Lesbians were 'woman-identified' in the 70s
1977
Gill and Betty said they were both identifying with the Women's Liberation Movement in the mid 1970s.
B: “There was some sort of crossover then; for a while there used to be
things like women's discos, where you would get lesbians going but also
straight feminists would go”.
B: “For a while in the early days of the Women's Liberation Movement in
Birmingham, there was a time when being woman-identified was the
important thing (for lesbians). I was thinking about things like the
recent Pink Picnic (July 2007), and of women mentioning gay men, and
the feeling that now people are gay-identified as opposed to
woman-identified, and they see their allies as being gay men rather
than necessarily being straight feminists as we would have done, I
think”.
G: “I think at that time it was the lesbian women who really kept the
Women's Liberation Movement running, therefore it was their energies
far more than it was the straight women, though not entirely”.
Contributed by: Gill Coffin, 63, Betty Hagglund, 50