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These days--knock on wood--their troubles seem to be behind them. Irving's son has graduated from college and settled down. And the biggest issue they've confronted recently is putting plants on the balcony of their Florida condo. Phyllis wanted to hang them, but Irving resisted putting hooks into the wood beams. Their solution: plant stands. "If you really care about someone," says Phyllis, "you don't make a big deal of these things." --Reported by Dee Gill/St. Petersburg
JOIN FORCES IN A COMMON CAUSE
Divorce statistics are disheartening, but breakup rates among unmarried couples are really depressing. Gays and lesbians don't even have the option of a state-sanctioned marriage. Nonetheless, many forge enduring unions.
Writers Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin are one such couple. They met in 1949, moved in together a few years later and haven't been apart since. Though they could not get married, they celebrated their intention to stay together another way: "The first thing I did was drag Phyllis down to the bank and open a joint checking account," says Del. "After that, as far as I was concerned, we were committed."
The first year was stormy. Typically, when a disagreement erupted, Del would stomp out, infuriating Phyllis, until she taught Del to fight back. Then the squabbling began in earnest. What turned the tide was a gift of a Siamese cat. Like a baby, it renewed their determination to stick it out. "We didn't know how we could divide the cat if we split up," says Phyllis. "I said, 'We'll stay together if it kills us.'"
Feeling isolated, in 1955 the two joined a "secret social club," which evolved into Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian-rights organization. Their activism further united them. "We were just born rebels," says Del. After their 1972 book on female homosexuality, Lesbian/Woman, became an underground classic, they started lecturing on the college circuit. So identified have they become with each other that they often handle speaking engagements together. Does all the togetherness become, well, suffocating? Not for this pair. Having a shared enemy--bigotry--may have helped deflect the inevitable irritations of domestic life. "Our whole life revolves around the movement," says Phyllis.
So it was more a political statement than a romantic gesture when Phyllis and Del formally tied the knot last year by taking part in San Francisco's annual ceremony giving same-sex couples recognition under the city's domestic-partners law. "Afterward," Phyllis acknowledged, "we felt very different for a day." But then everyday life settled in once again: Del, 78, is cataloging movement ephemera for the Gay Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California, and both she and Phyllis, 75, remain politically active, working with groups like Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Their goal for the future? To be around in 2003 for their 50th anniversary. --Reported by Susan Kuchinskas/San Francisco