Lesbian and gay lesbian and gay movement and the fragility of some labour movement support for our rights.
24 THERESA CONWAY & PETER PURTON
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HE SINGLE most dramatic illus-
T tration of these developments occurred during the historic miners' strike of 1984-85. As often in the rights in the British past, lesbian and gay activists organized to win solidarity for the embattled mining communities. For the first time, the striking miners opened their hearts and their homes class struggle
LESBIANS to Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners activists and established links that were historic for the labour movement and dramatic in the effect they had on the advance of the lesbian and gay rights struggle.
In a period when support for the miners was the dividing line throughout the working class and the whole of British society,
DEFEND the espousement of this cause by the miners' union, the NUM - from the rank and file through to the national leadership — massively boosted the struggle of lesbian and gay militants to win recognition for their rights within the ranks of the labour movement. The following year, similar Lesbian and Gay Support Groups were set up to build solidarity with other industrial struggles, the most impressive being the
FIGHT THE BIGOTS NOW!
work done for and with the printworkers in their year-long struggle for jobs.
The NUM's support had immediate and potent consequences. In 1985, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) debated and carried a resolution for the first time opposing discrimination on grounds of homosexuality. A few weeks later, amid great excitement and enormous media coverage, the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights (LCLGR) engineered a historic debate at the Labour Party's annual conference. The vote to support a firm lesbian and gay rights policy was won with the backing of the block votes of many national trade union delegations and against the recommendation of the Labour Party leadership. At the following year's conference, there was a four to one vote to reaffirm the policy.
Organizing inside the
DURING THE ERA of Thatcherism, the struggles of lesbians and gay men for their rights have come to occupy a position of new prominence and significance for the British labour movement. From the mass popular hysteria against lesbians and gays around AIDS generated by the Tory media to the substantial moves by sections of the labour movement to defend and promote the interests of lesbians and gay men, the question has moved into the centre of the political arena. It featured prominently in attacks on the Labour Party in the June 1987 election.
Today, the reaction to the introduction of an amendment to the Local Government Bill by the Tory right - which could not only undo the gains of the last five years but set the clock back much further - demonstrate both the strength of the International Viewpoint • February 22, 1988 labour movement
The events of 1985-86 represented a culmination and acceleration of a process which had begun in the 1970s, when lesbian and gay rights campaigners turned their attention to the labour movement. Following in the trail of women's rights campaigners, activists began to organize inside the trade unions and the Labour Party for the issue to be recognized as a valid question for the labour movement and not just as, at best, a personal question of individual choice.
Slowly and falteringly, lesbians and gays began to organize themselves in some major trade unions — such as the local government workers' union, NALGO, and among teachers in the NUT - to fight for discrimination against lesbians and gays to be recognized and combatted both in negotiations with employers and among fellow members.
The new breed of left social-democratic
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GAYS
leaders also took the question on board as they broadened their political horizons. The most charismatic and influential achievement was that of the Greater London Council under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, who succeeded in popularizing dramatically issues of equality. Although the actual changes were small, they set an example, gave a boost to the selforganization and self-confidence of lesbians and gay men and also succeeded in confirming for many the need for an orientation to the labour movement. On the negative side, this novel sponsorship fostered illusions in the ability of municipal socialism to short-cut the necessity for a longterm and vigorous campaign among the working class.
Self-organization in the trade unions
Backing has continued to accumulate. Trade unions continue to debate the issue, to resolve anti-discrimination positions and, in a few cases, to take real steps to educate their membership. In some, lesbian and gay self-organization has begun to be effective. Local Labour councils in many areas have recognized the need to incorporate lesbian and gay rights into their equal rights policies. Although they have always been buffeted by hysterical media attention — and often vicious resistance - and have in many cases retreated from their original commitment, definite advances have been registered in policy, employment practices and funding for lesbian and gay organizations.
It was not surprising that the Tories and the SDP/Liberal Alliance should have chosen to exploit popular prejudice, and the bigotry engendered by AIDS, in the 1987 election campaign. For the first time, the lesbian and gay rights issue featured in television and press electioneering, and on the doorsteps in many constituencies where it was thought that capital could be made out of it. In those places where the Labour response was to retreat, to downplay or deny the Labour Party's or local council's policies, the result was often a further blow to the party's already weakened chances. But in the Islington constituency in north London, where Labour defended its policies openly, no such damage was done and the gay candidate, Chris Smith, was elected to parliament.
In the aftermath of the election, lesbian and gay rights is one of the policy questions under attack from the Labour Party's right wing. Across national and local organizations, attempts are being made to conceal from public view any policy that, by confronting discrimination and oppression, seems likely to stir up reaction. On the other side, LCLGR has ensured that all the organizations that claim to be on the left of the labour movement have, at least officially, adopted firm support for lesbian and gay rights in their platforms, and in some cases this support is genuine and
Also important in maintaining the public profile of the issue has been the alliance built up through mutual struggle and mutual support with the campaigns for women's rights and in solidarity with anti-racist struggles. In the Labour Party this has taken the form of an important alliance with the Black Section's campaigns. Outside, links are being forged with campaigns against deportations and against the reactionary onslaught of the right, who have increasingly linked up the questions of race and of lesbian and gay rights in their attacks on the progressive policies of some Labour councils, especially in London. In this respect, the first ever demonstration organized jointly by Black and lesbian and gay organizations in London in May 1987 was a significant step forward.
Why the rapid rise to prominence of the issue, and of organizations such as LCLGR, which is recognized as the authoritative voice of lesbians and gay men in the Labour Party? The answers to this question raise important issues of socialist strategy, necessary for socialists to understand if they are to combat effectively a growing threat from the reactionary right and for revolutionaries to take on board in broadening Marxist understanding.
In Britain, as in all capitalist countries, homosexuality is repressed either legally, or socially, or both. The state and legal repression in Britain is particularly violent, if often inconsistent. The total illegality of male homosexuality introduced in 1885 was only partially liberalized by the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, with provisions which make it possible for gay men to be criminalized under many different conditions, a discriminatory age of consent being only the most obvious. Raids, harassment and intimidation
Similarly, while lesbianism is not officially illegal, it is also severely repressed by the state, the regular denial of child custody being the most blatant form of discrimination. Both lesbians and gay men suffer from a very biased use of many old public order laws, some of which are now used solely to control the lives of men and women who do not conform to the heterosexual norm. The police often use their increased powers to raid pubs and clubs, to harass, to intimidate. The courts back up the police, and institutions such as industrial tribunals or the immigration authorities refuse to accept the validity of homosexual relationships and life-styles.
Existing legislation designed to outlaw discrimination does not include lesbians and gays in its provisions; indeed, it is the "public policy" of the law that homosexuality is inferior and therefore appropriate grounds for discrimination. Despite obvious and overwhelming evidence that abuse
BRITAIN of young children is disproportionately caused by heterosexuals, it still remains the case that lesbians and gays are particularly vulnerable to persecution in any situation where contact with children is concerned. Young lesbians and gays themselves are particularly penalized, often being placed in social service care, with the argument that, unlike heterosexuals, they are unable to decide their own sexuality and are vulnerable to being "recruited" into homosexuality. Roots of lesbian and gay oppression
The outlawing of discrimination in employment, custody, housing, immigration, social services and all other areas in which it is institutionalized - as well as the repeal of all laws that discriminate against lesbians and gay men — is the immediate goal of campaigners. It is also now the official policy of the Labour Party, and even if its implementation will clearly be a matter of some time and probably of an even harder struggle than winning the policy in the first place, that gain has given a respectability to the demands and enables ongoing work to be done in educating the labour
At the same time, these demands lead socialists to argue an even more fundamental reason for labour movement support other than the basic issue of equal, democratic rights that is raised by the institutional oppression of homosexuality. There are many people now who are willing to argue that discrimination is wrong and must be opposed, but that sexuality is a purely private matter — everything will be solved with a few legal changes. This is a fundamental error, shared over the years by many Marxists. Such a view completely fails to address the roots of the oppression of lesbians and gay men. In the process, major issues of social oppression and socialist strategy
In the first instance, it is obvious that the historic and deeply-rooted prejudice against homosexuality cannot be an accident. The law and the state serve as a prop for popular prejudice and bigotry - they justify it, and their removal would strip away its veneer of respectability - but they do not cause it. Instead, the different social and legal status enjoyed by homosexuality in different historical periods and differing social structures is clear enough empirical evidence of this. The main oppression suffered by the vast majority of lesbians and gay men for most of the time is the social oppression which denies them the right to live their lives as they wish, and leaves them with a permanent terror of discovery at home, work or socially. Changing the law will help to dispel this terror; it will
Much lies behind the sheer scale of resison homosey ali to war equal present way 25 of homosexuality as an equally valid way February 22, 1988 • International Viewpoint
BRITAIN of life. The Tory government has responded to such moves with legislation aimed specifically at outlawing such a presentation and ensuring that the education system continues to promote "traditional moral values. There are also many sections of the labour movement that have accepted that they should oppose discrimination, but draw the line at the "positive images" policy of some Labour councils, who attempt to portray lesbian and gay relationships as being of equal worth. In so doing, they are acting as agents of the ruling class, because in practice you cannot combat discrimination unless you argue that there is no basis for it. And if homosexuality is not of equal worth, then it is rational to discriminate!
The dangers of just such an approach were demonstrated graphically in the initial response of the Labour front bench to the Local Government Bill amendment proposed by Tory reactionary Jill Knight. Because they were in such a framework, they did not understand that this attack goes much further than undermining initiatives by left Labour councils, and could lead to a level of censorship in the arts, for example, which is completely unprecedented. It was only the pressure of the movement that has forced them to reconsider and adjust their
This does not mean that a campaign to challenge the legal discrimination faced by lesbians and gay men is unimportant. Such a campaign would only be successful if it mobilized the labour movement behind lesbians and gays in mass action. The very process of achieving this would in itself be a powerful tool in combatting the prejudice that exists within the working class, and giving the lie to media hypocrisy and distortion. A campaign which challenged the "public policy" of the law that homosexual relationships are inferior, and which made discrimination illegal, would be a vital step on the road to lesbian and gay liberation and socialism. It would heighten the awareness of lesbians and gays, and of the labour movement as a whole, of the extent of legal and social discrimination, and of the role of the state and the leadership of the labour movement in upholding and reinforcing Why are the ruling class so hostile?
In this respect, it is unfortunate that the "Legislation for Lesbian and Gay Rights" campaign - launched by a number of organizations in 1986 and very successful in winning broad-based support — has now become a general campaign. While general movements are important, there is a key role for specific organizations focusing on legal discrimination and fight for labour movement action against it.
But why are the ruling class so violently hostile? If lesbians and gay men are a tiny, possible threat can they pose that generate International Viewpoint • February 22, 1988 such fear among the "moral majority" right wing? It is precisely because they see homosexuality as a threat to the social order through its challenge to "normal family life" and its associated morality. Are these petty-bourgeois fanatics wrong? Liberal and social-democratic campaigners tend to answer that they are, and to assert that lesbian and gay rights are not a threat to the existing order. This attempt to appease the right wing is foredoomed to failure, because actually the morality campaigners have a better understanding of the challenge being posed to traditional norms. If big capital has often stood aloof from the social questions in its search for ever greater profits at whatever social cost, the depth of the present social crisis is such that government is beginning to take a hand
The reality is that the struggle of lesbians and gay men for their liberation from social oppression, alongside the similar struggle of women, is a direct challenge to the crucial social prop of capitalism — the heterosexual family. The liberation of sexuality is completely incompatible with the alienated human relations brought about by the family structure of capitalism. The struggle not only demonstrates that there are alternatives to the family. It also shows in practice that sexuality itself is not a fixed category (in fact, only created as the counterpart to the consolidation of the heterosexual identity in the last century), but that people's sexuality is historically and socially determined and can change. The liberation struggle, waged at this stage through the fight for elementary equal rights, threatens the social structure of capitalism — and indeed of the degenerated workers' states, where the family unit has been reimposed or reinforced - both ideologically and
The centrality of "family values" (that is, all the repressive aspects of the family) in Thatcherite Tory thinking is a recognition of the depths of the crisis that has wracked social institutions in the western world in the last two decades: divorce rates; youth rebellions; women's liberation struggles; the fact that the traditional family unit of husband, wife and children is now a minority of households in Britain and so on.
The growing and ever more public movement around lesbian and gay rights has become part of this social upheaval. With the exception of its extremist wing, which now wants to ban homosexuality altogether, the Tories have always been prepared to allow homosexual behaviour its place — in private. Tory toleration of sexual activities that fly in the face of their published values is well known and long established. But the public presentation of homosexuality as an acceptable way of life, which has become prominent in the last two years as the strug gle moves to new levels, is something that they cannot permit, precisely because of the challenge it makes directly to their cherished and necessary social order. It has only been through the selforganization of lesbians and of gay men during the last fifteen years, and the developing political maturity of sections of the lesbian and gay movements in Britain, that these advances have been possible. Small in number, disparate in ideology and divided organizationally, the movement has made real gains in the last five or six year which have compelled sections of the labour movement to recognize the legitimacy of the struggle.
A rich variety of groups in the movement
The movement has thrown up a rich variety of forms of self-organization, from theatre groups and Lesbian and Gay Centres, student societies and groups for older lesbians and gays to self-defence clubs. There are a number of national magazines that act (however inadequately and commercially) as a network of communication. Many new organizations have come into being in recent years to campaign on AIDS and to organize social support for sufferers. The largest and best known have finally received reluctant and grudging recognition from the government, caught in a quandary by the spread of the disease and unable to restrict its counter-measures to an appeal
This self-organization has been effective also in the labour movement. We have already indicated the achievements of bodies such as the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights. But the work over many years of small groups of lesbians and gays in their trade unions has also been significant. Without the existence of such groups it would have been less likely that policy would have been adopted in so many trade unions. But the groups themselves could not have survived without the larger movement, from which they have drawn both in-
In many ways, the most significant has been the group in NALGO, one of the largest white-collar unions which organizes local government workers. Nor is it surprising that such developments have also taken place, to different degrees and at different tempos, among Black workers, workers with disabilities and women workers in the same union. It represents the coming together of a number of fortuitous circumstances. On the one hand, the local branches of NALGO have a large degree of autonomy from the national union. The national conferences are very large and take political debates on a whole range of social issues, and the union has a long history of work on women's rights, in particular involvement with the National Abortion Campaign. Since the mid-1970s, there has also been an effective stewards' [workplace representatives] organization.
This has meant that it is much easier for the demands of lesbians and gay men to be heard than in unions with less democratic structures. It is also much easier for lesbians and gay men to be open about their sex-
uality in local government than, say, in an engineering factory. This has been even more the case where Labour councils have implemented equal opportunities policies that make specific reference to lesbians and
At present, there is a National Steering Committee of lesbians and gay men in NALGO which has semi-official status — that is, although not formally part of the structure it is consulted by the national executive on a range of issues. There have been five national lesbian and gay conferences resourced by the union bureaucracy. This is not to argue that what has been achieved is adequate, or that prejudice does not exist, or that setbacks have not been encountered. But it is a way to register some significant gains that slightly changed the face of British trade unionism.
Elsewhere, the gap between rank-and-file organization and the official bridged. This is a distinction between the pattern on lesbian and gay rights and women's rights, and, to a lesser extent, the rights of Black workers. This is not surprising, given how much harder it is for lesbians and gays to recognize each other in the workplace, and more dangerous precisely for this reason for us consciously to do so. So, groups exist at different levels, some social and support networks, others coming together around victimization campaigns, policy debates or local groups within particular workplaces or union branches. The Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights has recently decided to put more resources into work in the unions, especially to prioritize some major unions from which it
Since the beginning of the 1970s, the relationship between lesbians and gay men has often been uneasy. The politics of the early movement were dominated by libertarian ideas that emphasized freedom of the individual, and therefore underestimated the material nature of oppression, including summed up by arguments such as "gay men don't fuck women, and therefore can't oppress them".
Not surprisingly, the prevalence of such attitudes led to a series of splits, with women leaving mixed organizations and setting up lesbian-only groups. At the time, the women's movement was also unreceptive to the needs of lesbians and retreated in the face of a lesbian-baiting media into the idea that there was no connection between feminism and lesbianism. Nevertheless, for many lesbians the women's movement seemed more hospitable and a more important site of political struggle. Lesbians were often in the leadership of key campaigns of the women's movement for abortion and women's refuges and against racism and
In the last ten years, there has been a flowering of lesbian groups around different focuses and political positions. Both from that strength and self-confidence and from the sense that there is a need to unite against a common enemy, we are moving to a situation where lesbians are working more both within the women's movement and with gay men. At the same time, the women's movement and at least the more radical wing of the gay movement have begun to understand that if these alliances are to be sustained, there is a need for lesbian self-organization within them, and the movement as a whole has to take up the
Self-organization is not limited to lesbians. Black lesbian and gay groups and centres have begun to flourish, as have groups of lesbians and gays with disabilities, older lesbians and gays and younger. Each of them presents challenges to the movement as a whole that we take up their demands and make space in our organization for their voices to be heard.
As we said earlier, in spite of — or perhaps because of — the advances outlined above, new attacks are being launched against lesbians and gay men. On December 7, 1987, Tory MP Jill Knight announced her intention to introduce a new clause into the Local Government Bill. This would prevent local authorities from "promoting" homosexuality, or publishing material which would do so; prevent the teaching of homosexuality as a "pretended family relationship" in schools; and prevent any financial aid being given to any person for any of these two purposes.
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Before the general election, a bill along similar lines had been introduced first into the House of Lords and then, by Jill Knight, into the Commons. It fell because not enough members were present at the vote. Occurring the week before the election, it
After December 7, lesbians and gays had to contend not only with Jill Knight and the Tory right. The immediate response of the Labour front bench was to support the amendment, and only the Liberals totally opposed it. This frontal betrayal came as a shock, despite the equivocation of the leadership already known by many in the party. Why did it happen?
Ov. • the past year, the question of lesbian and ga, rights has been used increasingly by the Labour leadership as a stick to beat the so-called "loony left". While they claim to support civil liberties and equality, they have sought to discredit what they portray as more extreme positions. So it was with some confidence that Jeff Rooker, Labour home affairs spokesperson, was able to say that "no sane person would support the promotion of homosexuality in schools" The hundreds of angry phone calls and letters, and the big mobilizations in the hours and days following his statement, proved him wrong. The anger of lesbians and gays was profound, swift and united. An unprecedented range of people united to call a lobby of parliament on December 14 when the clause was to be debated. It was clear that it would mean the end of local authority funding for lesbian and gay help-lines and groups, the end of the lesbian and gay books in libraries, challenges to the licensing of lesbian and gay clubs. It was also clear that the fire-bombing of a lesbian and gay newspaper on December 12 was encouraged by the amendment.
Faced with hundreds of supporters of lesbian and gay rights flooding into parliament on December 14, the Labour leadership had to rethink somewhat. They agreed to put some amendments making it clear that anti-discrimination measures would still be allowed. But while the Liberals' amendment negated Knight's and positively permitted the teaching of different sexual orientations, the Labour leadership stayed in Tory framework. It seems they would rather distance themselves from the left in a hunt for mythical votes than stand
On January 9, in the biggest lesbian and gay rights demonstration in British history, 12,000 people marched through London against the bill, and the mobilizations will
Whatever further attacks it may herald, this bill certainly gives a green light to bigotry and violence. In this situation, it is critical that the left as a whole, and revolutionary Marxists in particular, understand the strategic importance of the link between the fight for lesbian and gay liberation and 27 the fight for socialism. * February 22, 1988 • International Viewpoint
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