Lesbian politics

Abstract

An expanded version of the entry for the Oxford Companion to Australian Politics (2007). It argues that there used to be two strands to lesbian politics during the early 1970s—‘liberal pluralist’ and lesbian feminist—the first asking for mainstream recognition, the second claiming to pose a challenge to that mainstream. The clearest statements of lesbian feminism came from the US, the Australian accounts largely being critical. The paper discusses these accounts, as well as some of the issues that were preoccupying lesbian feminists at the time, such as relationships and the treatment of lesbian mothers’ custody cases by the Family Court.