FoundSF

Historical Essay

by Jacqueline Alegria, 2025

Between 1970 and 1975, Sisters magazine served as a vital cultural and political outlet by and for gay women in San Francisco. Emerging in the early years of the modern lesbian and feminist movements, the magazine offered a platform for creative expression, community-building, and critique of both mainstream society and male-dominated gay liberation. Sisters reflected and shaped the evolving identity, resistance, and solidarity of lesbian communities in San Francisco during a pivotal era.

April 1974 issue of Sisters

Image: Collection of Jacqueline Alegria

Sisters Magazine, by and for Gay Women, was a magazine created by the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. The Daughters of Bilitis was a “women’s organization to aid the Lesbian in discovering her place in society and to educate society to understand and accept her, without prejudice” (1, 2). The creation of Sisters signaled a shift towards media representation, mutual support, and grassroots engagement.

Historical Context

The Stonewall riots of 1969 (3) marked the shift towards higher promotion of gay rights. Out of this visibility emerged the Gay Liberation movement (4). In San Francisco specifically, it started as a “Gay-In” that became the “Gay Liberation Day Parade,” and is now known as San Francisco Pride (5).

Amid these changing approaches, the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) were also forced to consider a shift. The DOB and its publication, The Ladder had aimed to integrate and assimilate Lesbians in mainstream society by changing society to accept Lesbians (6). The broader movement challenged this approach, with other groups beginning to focus more on civil liberties (6). Eventually, The Ladder began actively using the word “Lesbian,” but the internal debates on this use signaled the beginning of the end of The Ladder as well as of the national DOB as it had originally existed (1).

Founding and Content of Sisters

The creation of Sisters by the original San Francisco DOB chapter is in line with the DOB’s loss of traction in 1970, and the controversies of The Ladder (1). Sisters ran from 1970 to 1975, three years before the official closing of the original DOB chapter.

In the first issue of Sisters, the San Francisco chapter of the DOB acknowledges that the DOB had released The Ladder a few months prior, but the members of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) felt that although The Ladder fulfilled some needs of the Women’s Liberation cause, there was still a need for a Lesbian magazine solely dedicated to Lesbian Liberation (2). This is how Sisters was born. The DOB acknowledged that there were several magazines already made for Lesbians, but that were mostly in East Bay, relied on volunteer labor, and were “radical,” but although they did fulfill a niche, they did not speak to all perspectives (2).

April 1974 Issue of Sisters; Advertisement for Other Media

Image: Collection of Jacqueline Alegria

The first issue of Sisters addresses how the DOB ceased to be a national organization. This meant that the San Francisco chapter was able to do what they’d like as an independent group, and that their long history was something to preserve (2).

Sisters was sent out to everyone who had been receiving The Ladder (at $5.00 yearly), but was also sold by copy at $0.50 a copy (2). The goal for the content of Sisters was for it to serve as a space for all ideas and responses from the gay women’s community, and any men who had comments on the gay women’s scene (2). The shifting strategies, from assimilation-guided to more radical post-Stonewall approaches, created space for new forms of expression and organizing. Sisters was created as a cross between more politically charged topics, and also had the ability to be shaped by the audience, making it so it wouldn’t necessarily lean too “radical”. This meant there would be space for discussion in various ways across the Bay Area, including politically and sociologically.

The content of Sisters demonstrated this new approach. The content across the issues included horoscopes, a calendar of events for the month, gay news, helpful phone numbers, advertisements for other gay spaces, events, media, forms of art, and a space for suggestions or feedback for future issues. The DOB of San Francisco wanted every month to be different, and fully dependent on the readers' input (7).

April 1974 Issue of Sisters; Calendar for Events of the Month

Image: Collection of Jacqueline Alegria

End of Sisters

The last issue of Sisters was released in September of 1975 (7). In this issue, the DOB of San Francisco included a “Note on the Demise of Sisters,” where they discussed their feelings of sapping energy from other areas through their attempts to keep Sisters running (7). Liane Esstelle, who had worked on Sisters for a year and a half, decided she could no longer put out the magazine, and no one else came forward who was willing to devote the same time and energy (7).

Also included in the final issue was “Notes on the revitalization of DOB,” where the DOB of San Francisco mentioned an upcoming meeting to discuss new projects and ideas that could be used to revitalize the DOB (7). They referenced feeling as if the DOB had been suffering from a continued “lack of energy that has been threatening to close [them] down” (7).

Notes

(1) Zoë Sonnenberg, "Daughters of Bilitis," FoundSF, 2015.
(2) Sisters, vol. 1, no. 1 (San Francisco, CA: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society, November 1970), Preliminary and Supplementary Material, Gale Document Number GALE|YOONQX050659052
(3) Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Stonewall Riots,” by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed May 25, 2025.
(4) “The Gay Liberation Movement,” Phoenix Society, accessed May 25, 2025.
(5) Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg, and Amy Sueyoshi, Labor of LOVE: The Birth of San Francisco Pride, 1970–1980, curated for the GLBT Historical Society Museum, accessed May 25, 2025.
(6) Kristin G. Esterberg, “From Accommodation to Liberation: A Social Movement Analysis of Lesbians in the Homophile Movement,” Gender and Society 8, no. 3 (September 1994): 424–443.
(7) Sisters by and for Gay Women, newsletter (San Francisco, CA: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society, September 1975), News section, Gale Document Number GALE|LVPJIX592076611.