The views of medical and psychiatric professionals had an important effect on lesbians' conceptions of themselves and their sexuality in the 1950s and 1960s. This article traces the depiction of professional discourse on homosexuality inThe Ladder, the first widely circulated lesbian publication in the United States. Published by the Daughters of Bilitis, a group of largely white, middle‐class lesbians,The Laddershows evidence of changes in lesbians' acceptance of negative conceptions of homosexuality during the period 1956 to 1965. These changes are in part attributed to the increasing militancy of the homophile movement during the 1960s.