illustrates how economic exchange could transform separation into connection. Although traditional systems of payment and profit shaped their commercial ventures, women also relied on LC’s informal networks of hosting and exchange. These networks were facilitated by another feature of the magazine that would become arguably its most unique contribution to the wider lesbian feminist movement: the “Contact Dyke Directory.”

In March of 1975, the editors at Lesbian Connection put out a call for any readers who were willing to list their contact information in an upcoming issue. Fifteen people from eleven different states initially responded to their request, and that summer LC printed its inaugural “Contact Dyke Directory.” The goal of the directory was to provide a listing of lesbians across the country who would serve as points of contact and local guides for a surrounding area. Volunteering to publish one’s name (even if it was just their first name) and contact information in a lesbian magazine carried real risks. Many states still had laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy, while employers could fire gay employees. Meanwhile, a widespread culture of homophobia combined with misogyny to inspire fear of sexual violence. Despite these risks, lesbians volunteered to serve as “CDs,” or Contact Dykes, in growing numbers. From a modest starting point of a little more than a dozen listings in 1975, the directory ballooned to one hundred and seventy listings just five years later, and by the end of the 1980s the directory included more than six hundred listings from every U.S. state and a dozen countries around the world (fig. 6).⁶⁰

If Lesbian Connection’s founding goal was to create “a national lesbian communications network,” its hundreds of Contact Dykes scattered across the country helped knit this network together.⁶¹ The directory was not necessarily representative of the publication’s wider readership, much less the broader lesbian population in the United States. Participants were, by definition, those who were interested in actively building and contributing to a larger lesbian community. Nevertheless, even this subset of the wider lesbian population provides an important starting point for understanding the geography and significance of this network and the women who participated in it.

Rather than fostering community at the local scale of a city, town, or neighborhood, the Contact Dyke Directory facilitated direct long-distance relationships with other lesbians outside one’s immediate area. Roughly 82 percent of listings in the magazine’s 1987 Contact Dyke Directory (more than three hundred in total) were the only point of contact for their city or town, even in big urban areas like Dallas–Fort Worth, Indianapolis, and New Orleans. Volunteering as a CD was especially beneficial for lesbians who lived in rural areas without large or coherent local queer communities, in places like Yellow Springs, Ohio; Pine River, Wisconsin; and Colby, Kansas. One couple living in a small Canadian town shared: “Being Contact Dykes has allowed us to gain ‘inside information’ from a number of womyn throughout the USA and Canada about their ‘neck of the woods.’ Also, several womyn are considering moving here—an area that was previously considered closed to Lesbians.” In rural Virginia, Judy and Darlene decided to join the directory and were shocked to discover another lesbian living just five miles away from them. In the very same issue, a couple from Mississippi named Wanda and Brenda described feeling “blessed” to host traveling lesbians from New York and Nashville: “The isolation here in Gulfport is tremendous but being CD’s helps.”⁶²

Beyond its dispersed geography, the Contact Dyke Directory had several other notable spatial patterns. Mid-sized and smaller cities had an outsized presence in the directory relative to their overall population. In the 1987 directory, for instance, there were around three to five listings for Albany, Austin, Cincinnati, Fort Wayne, and Sacramento—on par with much more populous metropolises like Chicago, Detroit, Houston, or Philadelphia. Particular kinds of smaller cities were over-represented: those that were home to a large college or university. One of the 1987 directory’s single largest concentrations of listings was in Eugene, Oregon, home to the state’s flagship university and a well-known setting for activism and organizing. With eight CDs, Eugene outstripped the far larger nearby cities of Portland and Seattle, despite having a much smaller overall population. Other clusters of Contact Dykes appeared in Madison (University of Wisconsin), Gainesville (University of Florida), Knoxville (University of Tennessee), and Tucson (University of Arizona). This pattern illustrates the growing presence of lesbian and feminist organizing within the academy, including the rise of women’s studies programs, and the ways it intersected with the wider lesbian feminist movement (fig. 7).⁶³

Contact Dykes were often part of a larger ecosystem of lesbian travel and tourism, as reflected in clusters of CDs in vacation and resort destinations. For instance, despite having fewer than one thousand residents, the tiny town of Mendocino stood out with its four listings in the 1987 Contact Dyke Directory (a number exceeded by only six cities nationwide), with another three listings just a short distance away. The reason for this surprising density was due to the fact that Mendocino was a popular resort town located only a few hours north of San Francisco along Northern California’s dramatic coastline. Smaller beach cities in Florida like Saint Augustine, Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Saint Petersburg were similarly overrepresented in the directory.⁶⁴

Lesbian travelers used the Contact Dyke Directory to facilitate their trips. Prior to embarking, they could use the Contact Dyke Directory to write or telephone a local CD to get information about the area’s businesses and organizations. Once in town, lesbians could “talk to a friendly dyke” without “[having] to resort to going to gay bars to find other lesbians to talk with.”⁶⁵ Given the risk of harassment and physical danger, it was important to know which places were safe for lesbians and which places to avoid. But this was not the primary function of the Contact Dyke Directory. In fact, as historian Alexandra Ketchum has demonstrated, lesbians already had a reliable source for this kind of information: Gaia’s Guide, a travel guide listing women- and lesbian-friendly bars, coffeehouses, restaurants, bookstores, and other venues and organizations across the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Gaia’s Guide fit within a larger array of resources that vulnerable communities used to navigate the precarities of travel, including Bob Damron’s “gay guides” and The Negro Motorist Green Book for African American travelers.⁶⁶ Unlike these travel guides, the Contact Dyke Directory provided lesbians with ready-made social connections. As a Contact Dyke named Vanessa reported, “I’ve met the most intriguing lesbians from Australia to Peoria…Most [visitors] have told me that they do have a GAIA’S GUIDE but liked the informality of knowing someone by name in a strange town.”⁶⁷

Some Contact Dykes even offered lodging to travelers, providing them a free and safe alternative to hotels or bed-and-breakfasts. One woman named Calary described relocating to Alaska in the fall of 1977, staying with CDs in San Francisco and Seattle along the way. The Contact Dyke Directory, she reported, “made traveling a reality for me, a poor dyke.” She was so grateful that she began volunteering as a CD herself, writing “I only hope I can do the same for women coming to Alaska.” Just months later, Calary had received so much interest from potential visitors that she reported, “Hoping we can house all our summer travelers! Looks like it might be floor space only at some times!” In fact, informal lodging became so common that the editors of Lesbian Connection had to remind readers in 1982 that “Some [Contact Dykes] MAY be willing to help you find temporary housing if you’re traveling, but DON’T expect it.”⁶⁸

Both Contact Dykes and the travelers they hosted recounted the mutual enjoyment that came with meeting other lesbians. One “lonely Texan” from the Dallas suburbs contacted a Contact Dyke during a work trip to Tampa in 1987: “She and her lover were kind enough to take me along to a birthday party. I had a fantastic time! The food, the drinks, the music, the laughter, and the wonderful WOMEN! I returned to Dallas the next week with a very warm feeling of ‘connection.’” The following year, another lesbian embarked on a cross-country road trip from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco and described “meeting a dozen terrific contact dykes…my experience with CD’s helped me feel an openness towards womyn I thought I’d lost.”⁶⁹

Contact Dykes didn’t just help travelers and vacationers; they also acted as informal welcoming committees and hubs of information for those looking to change jobs or relocate to a new part of the country. One reader shared the experience of moving to Arkansas from Chicago with three friends. By reaching out to a Contact Dyke they “were able to find a great house, become acquainted with lesbian resources in our new town and we’re beginning to be part of a new network already. It’s like a family reunion.” A doctor interviewing for a job in San Diego met up with a local CD for breakfast “and she oriented me to the publications, restaurants, groups, and hangouts, etc, that a new lesbian to the city would like to know.”⁷⁰ These experiences highlighted the ways in which Contact Dykes served as on-the-ground sources of knowledge about the local scene.

Acting as a Contact Dyke came with potential downsides. CDs (and the editors of Lesbian Connection) had to remind readers that they should never use the directory to find romantic partners. As one Contact Dyke wrote, “We’re interested in meeting women who want to visit, or settle in, our area. We’re not interested in being approached sexually, so if you’re looking for potential friends, please call—if you’re looking for ‘playmates’ DON’T BOTHER.” Some CDs complained about receiving indiscreet postcards, chain letters, junk mail, or drunken phone calls late at night from other lesbians. Even more alarming were the instances in which readers undergoing severe mental health crises used the directory as a literal call for help: “this network is not set up for therapy.”⁷¹

By the late 1980s, the editors of Lesbian Connection were mailing more than sixteen thousand copies of each issue across the country. This widespread distribution put Contact Dykes at increased risk of their mailing address or phone number falling into the wrong hands. Contact Dykes occasionally wrote in to report disturbing communications from men that left them feeling “betrayed and invaded,” such as “a letter from a very sick male filled with perverted suggestions” or phone calls from a man “who harassed me two weeks in a row.” The issue of privacy and safety reached a crescendo in 1988 when evangelical Christians in Kansas used the Contact Dyke Directory to mail out postcards filled with fire-and-brimstone warnings. Some CDs decided to respond in kind, such as a woman in Denver who mailed back a tongue-in-cheek “Easter greetings postcard from the Lesbians of Colorado—all 120,000 of us!” For others, the experience was much more upsetting and underscored the dangers that came with volunteering to be part of this directory. These episodes unfolded against the backdrop of widespread homophobia of many Americans during the 1970s and 1980s and the role of anti-gay politics in the rise of the Religious Right. The topic also sparked a larger debate about the role of Christianity within the lesbian movement, a conversation that unfolded over successive issues of Lesbian Connection, including letters from deeply religious readers who felt unfairly judged by secular lesbians.⁷²

For most, the benefits of participating in the Contact Dyke Directory outweighed its drawbacks. As Carol and Fran in Tucson, Arizona, wrote: “It’s sometimes work, sometimes worry, but being a CD is a joy.” Again and again, Contact Dykes emphasized “feeling connected and…[nurturing] the worldwide lesbian network,” being able “to connect such a vast range of lesbians,” or “building a strong network of womyn across the world.”⁷³ The Contact Dyke Directory—and the women who contributed to it—helped Lesbian Connection bridge the long-distance scale of its dispersed readership with the localized scale of face-to-face interactions and in-person relationships that many women found so meaningful.

Mapping the thousands of locations printed in Lesbian Connection across the first fifteen years of its publication demonstrates a community geography that has largely been ignored and is at risk of being forgotten entirely. The survival of Lesbian Connection for nearly fifty years, decades past the flourishing of its counterparts, indicates the profound role it has played in building a lesbian identity—particularly for the baby-boomer generation that gave rise to many of the architects of lesbian feminist culture and institutions. Visualizing its geography creates a deeper understanding of the possibilities for social, cultural, and consumer connections across space and distance. Readers expressed how LC’s print conversations, catalogs, and directories helped them experience the difference between isolation and separation. The pages of LC themselves became a kind of information highway that also led to movement on actual asphalt.

At the same time, documenting the growth of Contact Dyke directories, community institutions, and feminist businesses illuminates a very different window into the 1980s than that indicated by the Reagan Revolution or the fictionalized Wall Street slogan “Greed is Good.” Though dominated by social conservatism, the 1980s were also a time of sustained progressive activism and community building by women of color and lesbian feminists, from the welfare rights movement to alternative publishing presses.⁷⁴ Lesbian Connection is part of this story. Its dispersed network of readers points to an understudied geography of this period, one located in smaller cities and rural areas, women’s land groups and summer festivals, as well as college towns and vacation resorts. The ways Lesbian Connection’s readership moved between in-person and discursive interactions, between physical movement and long-distance exchanges, reveals the multiple scales necessary to create a dense and enduring sense of community across space.