The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was founded in San Francisco in 1955 by Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and six other women as the first lasting lesbian organization in the United States. Initially conceived as a private social alternative to lesbian bars, which were frequently subject to police harassment, the organization rapidly evolved into an educational, political, and civil rights movement.

Through local chapters, public discussions, educational programmes, and the publication of The Ladder—the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine in the United States—DOB promoted visibility, mutual support, legal reform, and public understanding of lesbian lives during a period when homosexuality remained widely criminalized and pathologized.

Although the organization itself did not advocate BDSM or Leather practices, it occupies an important place in the historical genealogy of lesbian Leather culture. Many of the debates surrounding sexuality, identity, feminism, and lesbian self-determination that emerged within and around DOB influenced later developments, including lesbian feminism, the sex-positive movement, SAMOIS, Lesbian Sex Mafia, and the broader lesbian Leather community.

Founded in 1955, the Daughters of Bilitis emerged during the early homophile movement in the United States, preceding both the Stonewall uprising (1969) and the organized Leather and BDSM movements. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the organization provided one of the few structured environments in which lesbian women could meet, exchange ideas, and organize politically.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, growing differences regarding feminism, political activism, and sexual expression contributed to the organization's gradual decline. Nevertheless, many of the activists, publications, and intellectual debates associated with DOB profoundly influenced subsequent generations of lesbian organizers. The emergence of lesbian Leather organizations such as SAMOIS and Lesbian Sex Mafia can be better understood within this broader historical evolution of lesbian community-building and sexual politics.

Within Leather and BDSM history, the Daughters of Bilitis should not be viewed as a precursor organization in terms of practice, but rather as part of the broader historical context that made later lesbian Leather communities possible. Its contribution lay in establishing networks, visibility, leadership, and political confidence among lesbian women, creating conditions in which more diverse expressions of sexuality—including consensual BDSM and Leather identities—could later develop openly.

For this reason, the organization occupies an important place in the historical narrative of lesbian culture, even though its own objectives remained focused on civil rights, education, and social acceptance rather than erotic or Leather practices.