S1E2: Lisa Power - Pride, Policy and Persistence

Lisa Power joins us to chart a raw, funny, and fiercely practical road through UK LGBTQ+ history—from Switchboard’s midnight calls to the birth of Stonewall, from Section 28’s chilling effect to the sudden light of Vancouver 1996 when HIV combination therapy changed everything.

We dig into the messy reality of coalition building: why Stonewall chose equality as the shared baseline, how the age of consent fight was won in stages, and what it took to navigate the frictions between feminism, the left, and queer communities. Lisa brings history to life: the cramped Switchboard office with maps and files; early THT meetings; treatment-activist showdowns where community experts out-briefed pharma reps.

Lisa's call is simple and sharp: stop fighting each other, fight the right enemy, and keep pushing the window of acceptance forward.

If this story moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Tell us what moment or tactic you’d pass on to the next generation.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:01):
There were a thousand people in the hall, and I said,
My name is Chris Smith.
I'm the Labour MP for IslingtonSouth and Finsbury, and I'm
gay.
A group of us in the GayLiberation Fund hit on the idea
of holding a gay pride march tochallenge that shameful view.

Lisa (00:20):
Equality, and for some people in Stonewall like me,
equality was kind of like whatyou got to as a starting point.

Jonathan (00:27):
Welcome to the View from Here, the podcast that
explores the lives of key peoplein the LGBTQ Plus movement.
I'm Jonathan.
And I'm James.
We hope you enjoy the podcast.
Today we're joined by LisaPower, a trailblazing LGBTQ Plus
activist and historian,co-founder of Stonewall, an

(00:48):
early switchboard volunteer, andSecretary General of the
International Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual, Trans and Intersex
Association, Ilga.

James (00:56):
Today's episode explores themes of political courage,
legislative change, and publicrepresentation.
We'll uncover stories ofcommunity, crisis, and global
solidarity that helped shapemodern LGBTQ activism.
An extraordinarily formidableguest with us today.
Tell us about your childhood,where you grew up, what shaped

(01:18):
you in your early years.

Lisa (01:19):
Born on the south coast of England to um my mother, who I
was illegitimate and in the1950s, it was very unusual, but
she kept me and the family kepther.
She wasn't disowned andtherefore she managed to not
disown me.
But there was a fiction thatshe had been married, so I've
been through a few surnamesbecause she made an lovely

(01:42):
illegal declaration for my birthcertificate and stuff like
that.
But brought up mostly inCroydon, South Croydon, in South
London.
Went to school there, went to avery posh school with a
scholarship, and didn'tparticularly enjoy that.
Went off to LancasterUniversity, which is where I ran

(02:05):
across people who had been inthe Gay Liberation Front, people
who were radical gay activists,had a great time, came back
down to London and hung out withshort life housing and
squatting, and generally againradical people of all kinds,

(02:26):
sannyassins, the orange people,primal screen people, loads and
loads of completely mad peoplein Islington, which was a hotbed
of radicalism at that time, andwent on from there.
And I would date my activism,although yeah, I did I went to

(02:47):
prides and I did other things,but in terms of actually
becoming an active part ofanything like a queer movement,
I would date it to joining GaySwitchboard at the end of 1979.

Jonathan (03:00):
Right.
And before we started therecording, you said something
really interesting about youknow being one of the people who
had taken on a mantle ofactivism as opposed to just kind
of going through life.
Um and what was it thatinspired you?
1979, you think, okay, you knowwhat, actually I need to do

(03:22):
something.

Lisa (03:23):
Well, in terms of activism, I think the way I came
out is probably indicative ofthe way I carried on after that,
which was that I was inLancaster back 1976, could be
75, but I think it was 76,somewhere around there.
I was already on the fringes ofum the tiny gay movement that

(03:45):
was there, and they announcedthere was going to be a
demonstration outside Britishhome stores or BHS, as most
people now would remember it.
It collapsed a couple of yearsago.
Um, they had sacked someonecalled Tony Whitehead, who went
on to found Terence HigginsTrust, well, you know, to all do
all sorts of things.
He's still around.

(04:05):
Um, but he was a traineemanager and he'd appeared on a
television program being openlygay, and they sacked him because
they thought it would frightenthe customers.
Um and so all over the country,um, gay activists went and held
demonstrations outside theirstores.
So there was a demonstrationoutside their store in

(04:28):
Lancaster.
I went along not to participatein the demonstration but just
to see it and to see people I'dbegun to make friends with who
were there.
And somebody said, Hold myplacard while I go to the loom.

James (04:39):
And that's and you became an activist.

Lisa (04:40):
And I held their placard and I never saw the photographer
from the local paper.
And the next thing I know, I'min the local paper carrying a
placard saying BHS Unfair togays, and the whole town knew I
was a lesbian.
Okay, fine.
So whoops, out.

Jonathan (04:57):
Come out with a bang, why not?

Lisa (04:59):
Yeah.

Jonathan (04:59):
Did that have any repercussions at the time?

Lisa (05:02):
Well, it meant that I I didn't really have to say much
to most people.
Um, and indeed, even the peopleI didn't tell got told by the
people who'd seen it.
So, for instance, my mother gottold by a friend of mine, and
just she confronted me ratherthan the other way around, which
is fair enough, that's the kindof family I come from.

(05:24):
I mean, not she didn't confrontme in a horrid way.
Um, but I remember all thoseyears on switchboard all the
difficulties that people hadcoming out, and I was kind of
discouraged from telling peoplemy story because it was most
people's nightmare that theywould do something and be found
out to be gay.
But actually, it's the easiestway in the world to come out.
You know, it was just likecompletely painless.

James (05:47):
Don't have to go through a whole torment of doing it.

Lisa (05:51):
And I've always called myself an accidental activist
because I've always juststumbled into these things.
I mean, I I accidentally becamethe Secretary General of the
International Lesbian and GayAssociation.
I stumbled into being part ofStonewall.
I stumbled into switchboard in1979 because one of the people
that I lived in a um we were inwe were in a house that was

(06:15):
there was a scheme from theGreater London Council called
the homesteading scheme, um,where they took and I wish
someone would do this again,they took derelict properties
owned by the councils and justsold them off to people and gave
them really you know beneficialrate mortgages and things.
And there was a bunch of usliving in a five-story house in
Islington.
One, you know, a couple of ushad actually put the money out

(06:37):
for the deposit.
Um and one of the others wasgoing to one of the others um
rang and vo and you know appliedto switchboard.
And I said, Oh, count me intwo, give them my name.
Um, and went along to theinterview just and I didn't
realise that in this in the 70s,I mean I knew that there was a

(06:59):
lot more separatism in Londonthan when I came out in
Lancaster, there was very littlein the way of separatism.
Most people, lesbians and gaymen, just got on with things
together.

James (07:08):
What do you mean by separatism?
Well, lesbians and gay menworking completely separately,
almost at odds with one anotheror just not just not connecting?

Lisa (07:17):
Not not connected, often because the lesbians have walked
out at some point.

James (07:21):
Yeah.

Lisa (07:21):
Um you know, in Lancaster we had one gay disco that
everybody went to.
Indeed, everybody everybody whowas shunned by anybody else
went to, so all the false angelsand so on also came to the gay
disco once a week in theCatholic Club.
Um wow, well, it was the onlyplace that would have us.
So fine.
Um, but in in London, I didn'trealise that all of the lesbians

(07:46):
had left gay switchboard andicebreakers, and a bunch had
also left friend, um, to foundlesbian line.
And so switchboard wasdesperate to get some lesbians
back on, and I was the secondlesbian back in.
So, you know, they were reallykeen to take me.
Um, and also I had quiteradical politics, and the other

(08:09):
woman who joined um did not haveradical politics at all.
In fact, bless her, she was onrecord as saying that feminism
gave lesbians a bad name.
So I wasn't really good friendswith her, I was actually mates
with some of the guys, um, morethan with her.

James (08:25):
Um tell us about your radical politics.

Lisa (08:28):
Well, it it was it was a lot of posturing.
Um, but yeah, I mean it wasgeneral, um, I there was a
strong correlation between a gaybetween being a gay activist.
So we used gay for pretty mucheverybody then.
I mean, we were starting to saylesbian and gay, um, but there
was pretty much a correlationbetween being a gay activist and

(08:49):
being uh vaguely left-wing,sometimes more specifically
left-wing, um, but you know, ageneral spectrum of left-wing
activism as well.
There was quite a lot of umincoherently um intersectional
stuff that went on.
Um but it was never um, I mean,there were an awful lot of

(09:15):
frictions.
The the general left, the farleft, had made a couple of
attempts by then to try andalmost take over the gay
movement.
Um, so there was starting to bequite a bit of friction there.
Um, because originally theyhadn't wanted anything to do
with us.
They thought being gay was abourgeois deviation.
Um I can remember chucking agirlfriend out of bed for

(09:37):
reading um the InternationalSocialist pamphlet on that.
Uh you know, there was um butso it was kind of automatic that
you were vaguely a lefty.
Um, and in the 80s, as thingswent on, it was gays and um

(09:59):
people who were politicianspolitical about race issues, who
were together defined as theloony left in the media and by
politicians, and there was amoral panic around the loony
left as there is now about transpeople.
Um, and it was very much thegays and the um black activists

(10:19):
who kind of I mean, I wouldn'tsay we all hung out together,
um, and I think there was quitea lot of racism uh and quite a
lot of antagonism and homophobiatowards uh, you know, in each
direction, but that we werebunged together by um the
mainstream people in whosebenefit a moral panic works.

James (10:41):
Was that was that one of the strengths there of the
movement?
And I think in in America therewas very much a sense of of of
the race movement and and orracial equality movement and the
LGBT movement.

Lisa (10:51):
Well in America, the gay movement came very much out of
the civil rights movement.

James (10:56):
Yeah.

Lisa (10:57):
And you see um the start of things like the GLF manifesto
happening at black rightsconferences, you know, civil
rights conferences.
Um and people don't rememberthat.
I th that for me that wasreally of key importance.
Um, and also trans rightshappening as part of gay rights,

(11:19):
an automatic part of gayrights, which people have really
tried to erase.
The people who are transphobicnow have really tried to erase
that.
And and I'm really glad thatone of the things about my book
is it makes it really clear thattrans people um were a small
but key part of what went on.

(11:39):
Uh, one of the things that oneof the reasons I wrote the book,
and one of the reasons I'vebecome very involved in queer
history, is that I get reallyannoyed by people, frankly, in
all directions, rewriting queerhistory to suit their current
preoccupations and their currentpolitics, including some of the
people who were in it at thetime.

(11:59):
You know, there were people umin GLF who tr started trying to
rewrite GLF to as if it was alltheir type of politics, and that
happens still to this day.
Um, and I like I like history,messy and confused and full of
contradictions, because that'sreally what it is.

Jonathan (12:22):
Um it's funny how we've learned that listening to
stories often about the sameevent are that have different
lenses, right?
That people think about themdifferently, they remember them
differently.
Um, and and these were allpeople who were there at it,
right?
And also, I think sometimesthat lens, as you say, is
colored by the evolution oftheir own politics.

Lisa (12:43):
Yeah.
Um and and so um I can'tremember, I can't think what
that came out of.
But anyway, there was, but butwe were very um ghettoized.
It was very if you there youwere an activist gay, or what we
unkindly called a straight gay.
Right.
Um, and the straight gays wentto discos, or um, if they were

(13:04):
lesbians, got into couplesimmediately.
I mean, there's serial monogamywas massive in the Worse Bean
community.
Uh all my friends were alwaysin love, and they moved in on
the second date with a woman, itwas never the same woman two
years running.
You know, uh it drove me aroundthe bend, it was not my
lifestyle at all.
I just thought, can you not seewhat you're doing, girls?

(13:24):
Um it wasn't I was some greatmonogamist or anything, it was
just like uh there's a recurringpattern going on, yeah.
You ought to acknowledge it,it's fine, but please
acknowledge it.
But anyway, you know, there wasum that was kind of straight,
straight gaze, and then activistgays.
We all wore double denim andlots of badges and had placards,

(13:46):
and we all volunteered forsomething.

James (13:48):
So so two two things that come out of that.
You can I mean, I guess uh doyou see gay marriage and equal
marriage as as almost being astraight gay thing?

Lisa (13:57):
Oh god, um I I was not a fan of equal marriage for a long
time.
I mean, I went with it becausethe whole point of Stonewall and
the thing, the reason whyStonewall worked, despite the
fact that it had people in itwho would never have spoken to
each other, even a year or twobefore it started, um, was that

(14:18):
we all sat down and went, whatcan we agree on?
And we didn't look at whatseparated us.
And before that, it was allabout examining the cracks in
the movement.
I mean, everybody says, Oh, wehad three magnificent marches
for um section 28.
Well, we had three marchesbecause we had three
organizations that wouldn'tagree with each other and all

(14:39):
insisted on having their ownbloody march, you know.
It wasn't it wasn't some kindof glorious manifestation, it
was called rivalry.

Jonathan (14:47):
Yeah.

Lisa (14:47):
Um, and you know, things kept falling over because of the
splits in the movement.
So when Stonewall came along,that kind of really base thing
of what do we all agree on?
And what we could all agree onwas equality, and for some
people in Stonewall, like me,equality was kind of like what

(15:08):
you got to as a starting point,and for other people that that
was the end point, they justwanted equality, right?
Um, and that was fine, but forthe purposes of what we were
doing, we could all agree onthat and focus on working
together.
Yeah, and that was new to me ingay politics.
I was so used to thingssplitting, nothing lasting more

(15:30):
than a couple of years.
If you look at gay politics inthe 80s, everything splits after
the year, and the 70s really,everything blazes beautifully
and then splits after a year ortwo because people always look
for the cracks.
Suddenly we started to look forwhat held us together.

James (15:46):
And how much of an effect did that have on the movement,
changing that philosophy ofwe're we're we're we're we're an
insular community fightingamongst ourselves to actually if
we focus on what unites us,then we can fight against the
the world.

Lisa (15:59):
Yeah.
Well, it it was very unpopularactually.
And what people again, this isa rewrite of history.
What people forget now isStonewall was unbelievably
unpopular with radical activistsin the early 90s.
If you look, people likeOutrage, people who ran the gay
press were all totallycontemptuous of Stonewall
because it didn't answer tothem, it didn't answer to

(16:22):
pressure from any particularpressure group.
Stonewall stuck to itself, itmade its own mind up.
It was when we found it, it was14 people, and the idea was it
was 20 people, 10 lesbians, 10gay men, because it was we were
very much in the binary, you'vegot to remember that as well.
Um, if you were bisexual, therewas a tiny, tiny vestigial

(16:45):
movement.
Um, people were told to pick aside and stick to it.
Um trans people, people forgetnow, but actually um the
dividing line wasn't whether youwere trans or cis, but whether
you were straight or gay.
And if you were trans lesbianor trans gay, you were part of
the movement.
And if you were trans straight,you could bugger off, you've
got your own movement calledPress for Change.

(17:07):
Um, and that you know, and theydidn't want anything to do with
us because they were morerespectable than we were.

unknown (17:15):
Wow.

Lisa (17:15):
When Stonewall started, we worked, we we sat down and
talked to people like Press forChange, and they said, It's
great, we're glad you exist, butwe'll stay separate because we
can get further, because we'remore respectable, because people
think we're all straight.
So so what what well I mean soso yeah, so people just totally

(17:38):
forget the Stonewall was quiteunpopular, and there were people
who were part of the foundingof Stonewall who were unable to
go public with it, and part ofthat was about it, you know, it
would ruin their reputations asgood gay activists.
I mean, I was probably I I wasI my girlfriend and I were both

(18:00):
members, and we were ostensiblythe two most radical people in
Stonewall, and in fact, when itcame down to it, I was probably
the most radical.
Um, but she'd she'd been thechair of one of the short-lived
attempts at a nationalorganisation before.
Um, and it she got me intoStonewall because they said, Do
you know any other sensiblelesbians?

(18:22):
Which probably was defined aspeople who won't shout at us.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah.

Lisa (18:27):
Because they they tried, they they sat down with various
lesbian activists who'd beenquite didactic about how things
should be.
Um, and that, you know, thatwas not how Stonewall was going
to operate.
Um so she and she said, Well,my girlfriend's just been
elected secretary general of theInternational Lesbian and Gay
Association, which soundedmassively grander than it was.

(18:49):
And I had only accidentallybeen elected Secretary General
at the first meeting of Ilgathat I had ever been to, because
her organisation had sent me tothis meeting.
We'd had an invite, they said,We'll pay for somebody from your
organisation to come over toour conference in Oslo.
Um, and nobody wanted to go toOslo in the summer, and I drew

(19:13):
the short straw because I said,Oh, you know, I'll go.
I was very annoyed because theadministrator gave her
girlfriend the job of going tosomething else in Barcelona at
the same time.
Actually, Oslo turned out to bea bit pivotal for me and for
some other things becausebasically they needed a new
lesbian secretary-general whocould work with men.
I came from a mixed background.

(19:33):
I didn't, I was not in theleast phased by gay men, even no
matter how sexist they were,and my god, some were.
Um I, you know, that didn'tbother me in the least, and they
wanted to demonstrate theirsupport for the British gay
movement by electing somebodyfrom Britain.
So I, you know, I was just theright thing.

(19:54):
I was the right place at theright time, and I had a big
mouth, and they they took to me.
So they elected meSecretary-General, and that was
a good enough reference to getme in on the ground floor at
Stonewall.

James (20:07):
So I I want to come back to uh to Ilga and uh for sure,
but I do you know, focusing onStonewall, what was Stonewall
set up to achieve?
What were you trying to achieveas well?

Lisa (20:16):
We were set up to repeal section 28.

James (20:18):
That was the big defining thing.

Lisa (20:21):
And if you actually look at the original Stonewall
manifesto, which is actually sixgay men in Ian McKellen's house
who had a boozy lunch.
MAGA Cashman was already wellthe line I always use is six gay
men had a boozy lunch, andinstead of sitting round a piano
and singing show tunesafterwards, they sat around a
typewriter and made up amanifesto.

(20:42):
But actually, that manifesto isalmost identical to the greater
London Council manifestochanging the world from 1985,
which I had was one of manypeople who was involved with,
and that is largely an echo of alot of stuff that was in the
original Gay Liberation FrontManifesto, and actually, most

(21:05):
things that were our demands hadnot changed from the early 70s
all the way through to the verylate to now we're talking about
the late 80s.
It was all the same things thatwe still hadn't achieved, and
we'd become a much more livelymovement, there were a lot more
people, um, we'd become muchmore publicly known as an issue,
but we hadn't actually achievedany of those goals.

(21:27):
And Stonewall sat down and theguys wrote this manifesto, and
it effectively when they startedpulling more of us together, it
was kind of like the entrylevel.
Do you believe in equality?
Will you sit down and agree toequality?
And all of our positions werebased on that.

(21:48):
I mean, we barely talked aboutequal marriage because we just
saw it as so far off.

James (21:52):
Yeah.
I mean, I've got I've got alist of the GLF demands here
that all discrimination againstgay people, male and female, by
the law, by employers andsociety should end.
That all people who feelequality, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
All people who feel attractedto a member of their own sex
should be taught that suchfeelings are perfectly normal.

Lisa (22:08):
That's repealing section 28.

James (22:11):
And then the next one's the same that sex education in
schools stop being exclusivelyheterosexual.
Still working on that one, thatpsychiatrists stop treating
homosexuality as though it werea problem or a sickness, um,
that gay people be as legallyfree to contact other gay people
by any means they want asheterosexuals, police harassment
should cease, and employersshould no longer be allowed to

(22:31):
discriminate against anyone onaccount.
And that the age, I sorry thefinal couple of the age of
consent for gay males be reducedto the same as straits, and
that gay people be free to holdhands and kiss in public.

Lisa (22:40):
Interestingly, the age of consent was a row that we had at
Stonewall.
That's where we were founding.
Or because some of the membersof some of the gay male, I have
to say, members of Stonewall,wanted us to go for 18.
Um, and I think there was a bitof muddled thinking where they
were like, well, it should be 18for everybody.
And I was like, good luck atgetting straights to take take

(23:01):
it up to 18, that's nothappening.

James (23:03):
Because they were 16, yeah.

Lisa (23:05):
But you know, it's 16 was equality, but people could not
envision us actually getting it.
And I remember quite quiteheavy argument around that.
And in the in the formation ofStonewall, and I mean we talked
to each other for a good yearbefore we went public.
Um, you know, a lot went on umbehind the scenes before we

(23:29):
before we went public, and therewas a lot of alliance building
within the group that wasbecoming Stonewall to get people
on side about these equalitythings.
And we won the argument becauseit was, you know, that was the
baseline, it was equality.
But I can remember arguing thatif we didn't ask for 16, we'd
never get 18.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Right.

Lisa (23:50):
To encourage the people who were still like, oh, but
maybe it should be 18.
It's like, no, no, we've got toask for 16, um, even if you
don't think you're gonna get it.
And indeed that's whathappened.
Yeah, we asked for 16, we got18.

James (24:02):
And then finally got 16 with with Chris Smith and Tony
Blair's government, who we'realso interviewed on on this
podcast.

Lisa (24:08):
Yes.
Who who were pushed into it.
I hope Chris was um honestabout some of the stuff that
went on the horse trading.

Jonathan (24:14):
Yeah, well, I mean, so he he definitely talked about
the fact that from an equalisingthe age of consent perspective,
they really were nervous innumber 10.

Lisa (24:24):
Yeah.
I mean they they they wanted todo it, but they were frightened
of their backbone too.
Um which is what we thoughtKeir Starmer's position was
until he went completely madmore recently.
But um, yeah, no, it's theMorgan McSweeney position now.
Um anyway, let's not get intomodern politics on that point.

Jonathan (24:42):
So so one of the things that I noticed in
researching some of theirorganizations and researching
coming to talk about you is thatif you look at a lot of the
foundational organizations, manyof whom still exist, yeah, a
lot of those roads include yourstumblings.

Lisa (24:58):
Yeah.

Jonathan (24:59):
Um, and just before Stonewall, I want to talk a
little about Switchboard, whichI feel like might have was that
the first big organization thatyou were a part of?

Lisa (25:10):
Yes, very much so, yeah.
Um, and I I think the thingabout Switchboard, and there
were a couple of otherorganizations, but Switchboard
was the big kid on the block.
Um, was that we were very goodat inventing, if you like, queer
social services in the UK.
We were very good at helplines,social groups, um, counseling

(25:33):
groups, ways of helping eachother.
And when HIV came along, thatwas really important because we
were used to creating our ownsocial care and our own
information services and stufflike that.
And I remember as part of ILGAin the late 80s, start of the
90s, people from othercountries, even in Western

(25:54):
Europe, saying, How come you'vemanaged to react so quickly to
stuff like HIV in the UK?
How come you have all theseorganizations which care for
you?
Because they'd started along amuch more purely political
route, um, which was much harderto coalesce together.
Because the thing aboutsomething like Switchboard was,
again, like Stonewall, but muchbigger.

(26:16):
People with a lot of differentpersonal views on there, but we
all got on those phones, andthere was a baseline of helping
people to be happy with beinglesbian, gay, whatever they
happened to be.

James (26:28):
Well, what do you think is the underlying rationale for
the movement here in UK creatingthose social services when
other countries didn't do that?
Well, what what caused that?

Lisa (26:38):
I d I don't know.
I I don't know whether it wasthat there was less government
intervention here than someother places.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah.

Lisa (26:46):
Um I don't know quite why it worked like that, but for
some reason um we were good atat you know knitting our own
organizations that did thosekinds of support functions.
And switchboard was reallybasic to that.
And the thing about switchboardwas it was, and we always, you
know, I I think a bunch of us inthe 80s started referring to it

(27:12):
as like it was the queerfinishing school.
Um, you did switchboard and yousaw all queer life because the
people who talked to you downthose phones didn't have a
particular set of politics,didn't have a particular set of
beliefs, and some of them hatedour guts, some of them were
anti-gay people who wereringing.
I mean, I I remember, you know,parents ringing me up thinking

(27:35):
that we were we were the placethat could tell them how to
de-gay their kids.
Oh wow.
It was absolutely incrediblethe stuff that came down those
phones, and we were aninformation service.
Um, and if you look at any ofthe visual stuff around
Switchboard in the 80s, you'llsee the files, the bank of files
above the phones, all the mapson the walls, all of the uh

(27:58):
whiteboards with the temporaryinformation on that was the most
important stuff that month.
And you know, all of that wasit was much easier for people to
get together around that, evenif they didn't all agree with
each other.
So it gave me a it gave me ahistory of working in a mixed
movement, it gave me a historyof dealing with people with whom

(28:24):
I was not 100% politicallyaligned, and it also, if you had
any brain cells to rub togetherat all, no matter how radical
you were, it actually told youthat there was a whole
hinterland of lesbians and gaymen out there who didn't
necessarily align with yourpolitics, but who wanted
something to happen, wanted tobe more free.

(28:45):
And that was the big gamblethat Stonewall took was we
didn't rely on the very narrowactivist movement that had gone
before us.
In fact, that movement hatedour guts in the early days.
Um, and loads of people said tome, God, how can you how can
you do that?
How can you go off to them?
How can you work?
We had gay Tories, not many,but in Paris and a couple of

(29:08):
volunteers who were gay Tories,who had never been welcome
anywhere before.
You know, um, we had people whowere quite early on in their
education about gay politics,but who were massive figures for
social change, like IanMcKellen.
Um, it we could not have donewithout all of those people were

(29:30):
absolutely foundational, andyou learned to appreciate them.
And I think one of the reasonsI was able to learn to
appreciate them was having beenon switchboard and working
alongside volunteers who werepeople I would not have
socialized with.
But we were all on those phonesand we were all there to save
people's lives, to um helppeople come out and be stronger,

(29:54):
and to tell them where the pubwas in Bolton on a Thursday.

James (30:00):
Would go to the pub afterwards and have huge rows
about politics, but when you'reon the phone line, you're
focused on the phone line.

Lisa (30:05):
Um I mean when when HIV started, massive rows about how
to handle it.

James (30:10):
Um what were the main arguments that people were
missing?

Lisa (30:13):
Well, for a start, I mean Switchboard was at the absolute
cutting edge of what was goingon, and so we were subject to
all the theories of what thiswas.
And I can remember people whowere convinced it was poppers
pausing it, people who wereconvinced it was immune
breakdown because people got theclap too often, um, and it was,
you know, they they should juststop sleeping around.
Um people who thought it was aMarxist um that basically people

(30:37):
who had a Marxist theory thatit was a plot by the government
to uh force us to all stop beinggay by frightening us out of
it, and that it was our duty togo out and have sex with as many
people as possible in order toaid the revolution.
I think that was a bloody goodexcuse, but it was ball.

James (30:53):
Um you know, uh the And so the range of ways that people
thought we need to deal withit.

Lisa (30:58):
All of the different things that were going on.
I can remember, and and Iremember the contempt with which
the the the one or twovolunteers who were talking
about stuff like safer sex andthe fact that it might be a
virus, the contempt with whichthey were treated by some of the
other volunteers.

James (31:14):
Really?

Lisa (31:14):
Because because they were into bondage and S and M and
stuff like that.
And and I remember uh some ofthe other guys saying, You just
you just you're you're espousingthis theory because you want
people to have your kinds ofsex, which were non-penetrative,
no contact, heavily, you know,formalized uh bondage type sex.
Right um which was not the caseat all, you know, but the men

(31:37):
got really angry with eachother, and then they got really
angry with the lesbians becauseI led a walkout of all the
lesbians from one particularmeeting where this row came to a
head with all these differenttheories in Marchmont Street
Community Centre, a couple ofdoors up from Gaze the Word, and
the women I I just we allwalked out and went to the pub
and said, you know, when youfinished shouting at each other,

(31:59):
we'll be in the pub.
Tell us what you decide.
Um, and then they got reallyangry with us and came down the
pub.
When they finished shouting ateach other, they came down the
pub and shouted us.

James (32:07):
Well, at least they at least they're telling you you
united over something.

Lisa (32:11):
This is stupid.
You're you know, let's just geton with things.
Yeah.
Um and you know, switchboardreally was at the cutting edge
of all that stuff.
The first safer sex badges, thefirst safer sex posters outside
of the tiny baby TerenceHiggins Trust, which after the
first few people in it weremates of Terry Higgins and

(32:32):
stuttered along for a fewmonths, and then it was actually
people from Switch, gay menfrom Switchboard, um, you know,
people like Tony Whitehead, likeLes Latner, like Terry Webb,
like Nick Partridge, who went inand turned it into a proper
charity.
And I remember I remember beingon the phones at Switchboard,

(32:54):
and one of the things one of thebrilliant things that you
learned if you were a regularvolunteer there was you could be
on the phones and having areally sincere conversation, and
you could hear the conversationthat was going on at your back
and work out you know what whatpeople were arguing about on you
know behind your back.
Um and I can remember being onthe phones and the guys behind

(33:14):
me talking about how they weregonna help Terry Hig the Terry
Higgins trusts it was then,formalise and get it together,
and they were all gonna go inand just you know sort it out
because it it was well-meaningbut kind of thrashing around a
bit at that point.

Jonathan (33:29):
Right.
I um I was a volunteer I wentto University in Canada and I
was a volunteer for Outline,which was kind of the
Southwestern Ontario um service,and then went on to be the
director.
It's just when I was 22, whatthe hell did I know?
But this was the late 90s.
Yeah.
So we'd we've fit the Vancouverconference in 96, it just

(33:49):
happened.
So there was this it wasstarting to filter in that HIV
wasn't a death sentence anymore.
Only barely at that point,1997.

Lisa (33:58):
Oh, you're getting it up.
Oh, I mean, that's a wholeother story.
That whole turnaround is astory yet to be properly
explored.

Jonathan (34:04):
But I I think and Switchboard is still with us
today, yeah.
In a in a slightly differentform to what it was.

Lisa (34:10):
It's different.
I mean, for a start, they'dnever have me back as a
volunteer now, um, becausethey're much more prescriptive
now about how you behave withthe callers.
And um and they have a numberof of I think shibboleths, which
you know, they like we don't wenever hang up on a caller.
But stab me, that's no bloodyuse.
Some callers need being hung upoff.

(34:30):
Um, you know, uh in my day wewere very much allowed to be
quite robust with callers, um,and we didn't believe that there
was any such thing asnon-directive.
And now they would say we'renon-directive.
I'm sorry, keeping silent canbe directive, going uh-huh, in
certain places can be directive.
The questions you choose to askare directive.

(34:51):
Um, I don't believe thatanything's non-directive as soon
as a second person getsinvolved.
But you know, so but all thatbeing said, I adore them now,
and they're they're still vital.
Yeah, they're completely vital.
And actually, the politics theinternal politics of them in
many ways is much better becauseswitchboard in the 80s and the

(35:12):
90s bought into all that binarynonsense.
Um and you could be expelled ifyou came out a spy.
Um, indeed, they they um wellmost people jumped before they
were pushed, but there was anattempt to actually expel me and
a male volunteer because werefused to lie about the fact
that we slept together.
But we also refused to redefineas bisexual.

(35:34):
Um and that they actually helda special general meeting to
discuss whether we should beexpelled, which was hilarious
because the guy in questionturned up dressed from head to
foot in red and introducedhimself as his name, the scarlet
woman.
Just wonderful.
I mean, but that was sort of aclassic case of infighting.

(35:55):
Tearfully, aggressivelyunrepentant, but he was just
like, fuck you.

James (36:01):
Isn't it such a classic case of infighting inside the
movement though?
Uh that stopped progress.

Lisa (36:06):
But it was it was hilarious because as long as we
did not redefine as by, theyactually it was very legalistic.
They came to the conclusionthey couldn't throw us out.
But the interesting thing wasalmost all the lesbians
disapproved bitterly of myconduct, but they got behind me.
There was a there was an awfullot of quiet conversations of
Lisa, how could you?
But we're not having the mentell us what to do, and and

(36:29):
you're very good on the phonesand we're leaving you alone.
And you won't do it again, willyou?
Well, never mind that.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Wow.

Lisa (36:38):
But but the whole thing, you know, I really didn't
understand why we had to lie tostay part of a movement.

James (36:43):
I do not know.
It was supposed to be amovement.

Lisa (36:45):
Liberation and acceptance, and I do r I do remember the
guy in question going, Oh god, Iknew you were gonna be trouble.

Jonathan (36:52):
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
And but I I think that it mightbe harder for a young person
today, even though switchboardis still with us and still
vital, yeah.
To us to re kind of empathizewith that feeling of the 70s,
80s, and 90s, where actuallythat phone call was sometimes
the only thing you could do tospeak to another person like

(37:15):
you.

Lisa (37:15):
Yeah, we had no role models.

Jonathan (37:17):
Yeah.

Lisa (37:18):
Um I remember there's a wonderful disabled activist,
Kath Gillespie Sells, the motherof Dan Gillespie Cells, pop
star, um, and great writer ofmusicals now.
Um, but Kath Gillespie Sells, Iinterviewed her for something
once, and and one of thequestions that I had to ask was,
Who were your role models?

(37:39):
And she's went, role models?
We had no stinking role models,we were our own role models.
And I just thought, oh wow,you're right.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Yes.

Lisa (37:47):
Um, but we we didn't.
I mean, we made up a lot ofhistory, and this is another
reason why I ended up going backto my roots about being a
historian was I got I got reallyfed up with us overclaiming
people from history, anyone whoeven looked like they'd ever
looked at someone of the samesex we had, they're gay, they're
gay, honestly they are.
Um, where most of them were,you know, they wouldn't have
used the words, but they were bior trance or you know, the wide

(38:09):
spectrum that we have nowactually makes it much easier to
be a queer historian now thanyou know, because we don't have
to overclaim, we just have todescribe.

Jonathan (38:18):
Alice.
You know, uh the in your thethe Larry Kramer quote in your
book.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
Yeah.

Jonathan (38:24):
Um which of which I've started, and of course it's
completely onto my head, but ittalks about that notion.
He was he was in Britain and hecould have had sex with anybody
because he had met this, he'dgone home with this this
gentleman who had been in publicschool and basically wanted to
be spanked.
And that was we describedBritain as the gayest country in
the world.

James (38:43):
That had some of the worst rules around being gay in
the world.

Jonathan (38:46):
Absolutely right.
This spectrum has always beenhere, and we think it's this
very modern.

Lisa (38:52):
On the phones at Switchboard, you knew that
spectrum was there, which waswhy it bewildered me that there
were these rules about who youcould be and be on the phones.
But I understood that part ofthe whole mantra was if someone
rang up and said, Are you gay,you had to be able to say yes
and not go into a lengthyexplanation of where you were on
a spectrum or something.

(39:12):
It was kind of a politicalthing.
Um, you were gay or straight,and the gay side of it actually
encompassed a multitude ofpeople who quietly got on with
being themselves, but who, youknow, politically you were gay.
And I I have friends who havealways been functionally
bisexual to a varying degree,but who and and I'm also

(39:36):
umbilically attached to thedefinition of oneself as lesbian
or gay, because that was thatwas the offense, that was the
bit of you that was going to getdone.
Yeah, you know.
Some of my friends, if I wascoming out now, I might describe
myself as something likepansexual, but I've always
described myself as a lesbian.
I mean, now it's alltheoretical anyway, it's all

(39:58):
rusted over, for God's sake.
Um so you know, there you go.
Um, and it it's as a lesbianthat I've always been persecuted
by and large, apart from a fewbigots within the movement.
Um, so you know, but it is amuch better movement now, in the
way that there are there arerole models out there, there is

(40:18):
a spectrum of behaviour outthere, and I find it I find it
sometimes really infuriating,but also highly amusing that
there are a lot of people of mygeneration who can't get behind
this because it bewilders them,and they're just like the
straight people who we hated inthe 80s who were bewildered by
people being gay.
It's like, get over it, youdon't have to do it, it's not

(40:41):
compulsory.

Jonathan (40:42):
Yeah, you don't have to be trans.
No one is forcing you to dothat.

Lisa (40:48):
It's like so yeah, and people can change their mind,
people will wobble in and out ofdefinitions, yeah, and also
hey, some people change as theygrow older and they have a
different interest as that.
I mean, I had a number offriends who were absolutely part
of the gay movement andsuddenly fell in love with
someone of the opposite sex asthey got older, and the struggle

(41:11):
having been part of thestraight world and abandoned it
for the gay world, which wasmuch smaller, and then having to
think about abandoning the gayworld for what?
Because there wasn't any otherstructure at that point, yeah.
Um very, very difficult forthose people, but it happens to
some people, just as some peoplecome out as lesbian or gay as

(41:31):
they get older, other peopleactually find that there's a
part of them that's straight,and other people transition at
different stages.
And I love the way that atleast some of us have grasped
all those differences now andcelebrate that, and find that
much more enlightened than allof the rules that we still

(41:55):
grappled with through most of myhistory as a queer actor.

James (41:58):
I still think there is a problem in the whole movement
about about people I invertedcommas betraying the cause by by
coming straight or whatever.

Lisa (42:07):
Oh god, well, yeah, well, there's also I mean some people
make jokes about it as well.
Yeah um, but there is a realfeeling sometimes.
It is it is problematical.
But I can remember um I meanyou it but we it was also you've
the wrong sort of gay.
I mean, we talk about the rebeldykes now, but in the 80s they
were the SM dykes, and they werepersona non grata with a whole

(42:29):
swathe of feminist lesbianismand straight, straight dykes,
you know, gay ladies, as we theywould have called themselves in
the 80s.
They weren't, you know, the theSM dykes were basically
anything that wasn't respectablein bed.
Um I could remember a dearfriend of mine who was very
anti-um the SM dykes and was youknow very kind of vanilla this

(42:50):
and vanilla that, and then theit dawning on her one day as
somebody was describing sexualbehaviours that actually her and
her girlfriend's favouriteactivity was in fact fisting and
definitely SM.
The colour drain thought I wasstill vanilla, and yeah, no, I'm
not.
So, you know, uh watching thathappen over a lifetime has been

(43:16):
an interesting education, andnot everybody in my generation
has managed to make the leap.
No, uh, and that's why I getreally angry with people who
were mates of mine in the 80sand who had trans friends in the
80s and who now are part of theanti-trance movement.
Because I think what happenedto you, how did you turn into
the straight people that youhated?

Jonathan (43:39):
Yeah.

Lisa (43:40):
Sorry.
No, um moment of silence therefor those we have lost, even
though they're still with us.

Jonathan (43:46):
But it's it's rare I'm last for words.
Um because it's true.
Yeah.
And I think sad and means thatthe things that you fought for
we start need to keep onfighting, you know.
It's not a matter of okay, goodtick, we're we're we're we're

(44:07):
good, you know.
I wanna I'm thinking about yourlife through the history of
institutions on some level.
So if we go into THT, ChanceAgainst Trust, um, can you tell
us your involvement with them?
Um and I I appreciate that thatwas roughly the same time as Il
Ilga, so it would beinteresting.

Lisa (44:23):
No, it it's it's actually it THT is a bit more complicated
because I knew the guys who gotinvolved in the very early
days, not not the people whofounded it, who were the people
from heaven and so on, who wereTerry's mates, but the people
who piled in after that andturned it into a charity and so
on.
They were all switchboarders,effectively.
And I got quite angry with umthe Terry Terrance Hillian's

(44:46):
Trust, as it then respectablybecame as a charity, um, and
other things that happenedbecause I saw it as taking good
gay activists away from the gaymovement, and actually because I
saw HIV or AIDS as we began tocall it then, um, as something
that largely affected gay men atthat time, and certainly in my

(45:07):
social life it was that, as kindof why, you know, stick to gay
organizations and make itcentral.
And I was by then involved, youknow, what we I got involved a
little bit with THT as someonewho helped from the outside.
I sat on committees because Ibecame one of the early AIDS

(45:28):
bureaucrats.
Um, I became an AIDS policyofficer because jobs started to
come up in that kind of work,and I had been a drugs worker.
I'd started off as a homelessworker.
Well, I started off as a shopgirl, um, and because of my
volunteering at things likeswitchboard, transitioned into

(45:50):
being an information worker witha homelessness charity, did
homelessness for a bit, pivotedinto drugs work, and from drugs
work I knew the gay world, Iknew the drugs world, I was the
perfect person to be recruitedto work on AIDS stuff.
So I became one of the veryearly AIDS policy workers for
local authorities.

(46:12):
Um, I then went on to work forthe Association of London
Authorities as their AIDS policyofficer.
And then I went on to be thefounding worker for something
called the Pan London ProvidersConsortium, which was
essentially every single by thenHIV AIDS charity in London.

(46:32):
Um, and there were a lot in theearly days.
Every time someone died, Iswear somebody bloody started a
charity.
It used to drive me around thebend that people didn't get
together.

James (46:42):
But once again, not getting together.

Lisa (46:45):
But but I understood also, I mean, that the drive to do
something was huge.
So I I used to go to meetingsat THT to try and help them to
fundraise and to give themadvice about dealing with local
authorities and stuff like that.
Because I was working in theHIV sector and we're talking
roughly when I started to getinvolved around Ilga and stuff.

(47:08):
Um, but then it was kind ofparallel to my getting involved
in Stonewall and stuff likethat.
I and it was my paid work.
I didn't actually join TerrTerence Higgins Trust as a
worker until 96.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Okay.

Lisa (47:23):
Until um the change in the treatment starting to happen,
until just and I basically insometime around 95, um, there
were a number of impetuses, andone of them was meeting Larry
Kramer, who gave who justbollocked me.
I I interviewed him for GayTimes, and he said, Why is
nobody in Britain interested inthe emerging treatments?

(47:46):
And none of them work at themoment, but it's it's happening,
and why are you not gettinginvolved in this stuff?
Um, and then I watched thetreatments start to become a
little bit more effective, alittle bit more effective.
And the Vancouver World AIDSconference happened, and I was
courting the Terence HigginsTrust by this stage.
I wanted to go and work forthem.

(48:07):
I was working for thisconsortium, and I watched the
Terence Higgins Trust be theonly big solid HIV organization,
the only one that wasn't fly bynight, apparently, although
eventually there were a coupleof others who were solid as well
around this stuff.
Watched them take the treatmentseriously and pivot to we're

(48:27):
gonna have to start learning howto help people live, not just
die.
And most HIV charities in themid-90s were only interested in
helping people die.
There were swathes ofvolunteers who were heavily
invested in helping people die,and they really didn't uh
understand the need to changeeverything, and the Terence

(48:49):
Higgins Trust did, and that wasNick Partridge was visionary in
that.
Um and you know, uh he he Nickhad come out of switchboard the
same as me, but he'd gone off tothem much earlier on.
Um, and and I effectivelycourted them because they didn't
have a policy team at thatpoint.

(49:10):
Policy was whatever Nick saidwhen the press was talking to
him, effectively.
I mean, pretty much, or youknow, stuff that occasionally
got hammered out in the weeklystaff meeting because it was a
London-based organisation verymuch at that point.
There were weekly Wednesdaylunchtime staff meetings in the
basement.

James (49:27):
Where they figure out what they thought.

Lisa (49:29):
Where occasionally there would be a discussion about
something, but I wanted them tohave a policy team and I was a
policy officer, and I kind ofhammered at the door for about a
year.
So, you know, going to theVancouver conference was
essentially I funded myself togo to the Vancouver conference
to hang out with THT andpersuade them that they wanted
me.
Um and and I still rememberNick's face because Nick

(49:54):
occasionally would take me outto lunch when I was at the Pam
Nun and Providers Consortium.
And I remember he took me outto lunch and said, Look, you're
not going to be there forever,what are you gonna do?
And I said, actually, if I'mgoing to join Terrence Higgins
Trust, and I remember his faceof really yeah, create your own
job, and put it.
Um well no, I had to Ieventually had to join them as

(50:16):
something uh well effectively asa prevention officer.
My first job was running a teamthat created their African
work, their treatments work.
Um, and um the what was it?
It was Africa work, it wastreatment work, and it was
something else, I can'tremember, but everything that
wasn't gay men's workessentially.
They had funding by then fromthe government for the start of

(50:38):
quite a big gay men's team, andeverything else got shoved into
the advocacy team, which wasmine apart from an information
team.
Right.
So, you know, and when I joinedTerence Higgins Trust, the
African work was one white womanwho'd been a nanny in Uganda.
Wow.
No, no, no, no, no, no.

(50:59):
Um, so yeah, I hired the firstAfrican officers, thank you very
much, to be to do the Africanwork, and it was it was pretty
rocky.
I mean, there were lots ofrows, uh lots of friction with
the gay men's team because I hadworkers who were like, you
know, they had Bible quotationsinstead of dicks above their
desks, you know.

(51:20):
Um and that was yeah, it wasinteresting.
Um, and the treatments work wasreally like there were people
who were amazing experts ofpeople who were really
self-taught, who talked.
I mean, it was like it was liketrain spotting, they talked in
codon numbers and things likethat.
And and I was hopeless.
I had a bad biology O level,yeah, you know, um, but I I was

(51:43):
determined to explain treatmentsin simple ways to people, and
actually that was what THTbecame good at eventually after
quite a bit of struggle becausepeople who got involved in
treatment work immediately gotsuckered it, sucked into that.
I am going to become an amazingtreatment expert, because it
was it was the only way if youhad HIV, you it was one of the

(52:05):
ways you could maintain controlof your life.
Right.
Was to become an expert, tobecome a self-taught expert.
I mean, that was true from thevery early days, but actually,
when effective treatment startedto come along, it became much
more complex.
Um, and you suddenly did haveto become, you know, interested
in all kinds of science stuffthat was really know what

(52:28):
numbers mean when you get themin the results.
I became involved when I joinedum Terence Higgins Trust and
started to help set up thetreatment services more.
I um also became involved inthe European AIDS treatment
group, which is still going now,which was the wild west of
treatment activism in Europe atthat point.
And I was absolutely crap atthe science, but I was

(52:51):
determined to make thissomething that everybody could
understand.

James (52:55):
Because your your your expertise feels more in public
policy, understandinginformation, getting people
coalesced around something, andactually knowing the science is
not the core to doing to beingsuccessful at that.

Lisa (53:09):
Yeah.
Um, I mean you had you had tohave some clue about it.
But I I took my mantra from aguy at one of the very early um
conferences, uh Croy, C R O Iconferences, which were at that
point always held in Canada.
Um was it Canada?
We were in um Toronto, I thinkat that point.

(53:32):
And um he said, This is allvery interesting, but if it's
not going in my mouth within thenext year, I'm not listening.
And I thought, yeah, actually,that's what you really need to
know.
Where are we?
Um but it was amazing becausethere were people in the EATG
who were better than the peoplethe drug companies were sending

(53:53):
to us because the drug companieswere trying to send us
salespeople.
Yeah.
I I you could tell a new drugscompany, they see they used to
send us nice young women inshort skirts because that was
what worked with straight maledoctors.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Of course.
Yeah.

Lisa (54:08):
Um, and they would send them to us a couple of times and
they would be run out of townby very angry gay men who knew
their science better than theydid.
Um, and you could see when adrug company started to get it
because they'd hire a gay man tostart with.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Right.

Lisa (54:25):
Then they'd actually hire somebody who had HIV, and
eventually they started to hirepeople of African origin.
You know, and and they workedout what would get the activists
to take them seriously, as wellas we worked out what we had to
say to get them to take usseriously.
But I've sat in rooms withself-taught gay men telling the

(54:45):
drug companies what their ownresearch labs were doing because
we had moles in the researchlabs, and the drug company
people just looking completelyfreaked out that we knew more
than the people they'd sent usdid.
Because we were not going to betoyed with, and that was the
heart of treatment activism, andI was never good at that stuff,
but uh what I was good at wasrunning the meetings where other

(55:07):
people did that shit, right?
And I was really, really goodat chairing people who wanted to
tear each other's throat out.

James (55:14):
Because that's what you should be doing.

Lisa (55:16):
I had already been doing that with gay movement for a
while, yeah.
And I and I became very wellknown in things like Ilga and
the European AIDS treatmentgroup and so on, as somebody who
could control a very unrulycrowd and command the room.
Um, and that's kind of where mypolitical reputation came from.
And where it still is to someextent.

Jonathan (55:38):
Oh, yes, um, you know.
Can you just tell us the mood?
I mean, it's is we've we'vepurposely focused this podcast
on the UK.

Lisa (55:45):
Yeah.

Jonathan (55:46):
But that Vancouver conference was so pivotal.
And you were there.
Can you tell us a little bitabout it and the mood at it?

Lisa (55:52):
Um Well, I have very clear remember.
I mean, A, I'd never eatensushi before.

Jonathan (55:57):
Really?

Lisa (55:58):
Well, I can't no, I think my my girlfriend had introduced
me to sushi in um Sydney, butI'd never had it again.
And and sushi sushi waseverywhere in Vancouver, so we
would all at lunchtime we wouldbuy sushi trays and we would
watch what was going on on thebig screens because you couldn't
get into the the biggest roomshad the treatment presentations

(56:20):
going on, but you still couldn'tget in.
And I remember standing, youknow, and some of us were eating
sushi, standing with some otherBrits in front of a big screen
with David Ho and a couple ofother people presenting, and
just about getting enough of itto vaguely understand what was
going on, and some of the peoplewith me were getting more of

(56:42):
what was going on.
And I remember a guy calledPaul Ward, who later became my
manager at THT, and I wouldn'tlet anybody else manage me.
I was pretty feral in someways, and occasionally somebody
else would manage.

James (56:54):
You definitely sound like someone that'd be hard to
manage.

Lisa (56:57):
Yeah, occasionally somebody else would attempt to
manage me, and I always ended upback with Paul.
It was just like, yeah, notgonna happen.
Um but I remember Paul Ward,who had been very ill, he'd just
been diagnosed, uh, and he wasdiagnosed when he was really
ill.
Um, and he'd left a high flyercareer in the NHS, and he'd

(57:19):
cashed in his car, um, he'dcashed in his pension, you know,
and instead of going around theworld, he'd started to become
an activist.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Right.

Lisa (57:29):
And I remember him standing there behind me going,
Oh god, we're all gonna live.

Jonathan (57:39):
Is there is there a thing that you think, yeah, you
know what, I'm really proud ofthat?
And is there a thing that youthink, oof, wish I hadn't done
that?

Lisa (57:47):
I think there's lots of things I'm really proud of.
The UN being one of them.
And I didn't value it for along time, and in fact, I kept
really quiet about it to thepoint where Ilga's history
actually had a guy who'd spokenat the UN a year after me as the
first person who'd spoken atthe UN.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
Okay.

Lisa (58:02):
They had erased me from the history, partly because we
didn't win, um but also partlybecause I was a lesbian, and
lesbians, just as queers geterased from straight history,
lesbians get erased from gayhistory, and that's been a
driving force for me.
And I remember remembersomebody telling me that it it
wasn't very nice of me to be soinsistent on people remembering

(58:24):
that I was the first.
And fuck that.
No man would think twice aboutthis.
So I you know, I pulled onthat.
I'm I'm proud of little things,I'm proud of little moments at
switchboard.
Stupid things that you comethat come back to you at odd
moments.
I'm I'm proud of taking no shitabout these guys arguing about

(58:48):
HIV at Switchboard and actuallymaking them think about it.
I'm very proud of startingStonewall because it was so
counterintuitive to everythingthat was in the movement and
everything that I had beentaught.
So I'm proud of being one ofthose people.
Um, I'm proud of the fact thatthe name was came from me and a

(59:09):
couple of other people around mykitchen table.
We wanted it to be calledStonewall so it could never
forget where it came from.
Um, and also because at thatpoint no Tory understood what
the word Stonewall meant to us.
So they, you know, they thoughtwe were an architectural
consultancy or something, youknow.
Um and that's that's how I gotthe name through the rest of the

(59:29):
people who wanted it to be yetanother bloody acronym with L
and G in.
Um Things I Wish I Hadn't Done.
I'm sure there's lots of thingsI wish I hadn't done.
Um, but I think I'm probablyvery good at erasing them from
my memory.
Thanks.
Um, because I'm very good atnot having regrets.
And I used to say I don'tregret anything, and it's like,

(59:50):
no, come on.
I mean, there's people I regretsleeping with, I'm sure.
Um there's decisions where Ithink.
Yeah, you had to get yourselfback out of that one later on.
But everything taught mesomething.
Um and I think that's one ofthe things that you're not

(01:00:11):
taught is that there isn'tanybody who has been successful
in the later part of what'sgoing on who hasn't made a fuck
ton of mistakes in the earlypart of what's going on.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
Yeah.

Lisa (01:00:23):
You know?
Um and I'm sure I did somethings wrong, I'm sure I
alienated people.
I'm sure I was a completebloody brat when I joined
Switchboard, and I still look atsome of the logbooks and think,
oh my god, how did they notthrow me out for being a
complete nuisance?
Um so rude to some of the men,uh, because I believed in shot

(01:00:46):
tactics around, you know.
I mean, as a feminist lesbian,you would just go whap at
people.
Um, and it it took me a longtime to realize that there were
other ways of getting things andto learn diplomacy and to, and
I'm still not good at itsometimes.
There's still outbursts.
You know, there are thingsthere are there are remarks I

(01:01:08):
regret making to people inmeetings because they caused
trouble for the organization Icame from.
I don't regret making thempersonally.
What I regret was not havingthe sense to realise that I
would cause trouble in some waythat what that wasn't just
reflected back on me, because Ican take that.
I have never shied from thattrouble, but it's not right.

(01:01:30):
You know, I was doing it topeople who maliciously then
behave badly in other ways, andI should have had the sense to
know that.
But actually, you know, youcan't, and you you learn from
that, and then the next timeyou're tempted to be a smart
aleck to someone in public whodoesn't take these things well,
you might think twice about it.
I forget that other people haveeven bigger egos than me.

James (01:01:53):
Oh, yeah.

Lisa (01:01:54):
Basically I just dress them down sometimes, and then
people go, it may not have beenthe best way to do that, and
because sometimes the oldactivist just breaks through.

Jonathan (01:02:05):
Yeah.
How do you feel about where weare today?

Lisa (01:02:08):
Well, we're in uh people say we're we've gone back down
to where we were, but it's not.
It's an iterative, it's like aspiral.
We're at a bad point on thespiral, and bits of what used to
happen in the 80s have leapedinto happening to trans people
now.
But you know what's good is werecognized it.

(01:02:28):
And I can remember people,people who I'd worked with in
the 80s who have becomeanti-trance, who furiously argue
that it's not the same becauseI can see the little thought at
the back of their heads of ohshit, if it is the same, I'm
betraying something.
And it is the same.
I'm sorry, it's the samefucking arguments, it's the same

(01:02:48):
chibbolets, it's the same, it'sthe same triggers of a moral
panic.
Um so I and people people oftensay, Well, why are you
eternally optimistic?
And I think because there'salways something you can do.
There's always something to bedone.
Actually, at the moment,there's an unfortunate amount to

(01:03:10):
be done, and I feel sorry foryoung people who have actually,
you know, we we actually had achance at the first generation
of people growing up not beingum told that they were
second-class citizens from thesecond they realized they were
different.
You know, all of the people inmy generation and a couple of

(01:03:31):
generations below me absorbedsomehow that we were
second-class citizens.
Some of us were better atthrowing that off than others.
Um, and I would say everyeverybody of my generation, even
me, has the little voice at theback of their head going, but
you're you're a dirty queer.
Um, I'm very good at going, oh,fuck off to it, as the little
voice, but it's the voice isthere.

(01:03:54):
Um, but kids now, there's awhole load of kids of the
current generation who are intheir teens now, who were taught
that it was fine, who weretaught that their older
generation, some of theirparents and other people, would
look after them if they weregay, bi, trans, non-binary,
whatever, and people arebetraying them.

(01:04:16):
You know, they are going tohave much worse mental health
problems than my generation didbecause we had something to
fight against from the start.
We knew that the odds wereagainst us, we knew that we were
creating something.
They've been taught they'reokay, and now they're being told
by a growing portion of people,including some of the people in

(01:04:37):
charge of this country, thatthey're not right.
And that is horrendous.
And here I am getting emotionalabout it because you know we
learn better, and then I seepeople who I know no better
jumping on the bandwagon forelectability, um, for you know,

(01:05:00):
for popularity, people who aresheep, and you're not allowed to
say that a lot of people aresheep, but there are a whole
load of people in the middleground who do what they think is
popular.
And we had those people movedover, we moved the window to it
being fine to be gay, and itwasn't good to be homophobic,

(01:05:23):
and it didn't stop people whowere really homophobic from
being homophobic, but they knewthat they shouldn't say it out
loud.
The window has moved back tothe point where people can say
it out loud, and people can domore hate crime.
Hate crime never stopped, butit reduced.
So we've got to do some of thesame work over again, but this

(01:05:46):
time around, we've got royalmodels, we've got a whole load
of people of my generation andyounger who are defiant, who are
not going to go back quietly.
We've got a whole load offamilies who are allies.
We didn't have allies in mygeneration, we didn't see the
point in cultivating them.
Most of us had left ourfamilies behind.
There's a whole load ofnetworked kids who've come out,

(01:06:10):
who have families who love them,who have friendship networks,
who have got used to having agay group at school.
Earlier this week, I did alittle um interview with the
LGBTQ group at my old school.
I could never have imaginedthat.

(01:06:31):
Um you know, and they're sobold, they're so together.
I think that they can fightback.
It's just that they're in shockat the fact that they've got to
at the moment.
So, you know, even in thecurrent, you know, oh shit, look
at what's happening in America.
Yeah, I remain optimistic.
People are angry about theerasure of queer history there.

(01:06:53):
People are angry about the waythat the government is behaving
there.
People are trying to preservestuff.
It's why I'm a trustee of QueerBritain.
That stuff needs saving.
It's not just me having somerelics at the back of my knicker
drawer, which is essentiallywhere some of the bits that are
actually on show currently in umQueer Britain have come from.

(01:07:15):
You know, the Vivian Westwoodt-shirt that she made for
Stonewall, um, the the numberone cunt t-shirt, um, which I
would have sold years ago if Icould have got it on eBay.
You know, they wouldn't, it wasa picture of a very hairy
vulva, so no way.
Um but it's now with QueerBritain, um, the cartoon that

(01:07:36):
Kate Charlesworth did toillustrate um the rise of
section 28, which is sitting ina glass box there now.
You know, and it's not just me,other people have come forward
with that stuff.
It's got to be preserved.
We can't let what happened tothe German gay movement under
the Nazis happen again.

(01:07:57):
And we have those lessons infront of us.
We have enough memory, if wewant, to be working on this, but
we have to get everybodyworking together.
And and one thing that I thinkthe gay movement can learn from
the trans movement is actuallyyoung trans people are really,
really keen to hear about oldertrans people, and they're

(01:08:19):
fascinated by I'm I'm gonna beuh because I've just had a hip
replacement, I'm gonna be on abuggy for Pride Cymru, the
Cardiff Pride parade this year,with a 91-year-old trans woman.
And the young trans kids inWales love it, they love that
they love someone of 91 who cantell them what's what's

(01:08:40):
happened.
Um, my friend Roz, who is thelast remaining, as far as we
know, member of the trans TVTSgroup from um Gay Liberation
Front, is adored by youngertrans people, you know.
Um and and lots of people, youknow, have really learned, you

(01:09:01):
know, they're the they've gotthat foundational stuff already
worked out in the young trancemovement.
So they're still fighting eachother like cat and dog.
And I mean, you know, you getmore than ten people in a room
and there's a split in theorganization, but we all go
through that style of movements,you know, and we know it can
get better.

Jonathan (01:09:20):
I think we should leave on that positive note.

Lisa (01:09:23):
I'd yeah, when you get to the point where I'm starting to
grandstand the speech, go I umI'm I'm just so humble to be so
open to this.

Jonathan (01:09:32):
So thank you so much.

Lisa (01:09:33):
Don't don't be humble, go out and kick something.
Kick something that deservesit.
That's but my big message thesedays is stop fighting each
other, go out and fight theright enemy.
Um, because I still see that ina lot of the young kids, you
know, they're they they find itmuch easier.
The young radical kids herefind it easier to shout at pride

(01:09:53):
than to actually shout at thepeople in Westminster um and the
Welsh government who arebetraying them.

James (01:10:01):
Yeah.

Lisa (01:10:01):
You know, um, but they're learning.

James (01:10:05):
And I think that's the message from your act your whole
lifetime of activism is is themore people can come together
and find remember who the actualenemy is, yeah, the more that
the more change you can get.

Lisa (01:10:16):
And the other lesson I want everybody to learn is it
doesn't matter how many peoplehate you when you're young, they
forget.
There are loads of people.
I mean, I you know, I was notthe most popular person in the
queer movement in the 80s andthe 90s.
Um I was a difficult cow.
Um, I was handful.
I am now the pinnacle offucking queer respectability.

(01:10:38):
You know, I find thathysterically funny.
And there are people, includinga few exes, who resolutely did
not speak to me for decades,almost all of whom have now
caved.
Hey.

James (01:10:53):
Brilliant.
Amazing.

Lisa (01:10:55):
You can outlive any bad reputation if you can just keep
going.

James (01:10:58):
Just keep going, keep going, keep fighting.
Um, I want to say thank you somuch for everything you've done
for LGBTQ equality and for theimpact it's had on my life,
Jonathan Life, the life of thegenerations below you, and
everything that you've done tomake our world a better place.

Lisa (01:11:16):
Thank you.

Jonathan (01:11:21):
Thank you for listening to the view from here.
Of course, there's a lot ofpolitics in any movement, but
the political views you've heardacross the series don't
necessarily reflect the views ofthe podcast.

James (01:11:32):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
subscribing and leaving areview, as well as sharing the
word on social media.
Join us next time for morepersonal stories from the front
lines of LGBTQ history.