Rita Mae Brown
Her novel “Rubyfruit Jungle” gave lesbian literature a cheeky, unapologetic heroine – and she helped confront homophobia in the women’s movement.
Rita Mae Brown was born in Pennsylvania, adopted and raised in a working-class family in Florida. At the University of Florida she lost her scholarship, partly because of her involvement in the civil rights movement and her openness about being a lesbian. She moved to New York and studied there.
She joined the National Organization for Women, but left in protest when its leader Betty Friedan called lesbians a “lavender menace” that would harm the movement. In 1970 she was among the women who interrupted a feminist congress in T-shirts printed with “Lavender Menace”, forcing the movement to deal with lesbian women.
Her novel “Rubyfruit Jungle” (1973) tells the story of Molly Bolt, a poor, adopted girl from the South who loves women and refuses to be ashamed. The book, first published by a small feminist press, sold more than a million copies and became a classic.
Brown later wrote many novels and screenplays, including the popular mystery series featuring her cat Sneaky Pie Brown as “co-author”. In the late 1970s and early 1980s she was in a relationship with Martina Navratilova. She lives in Virginia.