- Born
- 10 November 1924Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
- Died
- 9 April 2020San Francisco, USA · aged 95
Phyllis Lyon
With Del Martin she founded America’s first lesbian organisation – and after 55 years together, they were the first couple to marry in San Francisco.
Phyllis Lyon grew up in Oklahoma and California and worked as a journalist after studying at Berkeley. In Seattle in 1950 she met Del Martin. They became a couple in 1952 and moved into an apartment together in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day 1953.
In 1955 they founded the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organisation in the United States. Lyon was the first editor of its magazine, “The Ladder”, which she edited under the pseudonym Ann Ferguson before deciding to use her own name. Together the two later joined the National Organization for Women, worked with churches to change their attitude to homosexuality and campaigned to decriminalise homosexuality in California.
Their book “Lesbian/Woman” (1972) was one of the first to describe lesbian life positively. Lyon also earned a doctorate in human sexuality and worked as a sex educator.
In 2004 and again in 2008 they were the first couple to marry in San Francisco. After Del Martin’s death in 2008 Lyon lived on in their house in San Francisco, where she died in 2020, aged 95.