HNY Series: Lesbian Avengers in Conversation: Lisa DeBoer

The Alice Austen House is excited to present Lesbian Avengers in Conversation, a virtual series launching in December 2024. Over four weeks, members of the pioneering activist group, the Lesbian Avengers—who held a powerful action at the Alice Austen House in 1994—will join in conversations that explore the significance of organizing, raising visibility for lesbians, and the critical role of archives in activism.

In this virtual lecture series, each week of this December, a different guest from the Lesbian Avengers will join Alice Austen House Executive Director Victoria Munro to reflect on the impact of their 1994 action, share insights into their organizing experiences, and discuss how their activism has shaped their subsequent careers. These discussions will offer unique perspectives on the intersections of activism, LGBTQ+ visibility, and public history. This week features This week features Lisa DeBoer.

Lisa DeBoer has a long history of activism in women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice movements. Lisa studied women’s history and library science, and has worked as an AIDS educator, librarian, and archivist. She volunteered at the Lesbian Herstory Archives for many years while living in Brooklyn, and joined the Lesbian Avengers. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York and works as a freelance back-of-the-book indexer. 

In 1994, wearing old fashioned bathing suits and life preservers labeled, “Dyke Preservers,” the Lesbian Avengers disrupted the annual Nautical Festival at the Alice Austen House. Inspired by the anti-AIDS group ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers were dedicated to “fighting for lesbian visibility and survival” through direct action and humor.

Learning that the Board of Directors had publicly denied Alice’s lesbianism, they proclaimed the Austen House Museum “a national lesbian landmark.”

What seemed like an outrageous demand in 1994 eventually came to pass. In 2017, the Alice Austen House Museum was declared a national site of LGBTQ history.

This series marks the beginning of a larger initiative by the Alice Austen House to document and honor the legacy of the Lesbian Avengers and their contributions to authentic storytelling for trailblazers like Alice Austen. Generously supported by Humanities New York, Lesbian Avengers in Conversation aims to deepen understanding of LGBTQ+ history and inspire future generations of activists and allies.

The Lesbian Avengers began in New York City in 1992 as a direct action group focused on issues vital to lesbian survival and visibility. They refined media-savvy tactics, often creating actions for their visual appeal, and touched a nerve with the Lesbian Avenger Manifesto. The group quickly spread worldwide after the Avengers organized a Dyke March for lesbian visibility on the eve of the Lesbian and Gay March on Washington in 1993 that mobilized 20,000 lesbians. The Avengers also developed a civil rights organizing project that championed “out” grassroots activism, that not only fought homophobic initiatives, but worked to train activists for the longterm.

Host or Publisher Alice Austen House