Vice Versa - The First "Lesbian" Magazine, 1947

By Erica Davies

In June of 1947 while working as a secretarial assistant at RKO Studios in Los Angeles, a 25-year old wrote and published Vice Versa, the first lesbian magazine in North America. Under the pseudonym "Lisa Ben" (which was an anagram for lesbian), nine issues were released in which she was only able to produce ten copies of each edition because of limited resources. Ben's access to office supplies availed her use of the company typewriter to write her publications, and reproduce them on carbon paper. Though short-lived, Vice Versa established itself as a forerunner for gay American publications, providing a more wide-ranging audience with upbeat short stories, editorials, book reviews, and a letter column to entertain and inspire readers to perpetuate the existence of gay editorials and preserve the pleasure of their lifestyle.

"Lisa Ben" was born and raised in northern California, where her overbearing parents were ranchers and insistent that she attend business school to hone secretarial skills and prepare for matrimony. Unbeknownst to them, she fell in love at the age of fourteen – with a woman – and would eventually cultivate her homosexual feelings by becoming intimately acquainted with the lesbian community when she later moved to Los Angeles. Outraged by frequent press releases that deemed homosexuals as perverts, Ben decided to retaliate with her creation and publication of Vice Versa as the mysterious "Lisa Ben." She defended the use of an obscure pen name out of concerns that she would distress elderly relatives and "because in those days [our] kind of life was considered a vice."

After being transferred to another job and free time escaping her, publications of Vice Versa ceased and Ben slipped into anonymity and disappeared from lesbian media. Despite being clandestinely circulated in a small community and spread by word of mouth, Vice Versa set literary precedent for The Ladder, the next lesbian magazine released nationally in 1955 by women in the Daughters of Bilitis – which was the first national lesbian organization. Ben joined this organization to collectively support and pursue explicit political issues, but ultimately decided to remain in the background.

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This entry is part of the featured exhibit Queer Youth - On Campus and in the Media curated by Sharon Ullman. As it is content created by a named author, editor, or curator, it is not open to editing by the general public. But we strongly encourage you to discuss the content or propose edits on the discussion page, and the author, editor, or curator will make any changes that improve the entry or its content. Thanks.