The National Lesbian Conference (1991, Atlanta)
By: Brittany Ellis (she/her)
The National Lesbian Conference is a wonderful example of the power of archives, especially queer archives like the Invisible Histories Project. Through pulling metadata on volume 4 of the 1991 editions of the Southern Voice, the story of the first NLC reemerged.
Planning for the conference began 5 years prior in 1986, according to Vol 4 №1 issue of SV published on February 28, 1991. A group of women (Michelle Crone, Kay Ostburg, Joyce Hunter, and Urvashi Vaid) began planning after attending an international lesbian conference in Geneva and then the 1987 March on Washington. There was a set attempt on not being overly planned, letting it be a grassroots event that could “be what lesbians from across the country made it, needed it to be, with as little as possible predetermined by the organizers” (no 1). Ads for NLC proclaimed that the purpose was to “build the Lesbian Nation, create a National Lesbian Agenda, to confront homophobia, to advocate for the civil rights of lesbians, to strengthen our grassroots structure, and to celebrate ourselves” as a women-only space. There were concerns that the Atlanta lesbian community was splintered, so the organizers hoped that the event would prompt more community and direct activism.
Initially, there were a few criticisms of the NLC (that no one was being paid for presenting and there would be too much “political correctness” about the issues of leather, work, meat, and lesbian erotica magazines). The organizers hoped to avoid addressing these issues by focusing on dismantling ageism, racism, ableism, and classism. They required that “leadership must involve 50% lesbians of color, 20% lesbians with disabilities, and 5% old lesbians.” Great lengths were taken to make the conference disability friendly, as the NLC was perfume-, smoke-, and drink-free.
Despite it all, over 2,500 women attended the NLC on April 24–28, 1991, in downtown Atlanta. The conference had a full agenda as well as a Friday night dance and a Saturday night concert. There was entertainment, education, workshops, training, comedy, a marketplace of 140 booths, strategy sessions, and even a “Democracy Wall (no 6, pg.11). Many restaurants and stores across Atlanta even published special advertisements welcoming NLC attendees.
Despite the apparent success of the conference, there was never another National Lesbian Conference. There were funding issues that resulted in the conference leaders leaving with debt, haphazard last-minute cancellations, little outreach to Asian lesbians, and dysfunction. Nevertheless, the NLC paved the way for greater visibility of lesbians across the South and the nation.
