Making Lesbian Money at the Archives and Special Collections (ARCS)

Last year, with the help of Research Data Management Librarian Felicity Tayler, the Women’s Archives were able to secure a sizeable donation of historical material from Sister Vision Press, the first Black Women and Women of Colour Press in Canada. Founded by Makeda Silvera and Stephanie Martin in 1984, Sister Vision published groundbreaking books and anthologies that courageously explored the intersection of race and sexuality. For Silvera and Martin, two lesbian feminists who had immigrated to Canada from Jamaica, the project of Sister Vision was deeply personal as well as political. The press was indispensable to publicizing the voices and struggles of queer women and women of colour, developing the market for creative works by women of colour in Canada, and fostering a politics of solidarity between queer and anti-racist activists in Toronto from 1984 until the press ceased operations in 2001. While more research must be done to excavate the full history of Sister Vision, one particular object has piqued our excitement here at ARCS, and we simply couldn’t wait to write about it: The “Lesbian Money” stamp! 

Originating out of San Francisco in the mid-1970s, wood-and-rubber stamps featuring slogans such as “Lesbian Money,” “Gay $$$,” and “Queer Cash” became a common strategy of covert political protest for the gay and lesbian liberation movement in the final decades of the twentieth century. According to Mel Baker of the San Francisco Public Press, “activists around the U.S. were stamping bills to show the financial power and size of the greater queer community” and “stamping campaigns grew quickly to the point that finding some kind of queer stamp on currency was fairly common in the 1980s.” These stamps, says Baker, “made an impact in an era when LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, and the press were rare.”¹  Stamping currency became a means for the queer community to covertly assert their presence within hostile spaces, and, according to Lenna Drury Johnsen, enabled queer activists to “disrupt everyday practices in ways that are simultaneously anonymous and intimate.”²  Drawing from Queer x Design author Andy Campbell, Johnsen’s research suggests that Queer Money campaigns destabilized homophobia by mobilizing the intimate nature of touch involved in the face to face exchange of physical currency. Emphasizing this material exchange, Baker noted how the Salt Lake City chapter of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) used an “AIDS Money” stamp throughout the 1980s and 1990s to fight discrimination and to combat harmful misinformation about how HIV was spread.  

In addition to our own recently discovered “Lesbian Money’ stamp, The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University are in possession of a U.S. bill stamped with the words “Lesbian Money,” and a “Queer Cash” stamp originally purchased in London, demonstrating how this practice spread beyond the United States.³  So, did the activist strategy of stamping currency have any lasting impact for securing LGBTQ+ rights? While further scholarly inquiry is necessary to determine the scope and impact of queer currency campaigns, especially in Canada, U.S. researchers have highlighted how this tactic drew the ire of Republican politicians and ultimately influenced human rights legislation. 

For example, in 1986, activist business owners Marge Summit and Frank Kellas of Chicago commissioned “Gay $” stamps and distributed them to 75 gay bars across the city. Their campaign developed in response to a stalled gay rights bill which had failed to gain traction in Chicago because, according to Out and Proud in Chicago author Tracy Baim, “city aldermen insisted that they had no gay people in their wards.”⁴  This campaign attracted the attention of The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who issued a cease-and-desist order to lesbian and gay bar owners in Chicago. Baker notes, however, that although “Government officials said the campaign violated federal law against defacing currency… the legal action foundered at least in part because it was nearly impossible to determine who was responsible — anyone could stamp bills, anywhere.”⁵  As bar owners stamped millions of bills with the phrase “Gay$,” the queer community in Chicago proved their economic and political influence. This clandestine but highly visible form of rebellion helped activists from the organization Gay and Lesbian Town Meeting to pass the stalled Human Rights Ordinance in 1988, which made it illegal to discriminate against Chicago residents based on sexual orientation.⁶

Fascinatingly, the practice of vandalizing currency with political messages has had a long history in the struggle for women’s liberation. Before World War I, for example, British suffragettes stamped pennies with the words “Votes for Women.”⁷  However, we do not know of any other Canadian museums or archives in possession of a “Lesbian Money/ Queer Cash” stamp or of similarly defaced currency. As such, this object may create an opportunity for further research on queer currency campaigns in our own national context: Does our “Lesbian Money” stamp represent a popular form of queer dissent in Canada, or is it simply an unconventional object which happened to make its way across the border?
If you have any information about the prevalence of “Gay $” campaigns in Canada, or if you happen to have your own “Lesbian Money” stamp or similarly defaced currency, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Notes

1. Mel Baker, “Reporter’s Notebook: The Rebellious Legacy of ‘Lesbian Money,” San Francisco Public Press (23 June 2023) https://www.sfpublicpress.org/the-rebellious-legacy-of-lesbian-money/
2. Lenna Drury Johnsen, “Queer Money,” http://www.lennajohnsen.com/queer-money (accessed 28 January 2025)
3. Marcus Banks & Shailendra Bhandare, “Queering Currency” Financial ‘Self-Identification’ and the LGBTQ+ Movement,” Ashmolean Museum, QUEERING CURRENCY | Ashmolean Museum (accessed 28 January 2025)
4. Lenna Drury Johnsen, “Queer Money,” http://www.lennajohnsen.com/queer-money (accessed 28 January 2025)
5. Mel Baker, “Reporter’s Notebook: The Rebellious Legacy of ‘Lesbian Money,” San Francisco Public Press (23 June 2023) https://www.sfpublicpress.org/the-rebellious-legacy-of-lesbian-money/
6. Lenna Drury Johnsen, “Queer Money,” http://www.lennajohnsen.com/queer-money (accessed 28 January 2025). The Human Rights Ordinance of 1988 also created new protections for for the elderly, handicapped, divorced and single parents, veterans regardless of military discharge, and other minorities in housing, employment and public accommodations. For more information see Albert Williams, “‘Convert them, co-opt them, or kill them‘: The ugly fight to pass the LGBTQ-inclusive Chicago Human Rights Ordinance,” Reader (16 February 2018) https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/convert-them-co-opt-them-or-kill-them-the-ugly-fight-to-pass-the-lgbtq-inclusive-chicago-human-rights-ordinance/
7. Neil MacGregor, “Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780-1914 AD): Suffragette-defaced penny,” A History of the World in 100 Objects, A History of the World in 100 Objects - Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD) - Suffragette-defaced penny - BBC Sounds