From May of 1976 to December of 1979 on Manhattan’s fashionable Upper East Side Sahara was the first club fronted by lesbian women instead of being controlled by Mafia Bosses.
It was at this time that Cohen with three of her friends Michelle Florea, Linda Goldfarb and Barbara Russo created New York City’s first upscale women’s club Sahara that showcased women in art, politics and music. It was not until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) finally removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Not only for women but remember in the 1950’s being LGBTQ was illegal and listed as an illness by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
This is an important read that tells the historic love story of a gay woman who broke through the oppressive roles expected for women in the 1950’s and 1960’s and came out on top in the 1970’s. In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Leslie Cohen about her new must-read memoir “The Audacity of a Kiss: Love, Art and Liberation” published by Rutgers University Press.
0 kommentar(er)
