This year we celebrate the powerful role the LGBTQIA community played in supporting the miners across Britain in the ’80s
BY AMY CHAPPEL, IMAGE BY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) activist group, which formed in 1984 to rally support and raise funds from London’s LGBTQIA community for miners striking across Britain.
Emerging just months into the year-long miners’ strike in 1984, LGSM was galvanised by activist Mark Ashton. He envisioned building bridges between marginalised groups facing oppression under Margaret Thatcher’s government, including LGBTQIA individuals and the embattled miners fighting for their jobs. Though facing discrimination themselves, LGSM activists recognised the common struggle miners faced against government attacks and negative media coverage. Ashton spearheaded solidarity efforts, seizing the opportunity to unite these minority groups against shared injustices they all faced under Thatcher’s rule.
The inspiration for LGSM emerged from initial bucket collections held at London’s 1984 Pride march, raising over £150 for the miners. The group began collecting donations outside Gay’s The Word bookshop in London. Police regularly threatened arrests, forcing brief retreats into the store. LGSM also hosted fundraisers, including a December 1984 “Pits And Perverts” concert in Camden, provocatively named after a Sun newspaper headline.
By the end of the year-long strike, LGSM had raised a remarkable £20,000 to help sustain struggling miners’ families. The group built particularly close ties with mining villages across South Wales, including the communities in the Dulais Valley. These alliances went beyond just financial aid, with LGSM activists regularly visiting miners’ families to provide moral support on the picket lines during the difficult strike.
While popular culture portrayals like 2014’s hit film Pride have brought the unity of LGSM and the miners to wider attention, there has been criticism that such depictions fail to highlight the vital involvement of lesbian, bi and trans women or gender non-conforming in the movement.
From the outset, it was lesbian members of LGSM pushing the group on issues of gender inclusion and recognition that true liberation had to come for all sections of the LGBTQIA community. Tensions emerged by November 1984 over sexism within LGSM, seeing over 20 lesbian activists break away to form the separate Lesbians Against Pit Closures (LAPC) campaign group, while others stayed actively involved in LGSM.
The division actually proved constructive and through combined efforts LAPC and LGSM’s women coordinated fundraising across London’s lesbian bars and clubs, organised benefit events together, and helped ensure that women from the mining communities were supported and given a voice to share their struggle. The solidarity forged was genuine from both sides; South Wales miners and their families would march hand-in-hand with LGSM at the 1985 London Pride, a public alliance noted as pivotal in securing the NUM’s (National Union Of Mineworkers) support for gay equality rights motions put forward at the 1985 Labour party conference.
Though the miners’ strike ultimately failed in its bid to protect jobs and communities, the connections built between groups opened minds and changed perceptions to enable progress. Without such a strong NUM backing for sexual orientation equality, pivotal legislation changes like reductions in the age of consent may not have followed. The mining communities remained loyal allies when the spectre of Section 28 reared its head in 1988, actively opposing a measure seeking to prohibit the promotion of homosexuality.
The work of LGSM and LAPC advanced LGBTQIA rights by forging genuine bonds with mining communities. Their example of bridge-building solidarity across marginalised groups remains relevant today. As LGSM marks 40 years since its founding, the group lives on as a testament to the power of unified voices fighting discrimination. Though progress continues, LGSM’s legacy of empathy and alliance reminds us that minorities joining in a common cause can shift attitudes and move towards a more just society.
DIVA magazine celebrates 30 years in print in 2024. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
