Photographer and activist JEB (Joan E. Biren) reflects on the republishing her book ‘Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians’
. It may be hard to conceive today of just how high the stakes were for her to publish a book of “out lesbians” more than four decades ago. The printer even made her acquire a second set of releases before it went to press, causing some of the subjects to lose their nerve. A 1979 article in, an underground art newspaper published in Washington, D.C., places the moment into perspective:
Although we were all white, I was told that because of my privileged education, even though I came from a very middle-class family, I knew how to argue verbally very well. I was told basically that I needed to shut up to make room for other people to speak. That is the genesis of my becoming a photographer.
There weren’t any books of lesbian photography that said that it was lesbians inside the book. And I needed it. Just like I needed that first lesbian photograph that I made, that turns out was a selfie—I made by holding the camera out because I didn’t even know anybody who could take a picture of me kissing my lover. And that wanting to see images of myself, I knew it was not just something that I felt.
I worked very hard not to put out a book until I thought I had at least a fairly good representation. But you’ll see in my dedication I wrote at the beginning of the book, “Much of what I would have liked to include is missing. Perhaps I should have subtitled the book"There is a disabled closet as well as a Lesbian closet. It was an easy transition for me to come out because I always had to be a strong woman.
Well, the intention was not to just have it be my voice or my vision, my photographs, but to celebrate the lesbian culture that was beginning to be so amazing at that point. The lesbian poets—Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich—were the rock stars of the lesbian movement at that time. I wanted to share as much of that as I could.
"For a Lesbian in this society there is plenty to feel angry or sad about. We don't have power. They can deny us the right to earn a living, to keep our children, to have a place to live, to be open about who we are. In order to survive you have to be aligned with men or be prepared to fight. Sometimes lesbians forget how hard the struggle is but it makes us all strong and it makes us grow." Lenora Trussell, Washington, D.C., 1977.The reception exceeded my expectations.
I had to fight for it. I actually fought for many years before I’d gotten my work shown in the windows of theHide/Seek
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