The New York chapter of DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS is formed by a group of Lesbians which includes the late Barbara Gittings. For a time, Daughters of Bilitis and The Mattachine Society joined together in “Common Cause”. Some women even wrote for Mattachine’s ONE Magazine. As the women’s movement began to grow in the U.S., it became apparent that the men of Mattachine showed little desire to champion women’s issues. At the same time, the women’s movement was not particularly welcoming. The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) was afraid that Lesbian involvement would only bring further hostility from the media and a male dominated world. They called Lesbians “the lavender menace” and sought to eject them from the movement.

With such choices, the direction of the Daughters of Bilitis was split. Some members favored focusing their energies on Gay rights, while others favored women’s issues. Just before the 1970 National Conference of D.O.B., the publishing group for The Ladder was secretly moved to another location and devoted itself to feminist issues instead of Gay issues. The group never really recovered after this, and in time the individual chapters began to die out.