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Lesbian feminism of color emerged as a response to the texts produced by white lesbian feminist authors in the 1970s. Typically, lesbian feminism failed to recognize issues related to intersectionality between race, gender, and class. Apart from that, lesbian feminists of color addressed the relationship between feminism as a movement and "ideology of cultural nationalism or racial pride" as well as the differences from the white feminist movement. Among the most influential lesbian feminists of color are Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Kate Rushin, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, Cheryl Clarke, and Ochy Curiel. Audre Lorde addressed how these movements should intersect in her 1979 New York speech “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House”. In particular, she stated “as women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.”

Black Lesbian Feminism

1980 Democratic National Convention

Black lesbian feminism originates from black feminism and the Civil Rights Movement in the beginning of the 1970s. A contemporary black lesbian feminist scholar Kaila Adia Story defines black lesbian feminism "as the thought and praxis of an intersectional gendered and sexual analysis of the world’s relationship to queer women of color specifically, both cis and trans". The prominent authors who where at the roots of black lesbian feminism include Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Kate Rushin, doris davenport, Cheryl Clarke, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, and a number of others.

Black lesbian feminism emerged as a venue to address the issue of racism in the mainstream feminist movement, which was described as white, middle-class, and predominantly heterosexual. According to Barbara Smith "the reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism", which is "the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women." This is the statement she made in 1979. Later, in 1984 she extended her views on black lesbian feminism mission to "a movement committed to fighting sexual, racial, economic and heterosexist oppression, not to mention one which opposes imperialism, anti-Semitism, the oppressions visited upon the physically disabled, the old and the young, at the same time that it challenges militarism and imminent nuclear destruction is the very opposite of narrow.”

Most prominent black lesbian feminists were writers rather than scholars and expressed their position in literary way. Allida Mae Black states that unlike black feminism, in 1977 the position of black lesbian feminism was not as clear as the position of black feminism and was "an allusion in the text." Apart from that, the position of black lesbian feminists was expressed in their interviews and public speeches. As such, Audre Lorde in her interview published in American Poetry Review in1980 states that a "true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women" as well as that all black women whether they admit it or not are lesbians, because they are "raised in the remnants of a basically matriarchal society" even they are still oppressed by patriarchy.

Pat Parker's work reflected the oppression she suffered and observed in lives of other women. In her poem "Have you Ever Tried to Hide" Parker calls our racism in white feminist movement. In her multiple works, including the famous poem "Womanslaughter", she drew attention to the violence Black women experience in their lives. Among others, Parker defended the idea of complex identities and stated that for her revolution will happen when all elements of her identity "can come along."

The Combahee River Collective

The Combahee River Collective is a Boston-based black feminist group that was formed as a radical alternative to National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) founded by Margaret Sloan-Hunter in 1973. For the organization's members NBFO lacked attention to the issues of sexuality and economic oppression. The Collective united the women that were dissatisfied with racism in white feminist movement and sexism in civil rights movement. The name of the organization alludes to Underground Railroad Combahee River Raid that happened in 1863 under Harriet Tubman's leadership and freed 750 slaves. The Combahee River Collective issued a statement in 1977 that described the organization's vision as being opposed to all forms of oppression — including sexuality, gender identity, class, disability, and age oppression (later incorporated in the concept of intersectionality) that shaped the conditions on black women's lives.

In its "Statement", The Combahee River Collective defined itself as a left-wing organization leaning towards socialism and anti-imperialism. The organization also claimed that unlike some white feminist groups or NBFO The Combahee River Collective members are in "solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization" and emphasizing that "the stance of Lesbian separatism ... is not a viable political analysis or strategy."

Other organizations under the stance of black lesbian feminism include Salsa Souls Sisters, which was formed in 1974 in New York City and is considered to be the oldest Black Lesbian Feminist organization, and Sapphire Sapphos formed in 1979 and based in Washington, DC.

Visual Art Works

The more recent art form used to express black feminist ideas is film. In particular, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, an award-winning black lesbian feminist, authored NO! The Rape Documentary (2006), a documentary movie that explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. For Simmons, a a sexual assault survivor herself, this also an exploration of how rape impacted her Black feminist lesbian journey.

Chicana Lesbian Feminism

Chicana lesbian feminism emerged from the Chicana feminism movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this time, Chicana feminism started to form as a “social movement aimed to improve the position of Chicanas in American society.” Chicanas separated from Chicano movement, began drawing their own political agendas, and started to question their traditional female roles. Specifically, Chicana feminists (see also Chicana literature) started to address the forces that affected them as women of color and started to fight for social equality.

In Catriona Rueda Esquibel words, the author of "With Her Machete in Her Hand: Reading Chicana Lesbians", the first monograph dedicated to the work of Chicana lesbians, "Chicana lesbians are central to understanding Chicana/o communities, theories, and feminisms." Similarly to black lesbian feminists, Chicana lesbian feminists use literature as a way of naming themselves, expressing their ideas, and reclaiming their experiences flagged with a number of accusations. They are accused of being lesbians, of betraying society by denying men of their reproductive role, and of betraying their Chicana identity by adhering to feminist and lesbian ideologies, both things considered by Chicano culture "white" notions. The key Chicana lesbian feminist thinkers include Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Lidia Tirado White, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Emma Pérez, Carla Trujillo, Monica Palacios, Ana Castillo, Natashia López, and Norma Alarcon.

In the feminist anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Moraga and Anzaldúa describe Chicana lesbian feminist mission as follows: "we attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience. We are the colored in a white feminist movement. We are the feminists among the people of our culture. We are often the lesbians among the straight. We do this bridging by naming ourselves and by telling our stories in our own words."

One of the foundational concepts of Chicana lesbian feminist movement is “theory in the flesh”, which is "flesh and blood experiences of the woman of color." Specifically, as described by Moraga and Anzaldúa, "a theory in flesh means one where the typical realities of our lives —our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual belongings—all fuse to create a political born out of necessity." In Moraga's article La Güera, she continues making reference to the theory in the flesh: "it wasn't until I acknowledged and confronted my own lesbianism in the flesh, that my heartfelt identification with and empathy for my mother's oppression —due to being poor, uneducated, Chicana— was realized." Furthermore, this theory incorporates the ideas of finding strength in and celebrating each other's difference as well as reinterpreting the history by “shaping new myths”, and lays in a process of naming themselves but also naming the enemies within oneself to break down paradigms. As Moraga explains in her prose "Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca paso por sus labios": "in this country, lesbianism is a poverty —as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor. The danger lies in ranking the oppressions. The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of the oppression. The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression purely from a theoretical base. Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place."

Genres and main themes

Chicana lesbian feminists challenge traditional forms of knowledge production, and introduce new ways of knowledge creation through new forms of writing. Many Chicana lesbian feminists use what Teresa de Lauretis named “fiction/theory”, “a formally experimental, critical and lyrical, autobiographical and theoretically conscious, practice of writing-in-the-feminine that crosses genre boundaries (poetry and prose, verbal and visual modes, narrative and cultural criticism), and instates new correlations between signs and meanings.” They combine genres such as autobiography, poetry, theory, personal diaries or imaginary interviews. At the same time, Chicana lesbian feminists today navigate and struggle across a variety of discursive contexts (as activist, academics, feminists, and artists).

Through their literature and art, Chicana lesbian feminists explore their body lived experiences, a fundamental aspect in the construction of lesbian identity. They reclaim the idea of the real body and the physical aspect of it. Chicana lesbian feminists bring into the discussion the conflicts with the concept of la familia, the new familias they create, and their right to choose their own sexuality. Martha Barrera writes “we are just as valid a familia as we would be if she were a brown man who I married in the Catholic Church.” At the same time they try to find reconciliation with their familia. Juanita M. Sánchez, writes “my father wanted me to go to work my grandmother wanted me to speak more Spanish she couldn’t speak English i wanted to make a living selling popsicles on my 1948 cushman scooter nothing turned out like they wanted but my mother did say, “if you want to be with a woman, que le hace, as long as you’re happy”.

Chicana lesbian feminists confront their lesbian identity with their Chicano identity. This constitutes a central aspect of Chicana lesbian literature. Renée M. Martinez expresses her impossibility to reconcile the two identities: "being a Chicana and a lesbian, my parents' daughter and a lesbian, alive and a lesbian", lesbianism “would sever me from everything that counted in my life: homosexuality, the ultimate betrayal of my Mexican heritage, was only for white people.” Moraga writes how “the woman who defies her role ... is purported to be a “traitor to her race” by contributing to the “genocide” of her people ... In short, even if the defiant woman is not a lesbian, she is purported to be one; for, like the lesbian in the Chicano imagination, she is una Malinchista. Like the Malinche of Mexican history, she is corrupted by foreign influences which threaten to destroy her people. […] Lesbianism can be construed by the race then as the Chicana being used by the white man, even if the man never lays a hand on her. The choice is never seen as her own. Homosexuality is his disease with which he sinisterly infects Third World people, men and women alike.”