Ivy Bottini

Ivy Bottini grew up on Long Island and studied graphic design at the Pratt Institute. She was attracted to women from an early age, but a psychiatrist told her she was not homosexual and should “cleave” to her future husband. She married in 1952 and worked for sixteen years as a graphic designer at the newspaper “Newsday”.

In 1966 she co-founded the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and in 1968 became its president. That year she came out as a lesbian, left her husband and moved in with a woman. She designed NOW’s logo, still in use today, and introduced feminist consciousness-raising groups. In 1969 she held a public forum titled “Is Lesbianism a Feminist Issue?” – the first time lesbian concerns were raised within NOW. In 1970 she led the action in which feminists hung a huge banner reading “Women of the World Unite!” from the Statue of Liberty. Later that year Betty Friedan, who feared that lesbians would damage the movement, had Bottini and other lesbians pushed out of the New York chapter.

In 1971 Bottini moved to Los Angeles. In 1977 she hosted the first lesbian and gay radio show on a mainstream station, in 1978 she helped defeat the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay teachers from California schools, and in 1983 she co-founded AIDS Project Los Angeles. She was the first openly gay person appointed to a California state commission.

She also performed a one-woman show and published her memoir in 2018. Bottini died in Florida in 2021, aged 94.