I've been doing some clearing out over the past few days and have unearthed another load of lesbian newsletters from the late 90s up to around 2010.
Several things jump out. All the events are shamelessly women-only or lesbian-only and no one ever questioned it. And there were lots of small groups, even in rural areas, which were held together by a network of women who were regularly in touch with each other and who supported each others' events and get-togethers.
There was a very strong sense of community: letter after letter from women saying how finding the newsletter and their local group had saved their lives. Women writing to say they'd thought they were the only lesbian in their area and their joy at finding a thriving and welcoming group just two miles down the road. And the activities that were going on! Music festivals, dance classes, walking, cycling and outdoor activities, camps, holidays, parties, cafe nights, supper nights, pub meets, cabaret nights, open mic nights... Much of it was facilitated by the existence of a Women's Centre, which served as an administrative hub and a meeting place.
The first mention of T was in 2000. A group called 10%/ Ten Percent LGBT in Cardiff put out an invitation for women to join it. I'd be really interested to know if anyone knows who was involved in that group.
Was it just coincidence that after that, in 2001, the Welsh Assembly Government put out a consultation to the LGBT community? The first time the T seems to have been used by the WA. This goes back even longer than I'd been aware. Those who are tracking policy capture may be interested.
The lesbian newsletter in its paper form finished sometime around 2011 when they could no longer keep funding the thousands it was costing to print and mail out. They went to email but opening a paper newsletter and sitting down with a cup of tea to read it is different from clicking onto an attachment. The connections broke down surprisngly quickly, groups withered and now there's no way of contacting the 400+ lesbian and bi women on the mailing list and bringing them together.
The Women's Centre closed down, partly as a result of infiltration by a particularly aggressive and destructive transwoman, leaving women without a mothership.
I feel really sad at the thought that young lesbians in this area will possibly never know the warmth and closeness of the community that we were lucky enough to share for 12 years.
One thought occurred to me and it's this. Everyone thought FB would allow the women's community in this area to thrive in the absence of the newsletter. Instead, FB has fragmented it further and that's because there are no gatekeepers and no filters on FB. What a paper newsletter did was to enable the editors to choose what they published: to ignore trolling, ignore the sleazeballs, ignore the disruptors who just wanted to stir ill-feeling and concentrate on holding things together.
Do we need to go back to move forward? Do we need to go back to paper and letters rather than the free-for-all of FB and Twitter? Would it be possible to set up a new generation of Radfem Women's Centres to act as hubs so that radfems can gather and work together? Have others found other and better ways and means of creating and holding together a women's or lesbian community?