Showing 22 results

Authority record
Corporate body · c.1983-2004

Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights (LAGER) was a charity organisation which advised lesbians and gay men experiencing employment discrimination connected to their sexuality. They also conducted and published research into homophobic discrimination in the workplace and recruitment practices, including a report which quantified the forms and frequency of homophobic discrimination as it was experienced by their participants.

Funded by the Association of London Government (now London Councils), LAGER ceased to exist when its funding was rescinded in 2003.

GB 1534 LAIC · Corporate body · 1984-1996

The Archive began in London in 1984, firstly under the name of London Lesbian Archive and later as the Lesbian Archive and Information Centre (LAIC). It was funded by the Greater London Council, supporting the wages of one full-time and two part-time workers to develop and sustain a collection of UK lesbian history and culture. LAIC operated out of the London Women's Centre at Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, London, along with many other feminist collectives and women's organisations. Like Glasgow Women’s Library’s own collection, materials in the archive were all donated.

In the early years the archive collection mainly comprised lesbian books including literature, pulp fiction and a significant amount of lesbian & gay as well as feminist non-fiction. It received donations of duplicates from other feminist libraries and archives in the UK, such as Bath Feminist Archive (which is now incorporated into the collection of Feminist Archives South). LAIC also took donations of journals and pamphlets, oral histories, foreign language materials, organisational records, press clippings and manuscripts from individual women, and by the late 1980s the LAIC had amassed an impressive and unique collection of lesbian women’s materials. The collection ranges from organisational records and personal archives to journals and ephemera.

Like many of its sister organisations, LAIC went through turbulent periods in its history. Shifting dynamics in feminist, lesbian and queer politics meant that the collection occasionally faced division, and even at times closure. The political landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s consistently put pressure on funding, and laws such as Section 28 caused precarity, uncertainty and turbulence for projects like LAIC. By 1995, funding the Archive became impossible and new premises were sought. Glasgow Women’s Library housed the collection as a donation; today, the Lesbian Archive comprises around one-third of GWL's entire archive, and LAIC's (uncatalogued) library collection is housed on the mezzanine level.

Corporate body · 1991-late 1990s?

Established in 1991, the Lesbian Youth Support Information Service (LYSIS) provided support to young lesbians in four main ways: correspondence counselling; telephone counselling; peer support; and information. LYSIS was part of an umbrella organisation, the Lesbian Information Service (LIS), which provided indirect support for young lesbians including publishing, education and training, projects and campaigning.

Lesbians in Peer Support
GB 1534 LIPS · Corporate body · 2000-2006

Lesbians in Peer Support (LIPS) was a youth group organised by the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) supporting lesbian and bisexual women and girls between the ages of 14 and 25. The group was founded in 2000, following a1999 study into poverty and social exclusion among LGB young people in Glasgow and West Scotland which found that many young lesbian and bisexual women experienced high levels of isolation and social stigma. A youth group run by Lesbian Line had recently folded, leaving little support for young queer women in Glasgow. LIPS initially received three years of funding from Comic Relief, making it GWL’s first funded project. Sue John and Shona Bruce led the project, which was launched in October 2000 in the Tron theatre as part of the Glasgay! Arts Festival.

LIPS initially held meetings at GWL on Thursday evenings, shifting to Thursdays and Saturdays in 2001. The group also later launched an under 18s subgroup. This collection records many of the activities that took place during these meetings, including creative writing, drumming and drag workshops, as well as sessions on issues such as self-esteem, sexual health and domestic violence. Alongside regular meetings, the group organised residential trips in 2001, to Manchester – where they strengthened their links to a local lesbian and bisexual youth group – and to Camas on the Isle of Mull. The group also produced a series of short films, Dykes in the City which were launched at the 2001 Glasgay! Festival.
Staff and group members of LIPS were also involved in researching and campaigning around the needs of LGBTQ people in Scotland. In partnership with the Greater Glasgow Health Board, LIPS launched Something to Tell You: Hearing the Voices of Young LGB People in 2002, a report that gathered and analysed the experiences of young gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Glasgow and West Scotland.
In 2003, GWL secured additional funding from Comic Relief to run LIPS for a further three years. As part of the next phase of the project, members of the group trained as Peer Educators to facilitate LIPS groups and support new members. Following Comic Relief’s policy of funding projects for no more than six years, LIPS began to taper off its activities from 2005, and disbanded in the following year.

London Women's Centre
Corporate body · c.1970s-c.2000

Based at Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, the London Women’s Centre was a thriving hub for women’s orgs for around three decades. The Centre was home to numerous women’s and feminist groups, including the National Abortion Campaign, Asian Women’s Network, Microsyster, English Collective of Prostitutes, Women’s Network for Palestine, Camden Women’s Bus, London Fat Women's Group, Lesbian Archive and Information Centre, Women's Information and Resource Exchange (WIRES), Women's Resource Centre, and many more.

From 1984-1996, the LWC housed Lesbian Archive & Information Centre, whose collections now live here at GWL. The Lesbian Archive makes up around one-third of our total archive holdings, and the LAIC library – up on the mezzanine level of our home in Bridgeton – comprises feminist and lesbian feminist literature, many of which titles are increasingly rare and hard to come by.

Facing increasing pressure from their main funder, Camden Council, to turn away from their explicitly feminist focus and instead become a more commercial venture, the LWC rebranded themselves as a music and events venue The Wheel in the mid 1990s. The rebrand was ultimately unsuccessful and Wesley House closed around 2000 (date unconfirmed).

off our backs
Corporate body · 1970-2008

off our backs was a radical feminist print news journal by, for, and about women, published from 1970 to 2008. From 2008 onward OOB changed its remit, becoming a nonprofit organisation run by a collective where decisions are made by consensus.

Older Lesbian Network
Corporate body · 1984-

The Older Lesbian Network (OLN) meets socially in London, with other regional groups meeting and self-organising in Birmingham, Nottingham, Southampton and elsewhere. The OLN was established in 1984, and from the late 1980s onward, they held frequent meetings at Camden Lesbian Centre, 54-56 Phoenix Road.

Corporate body · c.1989-c.1995

ONYX was a social and discussion group for Black lesbians and lesbians of colour. By its own definition, it encompassed '[a]ll lesbians descended (through one or both parents) from Africa, Asia (i.e. the Middle East to China, including the Pacific Nations) and Latin America, and lesbians descended from the original inhabitants of Australasia, North America and the islands of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean'. The group met once or twice monthly, first at London Friend at 86 Caledonian Road (c.1989-1991) and later at Camden Lesbian Centre & Black Lesbian Group at 54-56 Phoenix Road (from 1991 onwards); discussion and publicity were led by volunteers.

Outwrite Women’s Newspaper
Corporate body · 1982-1988

Outwrite newspaper, produced by a collective of women throughout the 1980s, was dedicated to offering news by women, for women. Self-defined as an ‘internationalist feminist’ publication, the paper focused on ‘the development of feminism worldwide’ and an examination of women’s oppressions ‘in the context of imperialism, racism and class divisions.’

Liberation struggles across Latin America, southern Africa, Palestine, Bangladesh and India, as well as local campaigns including those of Southall Black Sisters, the Sari Squad and the King’s Cross Women’s Centre were regularly featured in Outwrite’s monthly reports. The transnational community Outwrite envisioned and embodied resonates powerfully with the social justice struggles of today.

Shocking Pink!
Corporate body · 1981-1982; 1987-1992

Shocking Pink! was a zine written by and for young women, with an emphasis on topics like contraception, abortion, sexuality, lesbianism, queer issues, violence against women, feminist arts and culture, skill sharing (e.g. how to form a band, a women's group etc.), racism, women's rights, politics, and more.