Lesbian Nation, R.I.P

September 20th, 2010

Just heard that Jill Johnston died two days ago. There’s a very respectful piece on the HuffPo.

I recently organized my whole library. Fiction was easy, just putting stuff in alphabetical order. But when I got to my huge stash of books on gay and lesbian topics, I was confused about how to arrange them. Finally it became clear that the only meaningful order was chronological. So I put them all on the shelf by publication date. And quite accidentally the first one was Lesbian Nation, and eight feet further down the shelf was my latest acquisition, When Gay People Get Married. A fitting summation, I felt, of the past 40 years.

RIP, Jill Johnston.