Three members of Lavender Menace at the Second Congress to Unite Women, New York, May 1970

Lavender Menace was a protest action in 1970 organized by the lesbian activist organization later named Radicalesbians, founded by Rita Mae Brown. Betty Friedan, a leading feminist writer of the ‘60s and founder of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), once said that lesbians were a threat to the feminist movement, and referred to queer women as “the Lavender Menace.” Photograph by Diana Davies, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.