Historians Highlight Creation of America's First Lesbian Magazine Vice Versa in 1947
As part of LGBT History Month in the United States, American historians and researchers revisited the origins of the queer press, highlighting the creation of Vice Versa, recognized as the nation’s first lesbian magazine, secretly published in Los Angeles between 1947 and 1948. The pioneering publication was produced by 26-year-old Edythe Eyde, a secretary at the Hollywood studio RKO Pictures, who wrote under the pseudonym Lisa Ben.
According to a retrospective by LGBTQ Nation, Eyde typed the publication using carbon paper during quiet hours at work, producing around a dozen copies of each issue. Subtitled “America’s Gayest Magazine,” the publication was distributed by hand to friends, shared in gay bars, and occasionally mailed. In an era when anti-sodomy statutes criminalized homosexual conduct in every US state and police raids on gay venues were frequent, the newsletter represented an unprecedented effort to build community among women seeking fellowship outside strict conventional norms.
Lillian Faderman, an emeritus professor at California State University, Fresno, and a preeminent LGBTQ+ historian, noted that Eyde’s undertaking combined courage with a measure of naivety, as sending homosexual literature through the post violated the federal Comstock Act. The magazine ceased publication in February 1948 after its ninth issue, following billionaire Howard Hughes’s acquisition of RKO Pictures, which resulted in Eyde’s reassignment to a shared typing pool. In 1956, she joined the pioneering lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis, contributing articles and poetry to The Ladder under the pen name Lisa Ben—an anagram of the word “lesbian.”
Eyde passed away in 2015 at the age of 94, and surviving issues of Vice Versa have since been digitized and preserved in archives such as the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives and Queer Music Heritage. Earlier during LGBT History Month observances in the United States, Urania reported on the 20th anniversary of the LGBT History Month Icons project, which celebrates the legacy of civil rights pioneers.
