- Born
- 5 May 1921San Francisco, USA
- Died
- 27 August 2008San Francisco, USA · aged 87
Del Martin
She and Phyllis Lyon helped build a national lesbian movement before becoming an emblematic couple in the struggle for marriage equality.
Del Martin was born in San Francisco in 1921. Originally named Dorothy Taliaferro, she married young and had a daughter before the marriage ended. She met Phyllis Lyon in 1950; they became a couple and moved in together in San Francisco in 1953.
In 1955 Martin and Lyon joined six other women in founding the Daughters of Bilitis. A private social alternative to the bar scene developed into a national lesbian rights organisation, with “The Ladder” as its magazine. Martin served as its first president.
Her activism also extended to the women’s movement and domestic violence. With Lyon she wrote “Lesbian/Woman” (1972); her “Battered Wives” (1976) addressed abuse within marriage at a time when it was often treated as a private matter.
Martin and Lyon married in San Francisco in 2004, but those marriages were later invalidated. On 16 June 2008 they married again following the California Supreme Court’s recognition of same-sex marriage. After fifty-five years sharing a home, their relationship had become a public symbol of the legal recognition they had helped pursue. Martin died two months later, aged 87.