Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984–5

Fig. 1.

LGSM banner at Lesbian and Gay Pride 1985 in London. The NUM Blaenant Lodge banner is in the background. Photo by Colin Clews.

See http://www.gayinthe80s.com/2012/09/10/1984-lesbians-and-gays-support-the-miners-part-one/.

Reproduced with permission from Colin Clews

Fig. 2.

Members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners collecting for the miners outside Gay’s the Word bookshop in central London. Photographer unknown.

Reproduced with permission from Mike Jackson (of Gay’s the Word) and the People’s History Museum

In March 1984 British coalminers began a national strike against pit closures that would last for twelve months, with networks of support organizations established throughout the country. Often at the heart of these networks were traditional elements of the labour movement – trades councils, trade unions and Labour Party branches, for example, were all highly active. At least two elements, however, appeared more novel. The first was Women Against Pit Closures – a national network of women’s organizations, based primarily in mining areas and often composed of women from mining families – which has subsequently been the focus of much work.¹ In addition, the miners’ strike was an important moment in which radical activists from diverse backgrounds coalesced behind an ‘old-fashioned’ industrial dispute. Doreen Massey and Hilary Wainwright commented at the time that ‘in many cities ethnic minorities, gay and lesbian communities, women’s groups and “alternative” networks of many kinds form an important element’. These groups made a notable contribution to a miners’ support network ‘with as broad a social and geographical base as any post-war radical political movement’.²

Far from the mining heartlands, London provides a compelling example of the growth of this social movement alongside the industrial struggle. This article focuses on one support group in the capital, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), which has received little historical analysis.³ The organization was formed after two gay men, Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson, collected donations for the miners at the 1984 Lesbian and Gay Pride march.⁴ The organization maintained weekly meetings for the next year, raised money for the miners and was involved in demonstrations, visits and conferences. On the following year’s Pride demonstration, under the banners of LGSM and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Blaenant lodge, a group of lesbians and gay men marched with approximately eighty miners and supporters from South Wales mining communities.⁵ This was seen as the fitting culmination of a movement whose central argument was that if lesbians and gay men offered solidarity with the miners and their communities, this support would be reciprocated.

The book-ending of LGSM by two Pride demonstrations points to its heritage in the gay liberation movement. Matt Cook has placed the organization in the lineage of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a radical gay group of the early 1970s.⁶ The 1970s provides an important point of comparison for LGSM – in relation to GLF and also in terms of the previous national miners’ strikes in 1972 and 1974. The central question addressed in this article is how LGSM was able to develop stronger links with the labour movement than the GLF. This piece will consider how LGSM sought to promote lesbian and gay concerns within the labour movement and the left, and simultaneously attempted to convince lesbian and gay people of the importance of this alliance. It will do this by looking at the practical ways in which the group expressed their solidarity with mining communities, and then how the concepts of oppression, class and community were used to explain this solidarity. Finally, it will consider the legacy of the organization and what it can contribute to an understanding of the broader historical moment. I will argue that a history of LGSM provides important insights into the weakening of the hegemonic position of ‘class’ as a concern for the left in the 1980s.

The Practice of Solidarity

The miners’ strikes of 1972 and 1974...