Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners

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LGSM members and Welsh miners at London Pride 2015 , with a 1984 banner

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners ( LGSM , German : gays and lesbians support the miners ) was a British union of homosexuals who are providing financial and moral support of the strikers and their families during the year-long miners' strike of 1984/1985 had founded. When the industrial action ended in March 1985 there were 11 LGSM groups in the UK.

The solidarity shown by lesbians and gays with the strikers secured the emerging lesbian and gay movement the political support of the powerful miners' union National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) over the following years . Miners led the Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade in London in 1985 . In autumn 1985, with the support of the trade unions, a motion was pushed through at the Labor Party conference in Bournemouth, obliging the party to support the rights of lesbians and gay men. In the unsuccessful battle against Section 28 in 1988 , the miners were among the most important allies of the lesbian and gay movement. Former LGSM activists occasionally met for actions or made political statements until 2016.

history

Mark Ashton (1960-1987)
Plaque above Gay's the Word bookstore , 2017

background

As early as the beginning of the strike, which lasted from March 1984 to March 1985, the leadership of the National Union of Miners and the miners and their families realized that they were facing a long and hard labor dispute. The large number of strikers could only have been paid for a few days from the strike funds. In addition, prior to the strike, a government ordinance cut state aid for strikers' families from the post-war period to the 1970s by £ 15 a week, and later by £ 16. As early as March 1984, solidarity groups began to form in South Wales, where food, clothing and money were collected.

The National Union of Miners in South Wales, unlike the regional branches in other parts of the UK, was active across the country with demonstrations and pickets in front of coal and steel factories. In doing so, she acted contrary to the recently tightened laws to prevent labor disputes. In August, NUM funds in South Wales were frozen by a court order. Later, because the strike was carried out without a prior ballot , union funds were also frozen at the national level. Donations to the union would not have reached the needy miner families. The union leadership encouraged support groups across the country to partner with miners' communities in England, Scotland and Wales.

founding

One of the first support groups outside the affected regions was the LGSM, an association founded by Mark Ashton and his friend Michael Jackson at the end of June 1984 . Ashton and Jackson had previously raised money for the miners during London's Lesbian and Gay Pride March . Meeting a South Wales miner who was speaking at a post- Pride March event organized by the Labor Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights (LCLGR), a group within the Labor Party , prompted Ashton and Jackson to form a support group.

Ashton had been an openly gay left activist for years and had been a member of the Young Communist League since 1982 . According to him, the first LGSM meeting was attended only by members of the Communist Party and the Labor Party . While it was founded solely by activists from two political parties, LGSM quickly found a broader political base. Many members praised the diversity of political beliefs within LGSM, but also indicated that LGSM is an organization of white men. Lists of participants received from the meetings show that only a few women were present among the approximately 50 participants.

The Dulais Valley miners set up a support network in London after union money was frozen, including Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners . For LGSM, the direct partnership with individual mining communities offered the opportunity to avoid bureaucratic obstacles and the risk of being confiscated in a possible collaboration with the National Union of Miners .

The second LGSM group was founded in Glasgow in the summer of 1984. Edinburgh, Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester, Bournemouth, Southampton, Leicester, Cardiff and Swansea followed.

activities

The Gay's the Word bookstore , LGSM meeting point, 2012

The London LGSM group met weekly in different locations during the duration of the industrial action. Its headquarters were the gay bookstore Gay's the Word in Marchmont Street in the London Borough of Camden . Defend Gay's the Word was a major campaign in London's gay movement at the time following book confiscation and criminal charges for improper conduct in the bookstore in March 1984. Another meeting point was Fallen Angel, a gay bar frequented by several other activist groups . The choice of these popular venues encouraged fundraising and membership canvassing for LGSM, which could meet up to 50 people, and was in line with the group's efforts to be involved in the lesbian and gay activist community. LGSM members raised funds on various occasions, participated in demonstrations and conferences, and visited the strikers and their families in the partner communities.

A major public relations medium for Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners was the free weekly gay newspaper Capital Gay, published by Stonewall Press in London . Its circulation of 50,000 at the time was distributed in London and in several other British cities with large gay communities and reached a large part of the lesbian or gay population. Ashton said in an interview with the American left-wing magazine Radical America during the strike that the publications in Capital Gay had attracted "enormous" public attention.

Fundraising

Donations of money were urgently needed to alleviate the greatest misery among the miners and their families. LGSM carried out collections in pubs and bars frequented by lesbians and gays, as well as street collections, raffles, flea markets and cultural events. It raised £ 11,000 to support the miners by the end of 1984 and £ 20,000 by the end of the strike. Mark Ashton estimated that the London-based LGSM group paid a quarter of the cost of the Dulais miners' living during the strike.

The largest fundraising event with net income of £ 5,650 was the benefit concert “Pits and Perverts” organized by LGSM with the group Bronski Beat, popular in the lesbian and gay movement, on December 10, 1984 in London Electric Ballroom . The event culminated when a representative from the National Union of Mineworkers took the stage and explained to the 1,500 concert-goers:

“You have worn our badge, 'Coal not Dole', and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us; we will support you. It won't change overnight, but now 140,000 miners know that there are other causes and other problems. We know about blacks, and gays and nuclear disarmament, and will never be the same. "

- David Donovan

The derogatory designation as the title of the concert goes back to the insulting headline Perverts support the pits! (German: "Perverts support the pits") an article in the British tabloid The Sun back. The paper published by the homophobic and anti-union publisher Rupert Murdoch had taken a clear stance against the miners during the strike.

Personal encounters

The activities of the LGSM groups also included mutual solidarity visits with the mining communities and their representatives. The London group had partnerships with the mining communities in the Neath Valley, Dulais Valley and Swansea Valley, all valleys that make up the South Wales Valleys in south Wales . The London gay newspaper Capital Gay emphasized that the mining communities "internalize all the sexist, patriarchal and anti-gay views that threaten us " (English: encapsulate all the sexist, patriarchal and anti-gay views which threaten us ... ).

The experience of those involved was different. During the strike, mine workers and their families, as well as LGSM activists, confirmed that representatives of both groups had come closer together. A woman from Dulais said that "the strike was necessary to be kinder to lesbians and gays". Others reported that there had been discussions in the area before the supporters' first visit to London, and that after they arrived, whole families had tea about gay rights and human sexuality over tea. The members of LGSM did not find their prejudices confirmed either, they were rather happy about the warm welcome and that the barriers of prejudice had broken down (to imagine that we would have been welcomed, really, so warmly. I mean, all the myths and all the barriers of prejudice were just broken down when we went down to the valley) .

cleavage

In November 1984, LGSM split when the majority of lesbians left the organization and formed the Lesbians Against Pit Closures . This was preceded by arguments in which the lesbians accused the men of LGSM of sexism, misogyny and lesbophobia . Some women said they felt intimidated by the majority of men during the group's meetings. The core of LGSM consisted of men who were active in left parties and tried to make their party line the line of the group. Other voices pointed out that the composition of the group resulted in repression, intimidation and a refusal to discuss the situation of women and blacks. One of the men attacked in this way later explained that the men behaved at the group's meetings as men behave in general at meetings. Representatives of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) turned against the split and accused the departing women of avoiding the argument instead of fighting sexism where it occurs.

The establishment of the Lesbians Against Pit Closures should not only satisfy the personal need of the women concerned for a protected space “only for women”. The stated intention was to give women a public voice and to carry feminist positions into the male-dominated world of mining.

After the strike

The collaboration between LGSM and the powerful miners' union influenced political positions on LGBT issues in Britain , despite the unsuccessful strike .

Various mining groups are now supporting the gay and lesbian movement, for example at the Lesbian and Gay Pride 1985 , when members of LGSM formed a group with around 80 miners and supporters of a delegation from the National Union of Miners from South Wales, marched together and displayed their flags and banners .

The Labor Party has also officially supported gay and lesbian rights since 1985, among other things because the National Union of Mineworkers voted in favor of it at the party conference in Bournemouth last autumn .

British historian Matt Cook placed LGSM as the successor to London's Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s. However, during the great miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, the latter failed to achieve ties to the labor movement and to win the support of the unions for its own concerns.

During and immediately after the miners' strike, members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners and Lesbians Against Pit Closures produced the 25-minute documentary Dancing in Dulais . It was directed by Colin Clews, also one of the LGSM activists. The film was released in early 1986 in the UK art house cinemas and was also shown under the alternative title All out! Dancing in Dulais , and was shown at the Cambridge Film Festival in 2014 .

The partnership between the London group and the Welsh village of Onllwyn is the theme of the 2014 feature film Pride .

literature

Web links

Commons : Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bob Sutcliffe: The Battle for Britain. Four Contrasts in the Miners' Strike. In: Radical America 1985, Volume 19, No. 2-3, pp. 25-37, here p. 26.
  2. ^ A b Hywel Francis: History on our Side. Wales and the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. Lawrence & Wishart, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-910448-15-1 , pp. 52-60.
  3. ^ A b Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 244.
  4. ^ Hall Carpenter Archives (Ed.): Walking After Midnight: Gay Men's Life Stories . Routledge, London 1989, ISBN 978-0-415-02957-5 , pp. 211-212, quoted from Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 241.
  5. ↑ a b Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, pp. 40-41.
  6. ^ Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 246.
  7. ^ A b c Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 247.
  8. ↑ John Rose: Sister, Brother and Twin. In: New Statesman , November 30, 1984, ISSN  1364-7431 , p. 12.
  9. ^ Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, p. 41.
  10. ^ Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 250.
  11. ↑ a b c Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 245.
  12. ^ Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, p. 43.
  13. ^ Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 241.
  14. ↑ Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, pp. 44–45.
  15. ^ Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, p. 44.
  16. ^ Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 242.
  17. ↑ a b Colin Clews: 1984. 'Pits and Perverts' Benefit Concert . On the GAY in the 80s website , published May 27, 2013, accessed July 19, 2017.
  18. ↑ Bryan Flynn, Larry Goldsmith, and Bob Sutcliffe: We Danced in the Miners' Hall, 39.
  19. ↑ Perverts support the pits - Gays and lesbians send money to Welsh striking miners.
  20. ^ Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , pp. 244-245.
  21. ↑ Capital Gay, July 5, 1985, pp. 9 and 11, quoted from Diarmaid Kelliher: Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5 , p. 241.
  22. ^ Matt Cook: From Gay Reform to Gaydar, 1967-2006. In: Matt Cook (Ed.): A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages. Greenwood World Publishing, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-1-84645-002-0 , pp. 179-213, here p. 186.