Le bonheur était dans les pages de ce mensuel: la naissance de la presse lesbienne et la fabrique d’un espace à soi (1976-1990)

“Happiness Was in the Pages of this Monthly” : The Birth of Lesbian Press and The Fabric of A Space of One’s Own (1976-1990) The lesbian press at the turn of the 1980s and throughout the decade is not the reflection of a movement predating it but rather the site from which a collective sense of belonging is structured and invented. This article investigates the role of the lesbian press in the social, political and cultural construction of a lesbian subject. Following an analysis of the unsettling position of lesbians in the 1970s Women’s movement, the matrix role of the lesbian press in the fabric of a collective consciousness will be examined through the following three directions : the creation of social bonds with the example of the magazine Lesbia and its personal ads, the unfolding of a political debate on the issues of lesbian sadomasochism and alliances between gays and lesbians, and finally, the elaboration of an intimate, poetic and utopian self-writing.