In “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community,” Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis aim “to explore how the culture of resistance that developed in working-class, lesbian bars and house parties contributed to shaping twentieth-century gay and lesbian consciousness and politics. [Their] approach is that of ethno-history: a combination of the methodology of ethnography – the intensive study of the culture and identity of a single community – with history – the analysis of the forces that shaped how that community changed over time, using as [their] primary sources oral histories of Buffalo lesbians” (pg. 2). Kennedy and Davis draw extensively upon the work of George Chauncey, Michael Frisch, Ruth Meyerowitz, Elaine Tyler May, Esther Newton, and others in contextualizing their oral histories.
Discussing the importance of geography on Buffalo’s lesbian community, Kennedy and Davis write, “Bars… and public house parties were central to twentieth-century lesbian resistance. By finding ways to socialize together, individuals ended the crushing isolation of lesbian oppression and created the possibility for group consciousness and activity. In addition, by forming community in a public setting outside of the protected and restricted boundaries of their own living rooms, lesbians also began the struggle for public recognition and acceptance” (pg. 29). They continue, “the nature of lesbian oppression was such that as lesbians and gays came together to end their isolation and build a public community they also increased their visibility and therefore the risks of exposure. Lesbians had two basic strategies for handling this situation: one, separation of their lesbian social life from other aspects of their life; and second, avoidance of conflict when confronted about being lesbian” (pg. 55).
Kennedy and Davis write of the upwardly mobile, “Although no homophile organizations formed in Buffalo, we think that this more upwardly mobile community throws light on the conditions that gave rise to and shaped the homophile organizations in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia. The Buffalo evidence suggests that the lesbian homophile organizations grew out of a working-class lesbian tradition – women who were conscious of lesbians as a group, from socializing in the bars – rather than a middle-class tradition of isolated individuals and couples” (pg. 138). They spend considerable time on differences in between black and white communities and between the working-class and upwardly mobile, writing, “Just as in racial desegregation, the 1950s lesbian community cannot be accurately described as either one or several. The tension between unity and division was built into the culture and characterizes this period of prepolitical resistance” (pg. 145). Further, “Because Buffalo was a working-class city, the rough and tough lesbians – Black and white – were a strong force and their contribution was most apparent. Of the women who, alongside men, founded the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, and brought gay liberation to Buffalo, the largest constituency were rough and tough lesbians” (pg. 150). Further, “In cities such as Buffalo, members of the bar community formed political organizations at about the same time as the Stonewall Rebellion that became active in the gay liberation movement. In fact visibility, standing up for one’s rights, and ending the double life were core issues for both the tough lesbians and gay liberation, though they approached them differently. The prepolitical tactics of the tough lesbians were immediate, spontaneous, and personal. They lacked gay liberation’s long-term analysis of and strategy for ending the oppression of gays and lesbians in America and changing the world” (pg. 186).
Much of the second half of “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold” examines the butch-fem dichotomy. Kennedy and Davis write, “The key to understanding the butch-fem erotic system is to grasp that it both imitates and transforms heterosexual patterns. The obvious similarity between butch-fem and male-female eroticism was that they were both based on gender polarity: In lesbian culture, masculine and feminine imagery identified the objects of desire; aggressiveness and passivity were crucial to the erotic dynamic” (pg. 192). They continue, “Lesbian identity based on gender inversion and that based on the choice of sexual partner were shaped by lesbians in the context of resisting the limitations imposed by a hostile society” (pg. 324). Further, “The specific date of the transition from a definition of homosexual identity based in gender inversion to the contemporary one based on object choice is difficult to ascertain. Rather, the idea that a homosexual was someone who was attracted to a person of the ‘same sex’ became slowly and unevenly incorporated into medicine, popular culture, and gay and lesbian culture” (pg. 325).
Kennedy and Davis conclude, “‘Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold’ traces the roots of gay and lesbian liberation to the resistance culture of working-class lesbians. Butch-fem roles coalesced an entire culture into the prepolitical, but none the less active, struggle against gay and lesbian oppression. Working-class lesbians had a key role in shaping their history, transforming their social life, sexual expression, relationships, and identity. Together these changes created the consciousness of kind necessary for the boldness that was to characterize gay liberation” (pg. 372).
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