Edith Eyde

Image from June 2004, Queer Music Heritage (1947?)

Image from June 2004, Queer Music Heritage (year?)

Image from June 2004, Queer Music Heritage (year?)

Edith Eyde (aka "Edythe Eyde") was a fan, a writer, editor, gay rights activist, and folk musician.

She wrote one of the first gay utopias, in Vice Versa, the first lesbian journal in the US; it was published in nine bimonthly issues, of only eight to sixteen copies each, from 1947 to 1948. Vice Versa included two fantasy stories ("New Year's Revolution" and "Kiki") and at least one lesbian critiques of a fantasy novel, Vardis Fisher's The Darkness and the Deep. The Vice Versa Awards were established in 1997 to honor the gay press.

In 1946 she helped organize the first major West Coast SF con, Pacificon.

In the 1950s, she began rewriting and parodying many folk and popular songs, performing the lesbianized versions in local clubs. The LA chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis released a 45 recording of some of the songs in 1960 as the first gay folk singer ("Frankie & Johnnie"; "Cruising Down the Boulevard").

Names

She wrote under at least two pseudonyms:

• Lisa Ben is a pseudonym (anagram of lesbian) for her work with Vice Versa
• Another pseudonym, other SF novels

Works

• "New Year's Revolution", published in Jan. 1948 issue of Vice Versa, included a gay utopia visited in a dream
• Editor & publisher, Vice Versa (1947-48)
• Other SF novels under another pseudonym

References

• Gaysweek, New York, No. 49, 1978 Jan. 23, interview with Leland Moss and Lisa Ben
• Sharon Yntema, More Than 100 Woman Science Fiction Writers (1988)
• Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, Uranian Worlds (1983)
• Eric Marcus, Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History (1992)
• Steve Hogan & Lee Hudson, Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia
• "Lisa Ben", June 2004, Queer Music Heritage - scans of the 45 RPMs, the lyrics to "Frankie & Johnny", and an issue of Vice Versa.
• Kate Brandt, "Lisa Ben: A Lesbian Pioneer", Visabilities (Jan. 1990)