Women's history in the new millennium: Adrienne Rich's "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence:" a retrospective.

Almost since she came to work for the Journal, managing editor Stephanie Gilmore has been lobbying for a retrospective on Adrienne Rich's classic article, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." I knew from my partner, Verta Taylor, who has for many years co-edited the women's studies anthology Feminist Frontiers, that Rich had stopped giving permission to reprint her classic article. Not knowing exactly why, we bravely invited Rich to comment on the responses we were gathering, and to our delight, she not only graciously agreed to write a piece (forthcoming in the spring issue), but she also explained that she was refusing permission to reprint the original …