Lillian Faderman, born on July 18th, 1940 in the Bronx, moved with her mother to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles in 1948. Lillian’s father refused to marry her mother or recognize Lillian.
Lillian’s mother, who had immigrated from Latvia in 1914, worked in the garment industry. Despite her mother’s struggles with obsessive-compulsive behaviors brought on by the loss of most of her family in the Holocaust, Lillian’s mother and beloved Aunt Rae always made Lillian feel like “the most important thing in the world.” Their unconditional love provided Lillian with a lifelong sense of strength.
In 1952, Lillian, only twelve years old, was hired to work, in exchange for acting lessons, at the front desk at a new business called the Theater Arts Workshop. There, she had her first crush on Eileen, the executive director. Frightened and overwhelmed by her feelings, Lillian went across the street to the library and sought books on youth psychology. Though she read the term “homosexuality,” she didn’t want to believe it could be true. In 1955, Lillian left Theater Arts Workshop and took acting lessons at Geller Theater. A childhood friend Eddie, came out to her as gay, and just before she turned sixteen, Eddie took Lillian to a gay bar called The Open Door. “Suddenly,” she says, “things crystallized.”
Soon, Lillian was introduced to more gay bars in the area, ranging from the working-class If Club across the street from the Open Door to more upscale places like the Club Laurel. There, she met Mark, a 34-year-old gay man with whom she quickly hit it off. While Lillian was still in high school, the pair entered into a short-lived front marriage in which they presented themselves to the world as a heterosexual couple.
In high school, Lillian posed for pin-up sessions in exchange for photographs to bring to acting auditions; as a lesbian, she says the job had “no emotional price tag” for her. After graduation, Lillian attended her freshman year of college at UCLA, then transferred to UC Berkeley, where she worked as a waitress and “bubble bath girl” at restaurants in the Bay Area. She later worked as a feature act at one of the last burlesque houses in the U.S., the President Follies, where she spent the majority of her time studying backstage between shows.
In 1962, Lillian started graduate school at UCLA, where she received her masters and PhD. After she finished school, she began working as an assistant professor at California State University Fresno. In 1971, she was elected chair of the English department. The following year, she and her colleague Phyllis Irwin established the first women’s studies program at CSU Fresno. In 1974, Lillian and Phyllis began dating—they have been together ever since. They have one son, Avrom, who was conceived through an anonymous donor.
In 1976, Lillian’s friend Sandra Dijkstra, who would eventually become a major literary agent, went to New York and sold Lillian’s first book, Surpassing the Love of Men. Over the course of her career, Lillian would publish 16 books, including two memoirs. She is the recipient of seven Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and countless other honors for her achievements. Her groundbreaking scholarship on lesbian studies has highlighted marginalized narratives, illuminated the intersections of lesbian history and feminism, and reshaped conversations around gender and sexuality in academia and beyond.
