In 1987, I was employed as a Rural Youth Worker by Lancashire County Council (LCC). I made the mistake of coming out as lesbian at my first staff conference in 1982/3. My twelve-month probation period was extended by six months, and I could not understand why. Neither could I understand why, after applying for three posts during my four-year contract with Lancashire County Council, I was never successful. The penny began to drop when, after applying for a girls’ work post, I was told that, as a lesbian, I should not be working with girls.
Many years later, whilst discussing my time with LCC youth service, the woman who had given me a reference back in 1982/3 told me that, after I had come out at the staff conference, my manager, a senior member of the Youth Service (a youth adviser), had asked her why she had not told him I was a lesbian. Clearly, I would not have got the job had he known. After he told me I should not be working with girls, I spoke with the other youth work adviser, a woman, and asked her what she thought I should do. She told me that, as I had come out as a lesbian, I would never be promoted and advised me to seek promotion elsewhere.
On this recommendation, I applied for the post of Youth Work Adviser at what was then the National Youth Bureau (NYB) in Leicester. I was successful and moved to Leicester, where I met and fell in love with my third lesbian partner, Sandra Lucille. At the time, I considered myself to be a feminist, although feminism had never sat well with my experience of being attracted to girls from a young age – I found it difficult to accept the feminist concept that any woman could be a lesbian. On one occasion, when I belonged to a women’s group in Bolton, I asked that we discuss the difference between me knowing I was attracted to girls from my youth and those feminist-‘lesbians’ who had come out as part of their feminism. I was told it would not be discussed as we were all lesbians now and all experienced discrimination as lesbians.
I had been attracted to girls from about nine years of age and, after leaving school at 15 and working in local factories, I joined the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) in the hope of meeting others like myself. Sadly, being lesbian in the forces was illegal at this time (I recently received a letter of apology and compensation for the way I was treated). Having been interrogated when I was stationed in Cyprus, forced to see a psychiatrist and being sent back to the UK after only serving six months of a two-year tour, for two years I tried to make myself straight – dressing more feminine, wearing make-up, sleeping with men. But when I eventually managed to sleep with another woman, I realised I could no longer keep looking over my shoulder, being fearful of being found out and discharged, so I left the RAF after serving for six years.
I am saying this because I believe it was because of my experience as a lesbian that, after working at NYB for six months, I resigned and set up Lesbian Information Service (LIS) with Sandra in early 1987. Sandra was far more radical than me. Establishing LIS came as a result of being discriminated against first by feminists at the Women’s Centre, who would not allow us to have a notice board specifically for lesbians, nor to call the monthly discos ‘lesbian’ instead of ‘women’s’ discos. At the time, we were involved with a lesbian group there and were forced out. We moved to the Gay Centre, but because we wanted to run a young lesbian group and not a mixed youth group, we were also hounded out of that venue too. Our experience resulted in us becoming more radical and lesbian separatist.
Having set up LIS, we began by running a lesbian coffee bar, a lesbian library (where lesbian books could be borrowed), a young lesbian group, a lesbians with phobias group, a lesbian line, a lesbians and housing group, alongside developing LISN – Lesbian Information Service Newsletter – a lesbian newsletter which later became Lesbian International.
After the introduction of Section 28, all funding for LIS activities ceased. We therefore had to stop running the different groups and decided to concentrate on developing the newsletter. This gradually expanded to include letters, a news and listings section (developing a network of individual lesbians and lesbian groups throughout Britain), articles and international news. We also had a ‘lesbian tales’ section in which we encouraged our readers to submit their stories for inclusion.
By July 1989, the newsletter became bi-monthly and consisted of 50 pages. In the same year, we changed the title to Lesbian International, and at one point, we were selling over 500 copies. However, as the number of subscriptions declined (partly due to organisations and other publications refusing to publicise it), we stopped production in 1990.
Our focus then changed to researching the needs of young lesbians. We conducted in-depth interviews with twenty lesbians, 17 were aged 25 years and below, and the other three were older lesbians who had identified as lesbian since their youth. The findings were shocking, with high levels of mental health problems – depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, self-harm, alcohol misuse, use of illegal drugs, homelessness, sexual abuse/rape, badly treated by older lesbians/women, six had been in trouble with the police, one had been in prison, and one had been a prostitute. The findings can be found in reports on the LIS website and an article, Lesbian Youth Support Information Service (LYSIS): Developing a Distance Support Agency for Young Lesbians, Jan Bridget & Sandra Lucille, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Volume 6, Issue 5 pp. 355-364
As a result of the research, we set up the Lesbian Youth Support and Information Service (LYSIS) in 1991 and ran it until 1997, when, due to funding running out, we handed the project over to another voluntary organisation. LYSIS offered a national telephone helpline, correspondence support, information, advocacy and a pen-pal scheme. In 1997, there were 300 members of the pen-pal scheme from across Britain. LYSIS received a bronze certificate signed by H.M. Elizabeth II in 1992, in celebration of her 40th Accession to the Throne.
In order to encourage research and improve services for lesbians we produced a whole series of publications including: Young Lesbian Coming Out Pack; Lesbians and Housing Pack; Various reports – an annual report for each year of the existence of LIS, and reports on the research into the needs of young lesbians; Treatment of Lesbians with Alcohol Problems in Alcohol Services in North West England. Various resource lists identifying relevant papers and books including: Lesbians, Gays and Education; Lesbians, Gays, Alcohol and Drugs; Parents of Lesbians and Gays; Working with Lesbian and Gay Youth; Lesbians, Coming Out and Identity Development; Lesbian Relationships; Lesbians Who Are Mothers; Lesbians and Health Care; Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gays; Lesbians, Gays, Discrimination and the Law; Lesbians, Gays and Religion; Lesbians, Mental Health and Therapy; Black and Minority Ethnic Lesbians; Butch/Fem; Older Lesbians; Lesbians, Gays and Social Work. Various papers were written and either given at conferences or published in different media. Booklets, including Lesbians and Alcohol Misuse: A Guide for Alcohol Workers, were also published.
All of our publications (except the newsletter) can be accessed at www.lesbianinformationservice.org, which remains available to reflect on our achievements over the ten-year period of running Lesbian Information Service. Copies of the newsletter were sent to the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
The discrimination we experienced during the 10 years we ran LIS was phenomenal and is outlined in our various annual reports. To be honest, re-visiting the experience is extremely painful. It did not stop with Lesbian Information Service, but continued whilst I was running Gay and Lesbian Youth in Calderdale (GALYIC).
I also began to develop awareness training, which I expanded when I set up and ran GALYIC (1999-2012). Information can be found at www.galyic.org.uk, with free access to online training via YouTube.
I have made several videos recounting the experiences of lesbians and gays including: Julie’s Story, John’s Story, Tanisha, Coming to Terms with Being Lesbian, Treatment of Lesbians with Mental Health Institutions in England in the 1950s, A Young Lesbian’s Bad Acid Trip, Lucy’s Story: how alcohol helped me to pretend to be straight, Stephen’s Poems, Calderdale Council’s Citizenship Award to Jan Bridget. All available: https://shorturl.at/9jig7
In 2012, I was presented with Calderdale’s Citizenship of the Year award for services to the lesbian and gay community, particularly young lesbian and gay people. And for a few years, the Proud Trust held annual awards, which included the Jan Bridget LGBT+ Youth Worker of the Year award.
If I were to give any advice to lesbians, I would say this: “Be true to yourself.”
Leave a Reply