Julia Penelope was an American linguist, author, and philosopher. She was part of an international movement of critical thinkers on lesbian and feminist issues. A self-described "white, working-class, fat butch dyke who never passed," she started what she called "rabble rousing" when she was a young woman.
Her first teaching position was in Athens, Georgia in 1968. After receiving her doctorate she went on to teach for eleven years at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she was passed over for promotions because her research on lesbians was deemed "too narrow". She "was a separatist whose lesbian publications were often controversial, criticizing sadomasochism and other practices within lesbian communities." After relocating to Texas, she pursued a career as a freelance lexicographer, and a copy editor for commercial presses.
Activism
An activist and an organizer, Penelope attended the first conference of the Gay Academic Union in 1973 at the City College of New York. She was a delegate to the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977, and she participated in the planning meetings that led to the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She founded several activist groups, including the "Lincoln Legion of Lesbians" and "Lesbians for Lesbians." She was one of the first scholars to teach women's studies courses, including Twentieth-Century Lesbian Novels and Feminist Literary Criticism. Penelope insisted on lesbian visibility in the academy, bringing Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Mary Daly, Pat Parker, Chrystos and others to the University of Nebraska. She encouraged Catherine Nicholson and Harriet Desmoines to bring the lesbian-feminist journal Sinister Wisdom to Lincoln. In 1977, at the Modern Language Association convention in Chicago, she organized the "Lesbian Languages and Literatures" panel with Daly, Lorde, Judith McDaniel, and Adrienne Rich as speakers. In 1988, she co-edited with Sarah Lucia Hoagland the first anthology on lesbian separatism, For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology. As a lesbian separatist, Penelope was controversial among lesbians. According to her biography in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, she became disheartened by lesbian infighting and withdrew from lesbian writing. She helped found the Lubbock CountyGreen Party, and ran for Congress in 2003 as a Green candidate in Texas's 19th congressional district special election. Her platform emphasized environmental protection and opposition to war with Iraq as well as support for human rights.
Personal life
For a brief period of her life, Penelope was open about being a kept butch, "". She eventually settled in Lubbock, Texas.
Death
Julia Penelope, aged 71, died on January 19, 2013 in Texas.
