
Meet the 1940's secretary who used office time to produce the first lesbian magazine
In 1947, Edythe Eyde was a secretary working at RKO Radio Pictures in Los Angeles. A speedy typist who often completed work ahead of schedule, her boss told her: 'Well, I don't care what you do if you get through with your work, but … don't sit and read a magazine or knit. I want you to look busy.'
The literary-minded lesbian saw an opportunity. Gay culture was largely underground, and it was difficult for 'the third sex' to meet like-minded others. Using a Royal manual typewriter and carbon paper, making six copies at a time, the 25-year-old launched Vice Versa — 'a magazine dedicated, in all seriousness, to those of us who will never quite be able to adapt ourselves to the iron-bound rules of Convention.'
'During those days I didn't really know many girls,' she told the lesbian magazine Visibilities in a 1990 interview. 'But I thought, well, I'll just keep turning out these magazines and maybe I'll meet some!'
It worked. By Issue 4, the writer was awakened one night by readers tapping at her window. 'Their enthusiasm was gratifying indeed,' she wrote.
Vice Versa featured original poems, short stories and reviews of books, films and plays; any dramatic work with the slightest undertone of attraction between women was fair game. Her 'Watchama-Column' was a catch-all for her musings, and she invited others to sharpen their pencils and contribute.
Eyde distributed the photocopied magazine to friends, asking that they be passed along. ('But puh-leeze, let's keep it 'just between us girls.''). She also sent copies by mail, until a friend warned of illegality; the Comstock Act forbade sending 'obscene, lewd or lascivious' materials, without describing further.
'I don't know if she understood when she started typing the magazine that you could get in trouble for distributing work like that,' said acclaimed historian Lillian Faderman, author of 'The Gay Revolution.' 'It was a sort of blessed naivete, I think, that made it possible for her to do that.'
From June 1947 to February 1948, Eyde produced nine monthly issues, stopping only when Howard Hughes bought the studio and new work in secretarial pools did not afford privacy or extra time. She could not have known then that her humble magazine would be heralded well into the next century as a first in the lineage of lavender press.
'It was revolutionary,' Faderman said of Vice Versa. 'I don't think she realized how revolutionary it was. I don't think she realized how brave and meaningful it was.'
Faberman noted that Vice Versa inspired several female writers, who took courage from Eyde's friendship and undertaking, to contribute content to the male-centric ONE Magazine, which launched in 1953 (and in 1958 was at the center of a landmark Supreme Court case that protected free speech around homosexuality). In the mid-1950s, Eyde also got involved with the first lesbian rights organization, Daughters of Bilitis. Adopting the name Lisa Ben (a clever anagram of 'lesbian'), she contributed to the organization's magazine, The Ladder — the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the U.S., which ran from 1956 through 1972.
'It was a very brave little magazine, and I was happy to be a part of it,' she said of The Ladder in a 1988 interview with Manuela Soares for the Daughters of Bilitis Video Project at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. 'I was bubbling over with this sense of gayness, and it was easy to transpose it onto paper and send it in.'
Eyde's brand of activism was not overt, though her talents were wide-reaching, and she used creativity as a counterpoint to society's disdain 'of our inclinations,' as she called them in Vice Versa. An assiduous student of the violin in earlier years, Eyde took up guitar for a cause.
The inspiration took root at a West Hollywood drag bar Club Flamingo, which drew gay people in the afternoon and, toward the evening, a broad audience who enjoyed impersonations of Golden Age divas. Eyde stayed late one night and was horrified by the 'filth' she witnessed, particularly the willingness of gay performers to 'debase' themselves — and, specifically, lesbian nightclub singer Beverly Shaw — to get laughs from the general public.
Eyde set to writing parodies that cast gays and lesbians in a positive light. She performed at parties and private homes.
'Gee, my phone rang off the wall,' she told Soares. 'I would bring my guitar and sing all these gay parodies — and I had an awful lot of fun doing that.'
As for those lesbian pulp novels, she told Soares she 'read as many as I could get my greedy little hands on.'
'It was so nice to be able to read things like that and not have parents breathing down my neck,' she said. As a teen, her overbearing parents even monitored her library books.
'Her parents were very conservative,' recalled Vicky Venhuizen, 81, a distant cousin by marriage. Venhuizen met Eyde when the writer came to Rockford, Illinois, with her parents.
'My impression … was that she was glamorous,' Venhuizen said, noting that she was in awe of Eyde's independence. 'She was unmarried, which was rare for a '50s kid like me, and she lived in California.'
'She was ahead of her time,' Venhuizen said. 'Her writings proved that.'
Though not identifying as a SciFi writer, Edye was an enthusiastic consumer of horror stories and fantasy; a card-carrying member of the Fourth World Science Fiction Convention Society; and, to the delight of the modern admirer, can be seen in a 1945 photo in a bikini top reading the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
She preferred frilly dresses over trousers and loved dancing with the 'gay gals' at the If Club, a low-lit Los Angeles bar considered safe for the butches that she favored — and great spot to distribute Vice Versa.
Eyde 'ran with a hard-drinking crowd,' but she didn't care for alcohol herself. In a 1995 interview, Eyde recalled meeting a gorgeous girl at a party who wasn't fit to drive her home: 'She was a hell of a lover — golly, she was great, and I enjoyed being with her and all that, but she just couldn't leave the booze alone: couldn't drive the stick shift.'
Eyde maintained her vivacious spirit over the decades. In 1989, Eric Marcus, creator of the Making Gay History podcast, tracked her down in her small Burbank bungalow, attained through many years of secretarial work and frugal living.
'She was absolutely charming,' Marcus said of Eyde, then 68. 'She had curly hair and was very girlish in a lovely, charming way — very welcoming and eager to talk and happy to play her music for me.'
As an only child on a fruit ranch in Los Altos, California, her friends had been animals — a dog and cat, then later, a goat and riding pony. So, too, in later years, she settled into a quiet isolated life, caregiver to 15 cats.
Edythe Eyde, aka Lisa Ben, was inducted into The Association LGBTQ+ Journalists' Hall of Fame in 2010, and in 2015, she received the association's first Lisa Ben Award for Achievement in Features Coverage. She died later that year, at 94.
She may never have fully appreciated her own courage, but it appeared she knew no other way.
'My feelings in such matters have always seemed quite natural and 'right' to me,' she wrote. 'Right' like that exquisite time that she never did let go of — when a wavy-haired high school girl took her in her arms to dance around the living room. 'As our acquaintance grew, we found out how pleasant it was to kiss one another and hug one another ... and I just really thought she was tops. I just loved her.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Can you solve it? The deductive decade – ten years of Monday puzzles
Forgive me the indulgence of celebrating ten years of this column. Toot toot! I began posting biweekly brainteasers at the end of May 2015, originally addressing you folk as 'guzzlers' – Guardian puzzlers. The cringy coinage didn't stick, but the column did, and here we are a decade and 260 columns later. Some data. Total page views are now 38 million, which averages out at about 150,000 views per puzzle – a whopping number, I'd say. Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and support. For today's offerings I decided to go back through the archive and repost ten of my favourites. Some may be familiar, others not. Please graze, maybe even guzzle – and here's to the next ten years! 1. Bat and ball Three friends (A, B and C) are playing ping pong. They play the usual way: the winner stays on, and the loser waits their turn again. At the end of the day, they summarise the number of games that each of them played: A played 10 B played 15 C played 17. Who lost the second game? 2. Tricky trams Why are the tram's overhead cables positioned to make a zigzag, rather than straight line? 3. Read the question 3. What is never odd or even? 4. Catch the cat A straight corridor has 7 doors along one side. Behind one of the doors sits a cat. Your mission is to find the cat by opening the correct door. Each day you can open only one door. If the cat is there, you win. If the cat is not there, the door closes, and you must wait until the next day before you can open a door again. If the cat was always to sit behind the same door, you would be able to find it in at most seven days, by opening each door in turn. But this mischievous moggy is restless. Every night it moves randomly either one door to the left or one to the right. Although if it is behind the first or last door, it has only one option for where it can move. How many days do you now need to make sure you can catch the cat? 5. Mystery number I have a ten digit number, abcdefghij. Each of the digits is different, and a is divisible by 1 ab is divisible by 2 abc is divisible by 3 abcd is divisible by 4 abcde is divisible by 5 abcdef is divisible by 6 abcdefg is divisible by 7 abcdefgh is divisible by 8 abcdefghi is divisible by 9 abcdefghij is divisible by 10 What's my number? [To clarify: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, and j are all single digits. Each digit from 0 to 9 is represented by exactly one letter. The number abcdefghij is a ten-digit number whose first digit is a, second digit is b, and so on. It does not mean that you multiply a x b x c x…] 6. Disappearing cub This picture has not been doctored. Explain why the reflection has a yellow lion cub. 7. Crazy triangle Show that there is a triangle, the sum of whose three heights is less than 1mm, that has an area greater than the surface of the Earth (510m km2). 8. Deck dilemma Your friend chooses at random a card from a standard deck of 52 cards, and keeps this card concealed. You have to guess which of the 52 cards it is. Before your guess, you can ask your friend one of the following three questions: is the card red? is the card a face card? (Jack, Queen or King) is the card the ace of spades? Your friend will answer truthfully. What question would you ask that gives you the best chance of guessing the correct card? 9. The question with no question (a) All of the following. (b) None of the following. (c) Some of the following. (d) All of the above. (e) None of the above. [Just to reassure you, nothing has been omitted here.] 10. Triangle fold Find a way to fold a square piece of paper into an equilateral triangle. The triangle can be of any size. I'll be back at 5pm UK with the solutions. PLEASE NO SPOILERS Instead please recommend your favourites from the 260 you have read here over the years. Sources: 1. Adrian Paenza, 2. Kvantik magaizine, 3. Des MacHale, 4. New York Times. 5. John Conway, 6. Matt Pritchard, 7. Trần Phương, 8. Henk Tijms, 9. Parabola, 10. The Paper Puzzle Book. I've been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I'm always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.


Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Only Fools and Horses fans asked to pay up to £500 plus VAT to meet David Jason
Those who pay the fee will be banned from taking their own selfies, asking for autographs or even giving gifts to Sir David Only Fools and Horses fans are being asked to pay up to £550 to spend 'a moment' with Sir David Jason. The Del Boy star, 85, will pose for a picture as part of the deal at a two-day convention at a hotel in Milton Keynes this October. But unlike his wide-boy character, fans will be unable to avoid VAT, as the venue is cashless, and there will be no money back and no guarantee for ticket holders if they suddenly can't make it. Those who do turn up will be banned from taking their own selfies, asking for autographs or even giving gifts to Sir David. A disgruntled fan last night said: 'Lets just say, I wouldn't describe it as lovely jubbly.' Details of the money-spinner emerged after Sir David griped last year how he was "slightly upset" at being best known for playing Derek Trotter. The offer comes 12 months after the Mirror reported how organisers of last year's convention were charging at least £325 for tickets to meet the star. A cheaper bronze package for this year's event is available for £100-a-person, which will not include the chance to meet Sir David. Buyers will be able to watch an on stage talk with the star and director Tony Dow and are promised an 'opportunity to meet other star guest actors' from the show. But if they want to get their autographs, further charges will apply. A silver package is being sold at £350, which will allow fans the chance to get one 8x6 picture, described as 'FREE', with Sir David. The £450 gold package offers the same perks, plus 'Ltd Edt Convention Montage personally signed by Sir David Jason (before the Convention and given to you upon arrival at Registration)', 'central seating location in the ballroom' and being 'amongst the first tables called up to meet David Jason'. Those who buy the £550 platinum ticket are further promised 'VIP Seating – front row table with unobstructed view!' and '1 x FREE ticket to the Saturday Night Karaoke (includes evening meal)'. Fans that do get to meet Sir David will do so in a mock-up of Del Boy's flat inside Mandela House. The website says: 'Eligible ticket holders will finally have their 'Moment with Sir David Jason', posing for a photograph in the Trotter Flat, as well as all attendees having the chance to meet the other guest actors and add their autograph to your collection! 'We kindly request no gifts are to be given to Sir David Jason as this will take up all of the allocated time for your photo. 'Due to time constraints, Sir David will not be signing any items across the Convention weekend. We kindly ask you do not bring anything to attempt Sir David to sign as it will not be permitted. We will have staff on call to ensure this in fairness to everyone.' 'There will be NO 'Selfies' at the event with Sir David Jason. Selfies are left to the discretion of the other guest actors, although most are very happy to pose for a photograph if asked politely. 'We do not charge for a 'selfie'! Crew Members will be sat with each actor and happy to assist with the taking of your photo. If your ticket(s) do not include a signed photo / mount, ticket holders are able to purchase a signed Convention Photo / Mount subject to availability across the weekend. "There are no in person autograph opportunities across the weekend with Sir David Jason. The convention's website adds: 'We are delighted to return with the Karaoke on the Saturday Night. It will commence around 7pm and finish by 12pm (midnight). 'Purchasing a Karaoke ticket includes entry to the karaoke and an evening meal (hot buffet selection chosen by the venue). You must ensure that you are attending the Convention on either day to be able to attend the Karaoke. 'NO SELFIES / AUTOGRAPHS will be signed by any actors who attend the Karaoke – please allow them to enjoy their evening. Other guest actors in attendance WILL be signing any items of your choice including Props and Van Doors.'


The Sun
17-05-2025
- The Sun
Leo weekly horoscope: What your star sign has in store for May 18
OUR much-loved astrologer Meg sadly died last March but her column will be kept alive by her friend and protégé Maggie Innes. Read on to see what's written in the stars for you today. Sign up for the Mystic Meg newsletter. Your info will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy LEO JULY 23 - AUG 23 1 You can be even more sociable than usual, encouraged by the Sun. If you've been considering joining or starting a special group, now is the perfect moment. You see the absolute best in everyone, which makes you a gifted leader and teacher. Love is more open to change than you might imagine, so be brave and make that suggestion. Luck may come from "B" roads. DESTINY DAYS If you're missing someone, Monday is the perfect day to let them know. On Wednesday, believe what you see rather than what you're told. Read all messages twice on Thursday. What is your star sign's element? In astrology, the elements — Air, Water, Earth, and Fire signs — serve as foundational principles that influence the characteristics and behaviours associated with the twelve star signs. Earth signs: Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn The Earth signs are grounded in the tangible and practical aspects of life, embodying the stable and nurturing qualities of their element. These signs are known for their pragmatism, reliability, and strong connection to the physical world, often excelling in matters that require patience and persistence. Air Signs: Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius The Air signs are characterised by their intellectual, communicative, and social nature. This reflects the light and dynamic essence of their elemental influence. Overall, these signs tend to excel in the realms of ideas, relationships, and innovation, bringing a breath of fresh air to their interactions and thought processes. Water Signs: Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces The Water element signs are profoundly impacted by their element. With each astrological sign, water gives way to emotional depth, strong intuition, and a capacity for deep empathy and connection. Fire Signs: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius Fuelled by the element of Fire, these fire signs in astrology are known for their passion, boldness, energy, enthusiasm, courage, and a zest for life that often leads them to adventurous and creative endeavours. LUCKIEST LINKS As a Fire sign ruled by the Sun, all colours connected to it resonate with Leo luck. Gold is your metal, and sunflowers and marigolds, the bigger and brighter the better, bring fortune wherever they are found. Logos of lions, tigers, and all kinds of cats are lucky symbols, and honey is your special food. Grow orange and lemon trees if possible, and holiday in volcanic areas like Sicily or Iceland. Hot and happening cities such as Mumbai and Barcelona are also excellent choices. Fabulous is the home of horoscopes, with weekly updates on what's in store for your star sign as well as daily predictions. hook up with for the steamiest sex to what it's like to .