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Karla Jay (born February 22, 1947) is an American retired academic. She is a professor Emeritus at Pace University, where she taught English studies and directed the women's and Gender Studies studies program between 1974 and 2009. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published.
When activists founded the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in the wake of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969, Jay, coming out lesbian, became an early member and an active participant. She balanced attendance at GLF meetings with graduate studies at New York University, where she majored in comparative literature. She was one of the few women actively involved in the early gay rights movement on both coasts.
Jay, along with Lee Mason and other LGBT+ artists and activists helped create the Gay-In III festival in Griffith Park, Los Angeles in September 1970. This festival was intended to be, in the words of Karla Jay herself, one of “these queer ‘love fests’... and they included kissing booths, face painting, marijuana, vodka-spiked oranges, guerilla theatre, fake marriages, voter registration and advice regarding arrests.” In reality, the festival was poorly attended but continued the precedent of such festivals, such as the ubiquitous gay pride parades. Jay reflects on the intentions behind the gay-in as an essential part of more serious aspects of the gay rights movement: “If we dared to hold hands and party in public, we knew unimaginable rights might follow. And they did.” (2018). 9780847864065 ISBN 9780847864065
Jay was a member of Lavender Menace, a group that formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians from mainstream Women's Liberation. She was involved in the planning and execution of the "Lavender Menace Zap" at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City in May 1970. This zap is considered a turning-point in the history of second-wave feminism.
Also in 1970, the "Wall Street Ogle-In" took place. The events of September 1968 regarding Francine Gottfried made an impression on second-wave feminists in New York City, and in March 1970, they retaliated in a raid on Wall Street which they dubbed the "Ogle-In", in which a large group of feminists, including Jay, Alix Kates Shulman, and a number of women who had participated in the sit-in at Ladies Home Journal a few weeks before, sexually harassed male Wall Streeters on their way to work with catcalls and crude remarks.Jay, Karla. Tales of the Lavender Menace, (Basic Books, 1999), pp. 132–133.
Working with Allen Young Jay edited Out of the Closets (1972), a pioneering anthology (1994). 031211091X, St. Martin's. 031211091X
that gave voice to the Radicalesbians, Martha Shelley, and writers such as Rita Mae Brown. It was during the 1970s that Jay first heard about Natalie Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien, two prominent lesbian writers living as expatriates in Paris from the early 1900s. Their lives and works became the subject of Jay's doctoral dissertation, published by Indiana University Press as The Amazon and the Page (1988).
Jay contributed the essay "Confessions of a Worrywart: Ruminations on a Lesbian Feminist Overview" to the anthology (2003), edited by Robin Morgan.
At the presentation of Pace University's 10th Annual Dyson Distinguished Achievement Awards on April 6, 2006, Jay was honored with the Distinguished Faculty Award. She received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 2006.
Jay is featured in the feminist history film She's Beautiful When She's Angry.
Her papers are held in the Archives & Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library.
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