Sandoz was born on November 2, 1920, in
Corvallis, Oregon. Her mother, who worked as a maid, had immigrated to the United States from Sweden and was a descendant of Edouard Sandoz, the co-founder of the
Sandoz pharmaceutical company. She met her father, a railroad worker, for the first time when she was eighteen years old. After completing a bachelor's degree in psychology at
Reed College, she worked at department stores in Oregon and Washington state. Following a car accident that left her with a broken neck, she was unable to sit down for long periods of time, so she became a sign painter. Sandoz later moved from Oregon to
San Francisco, where she joined the
Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), a lesbian rights organization, in 1956. She was hired as an assistant to the editor of the DOB's official magazine,
The Ladder. Under her leadership,
The Ladder became less political and more lighthearted; Sandoz occasionally wrote editorials from the perspective of her cat, credited as "Ben the Cat". When the DOB folded in 1970, Sandoz chose not to follow most of its members to the newly formed
National Organization for Women, since she did not agree with its rhetoric and wanted to campaign for the rights of gay men as well as lesbians. == Personal life ==