All language subtitles for RD

BELL RINGS

LIVELY CHATTER

PA: ..please wait outside
the building...

RINGING STOPS

But one thing, right?

50 of us lot get on a bus

and the whole world
knows we're lesbians.

There's no mistake about it.
They know what we are.

We're out of the closet,
wearing what we're wearing.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm saying that you're
discounting and trivialising

a whole other range
of sexual feelings.

BELL RINGS

Do you call yourself
a lezzo dyke?

Yes.

I'm not saying,
"Tell me what you do in bed,

"and why is it better
and why is mine wrong?"

I... I just want to say
one other thing.

ROWDY CHATTER

-..attack.
-No, I don't.

I just said to you...

-Can we listen
to what's being said?

MUSIC: I Hate Being In Love
by Amy And The Angels

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ Oo-ee-oo

♪ I hate being in love

♪ One of my friends has told me

♪ It is such good fun

♪ First you've got to see her

♪ And then you're on the run

♪ Every other weekend

♪ They ask me, "How'd it go?

♪ "Isn't it fantastic?"

♪ And I say, "No, no, no," cos

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ Oo-ee-oo

♪ I hate being in love

♪ You hold my hand and kiss me

♪ You buy me ice-cream cones

♪ You also write me letters

♪ And say you miss my bones

♪ I can't say I might move

♪ I'm saying I don't know

♪ It's strange, somewhat uneasy

♪ I can't ask you, no, no, cos

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ I hate being in love

♪ Oo-ee-oo

♪ I hate being in love. ♪

We weren't lesbians -
we were dykes.

We wanted to be sexual people.

Rebel dykes were outlaws.

This was way before there were
queer activists or riot grrls.

We invented it.

MUSIC: He Called Me
A Fat Pig... by the Renees

It was a great time
and a terrible time

to be young and queer
in London.

Obviously, there was Thatcher -
that was a common enemy.

Thatcher had just got in
in 1979.

We're on the street,
we were working class.

-We were young, we were punks,
we were poor.

-We were a kind of subculture.

-We were a community,

because there were so many laws
made against us.

-Politically, there was always
this attempt to silence.

MUSIC: Life - No
by the Petticoats

We had to ring Lesbian Line

to find out where there
might be a dyke bar.

I came to London

in the mid-'70s and, um,

I didn't know any other
lesbians.

There weren't
any other lesbians,

as far as I was aware -
I was actually the only one.

So it was very difficult.

Cos there was nowhere to go,
there was no clubs,

there was...
It was really isolated.

-I was living in quite a
conservative town

just outside Winchester.

I had seen a woman in the town
who I liked, who was

cycling around dressed
all in black,

with a great chain
strung across her.

And, um, obviously developed
a massive crush on her.

The only problem was, she was
about 15 years older than me

and she said, "Go to Greenham."

Greenham Common was
a women's peace camp and, um,

you wanted to go and join
and live there.

♪ We are strong, we are strong

♪ We say "no", we say "no"

♪ To the bomb, to the bomb

♪ We are women, we are women

♪ We are strong... ♪

FISCH: Women came from
everywhere. Hundreds and...

Thousands of women came.

♪ To the bomb, to the bomb

♪ We are women... ♪

Suddenly, there I was with
all these other lesbians

and women who thought
they might be lesbians.

It was like a ready-made
community.

MUSIC: Statement
by the Poison Girls

It was that version of being
a woman and then later,

sort of, realised that version
of being

a dyke that really made me
want to go there and live there

more than the nuclear protest,
if I'm honest.

We were reclaiming that land

by putting women's energy
into it.

We really needed to reclaim
space then.

Everything seemed to be
owned by the patriarchy.

CHANTING: Lesbians!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And I was a separatist then.

You know, I wouldn't even
have had a male cat.

There were eight gates,

you know, all the colours of
the rainbow,

around the base.

Orange Gate was
the musicians' gate.

-Green Gate was the notorious
gate of separatists.

-There was a brand of feminism

which said that you had to be
a lesbian.

-Their view is that lesbianism

is a political as much as
a sexual identity.

It's about giving
all of your energy,

all of your identity
to your sisters,

and withdrawing from men and
male behaviour

as much as possible.

-After that, I moved
to Blue Gate,

where there were
far more younger women.

-Blue Gate was the gate
nearest the pub,

so that was, like, your young
drinking lesbians' gate.

-We weren't really into that
sort of

Housewives For Peace
kind of image.

♪ Whisky makes you frisky

♪ Gin makes you sin

♪ Brandy makes you randy

♪ And rum makes you... ♪

After school on a Friday,

I'd get on the bus and up to
Greenham,

spend the weekend there

and then come back to school
on the Monday morning.

So I did that as often as
I could, really.

One time - I can't remember who
it was said,

"Come on, come with me,
let's go and get some booze,"

and just took me
into the woods.

And it turns out that a group
of women

had broken into the
squaddies' bar, essentially,

and nicked all of their
alcohol - just the lot.

FISCH: We were very
politically aware

but we were also
really naughty.

We just...

We took great delight in really
just winding them up.

One year, they brought over
this Blackbird spy plane

that had this special skin
on it which meant that it could

fly at
particularly fast speeds.

About six of us
broke into the base one night

and threw paint at this plane,
which...

The level of damage
to this skin

was in the, kind of,
multimillions.

They bailed us but the prospect
was of, kind of,

going to prison for, like,
25 years or something.

-There was a nine-mile fence,
remember,

so it was impossible for them

to control that amount
of perimeter.

So you'd just go to a bit where
there weren't any patrols

and you'd get your bolt cutters
out and in you'd go.

So we were just crawling around
in the base, you know,

planting acorns in circles
on the full moon.

-The first time
I had sex was in the base.

So, went in, with this woman
who I fancied -

"Oh, I've never
had sex before."

And it was all smoky and misty
all around us.

So that was quite exciting.

ATALANTA: Some of the older
women, sort of, like,

decided that they would tell us
all about lesbian sex.

We were told that we
had to keep our nails short

and one of the few women that
was into SM, who was a vegan,

showed us how to make whips out
of rubber and things like that.

So, that was a happy time.

I met loads of fantastic women

who were squatting in London
at the time.

I ended up
squatting in Brixton.

JO: There was a lot of empty
buildings in Brixton.

Some landlords
that weren't there

and just leaving their
properties empty.

-I hitchhiked from Finland.

We came to London and we didn't
know where to sleep.

And we walked through Brixton,
with my friend Emma,

and she took us to Tulse Hill.

And she said, "Wait here,"
and she came back

with a crowbar hidden, like,
under her jacket.

So, she broke in very quick,
changed the lock and said,

"OK, here's your new
apartment."

SEIJA CHUCKLES

It was good to open them up
and give them some life, erm,

and we needed
somewhere to live.

You know,
London was different then.

It was harder to get around.

And it was dirtier,
it was meaner.

-Especially in south London,
at that time,

there was still quite
a risk of being gay-bashed.

-It was easier to be nocturnal,

so that the straight people
didn't ever get to see you.

-In those days,
people were very homophobic,

so there'd be always people
shouting remarks

and here's this very obvious
dyke walking through Soho

with my shaved head
and my big boots.

And suddenly, the same guys

were giving me lots and lots of
money to see my body.

It was kind of nuts.

-Always had, like,
a legal and illegal part,

and it was quite sleazy places.

You did have to really
look out for yourself.

-I would take my speed and
I'd share it with my friends

and we'd go tramping round the
city centre of London at night.

I felt like it was my city.

Then there was that
whole twilight zone -

literally the twilight zone -
where it was evening,

you'd woken up, they were all
coming home from work,

and that's when things happen.
That's when...

Yeah, stuff happened
on the streets.

The chances are, you probably
were gonna get

your head slapped about.

And so it was dangerous just to
be who you were in those days.

MAJ: You didn't want to get
spotted on the streets.

You would drop hands
at certain moments.

At least two of my friends
were cut on their face,

because they'd been
identified as dykes.

So I ended up...
My mum was a nurse,

so that qualified me to
do butterfly stitches,

which I made out of...

I don't know -
gaffer tape, probably -

and fixed a scar on her face.

YVONNE: I kind of, like,
was getting grief.

Homophobia and racism.

My first six months in London,

I went to a few
political meetings.

They had some sort of
conference

at the South London Women's
Centre in Brixton,

which I was invited to,
as a black woman.

And when I got there
I was like,

"Oh, God, this is so serious."

A lot of discussion around
Greenham Common, for example.

And I'd just come out
the army -

do you think I was
mentioning that to anybody?

Saturday night,
I'm not having a workshop

and I'm not having a hug-in.

I just want to cut some shapes
on the dance floor.

I just want to go
and say "hi" to people.

-There weren't that many places
for a young lesbian to go.

When I came out about 1986,

there was something like

three or four bars or clubs
that I knew of.

There was Gateways.

And I think there was, like,
that Kenric Society for,

you know, the rich women of
Kensington and Richmond

which, obviously,
didn't apply to me.

You'd get your dole on Thursday

and you'd spent it by
Friday night.

We made our own entertainment,
really.

I used to DJ when I was in
the army, out of desperation.

I knew a good party.

We called it Sistermatic.

And the club was run by four
black women -

four very, very different black
women - and before we knew it,

it'd kind of blown up into
this amazing party.

We played a lot of lovers rock,

reggae and dance-hall
sort of music.

And we took it on a journey,

so we played house music
in its early format.

Well, I did.

And, yeah, between
me and Lorna,

who was one of the other DJs
in the collective,

we could play from ten o'clock
till ten o'clock next morning.

I started to see a rise

in the number of Asian women
that would come.

Lots of different younger
black women coming through.

So, we had a whole
scope of people

dancing to the same
sort of music.

You had your, kind of,

Greenham-Common-looking
feminist.

You had your, kind of, S and M
dykes on bikes kind of thing.

And there was quite a few
of them.

MUSIC: Sister George
by Sister George

Let's see those
Black Widows tattoos.

LAUGHTER

Hi!

FISCH: The lesbian motorbike
group was the Black Widows.

There was about - I don't
know - 20 of us, 30 of us.

And, um, we used to go on runs.

We've all got crash helmets,
so nobody can tell who we are.

You know, and you see people
going, "Oh, my God!"

Then we'd get off
our motorbikes,

take off our crash helmets and
it's like... "Oh, it's women!

"Let's go!"

A lot of the motorbiking
lesbians I'd met

used to go to the Bell so,
obviously, I went to the Bell.

-The Bell was the only
truly mixed place

for lesbians and gays,
you know.

The Bell... I mean,
the Bell was crazy.

Glue-sniffing. Drugs.

Too much booze.

Fights.

There were skinheads there
but I...

I think the thing was, cos I
had a Mohican at the time

and I used to work out a lot,
I had a stance.

You know, I had an attitude.

And there were some beautiful
women there as well,

so it was just like,
"What's not to like?"

People like Sinead O'Connor
would go there

and nick our style.
Yes, she did.

TRILL: Wednesday night, it was
meant to be women's night.

I remember the very first time
we went,

it was completely dead.

The music was just
bland and awful.

So we thought, "We can do
better than this -

"let's try and get a night here
and get some second-hand vinyl

"and, you know, be creative."

The Sleeze Sisters,
the monumental Sleeze Sisters,

Trill and Pom.

They played everything that
I wanted to hear.

One of the first serious bands
I was in, Mouth Almighty,

one of our first gigs
was actually at the Bell.

There were loads of
lesbian bands on the scene.

How could I could I forget
the Brixton legends that were

the Sluts from Outer Space?

MUSIC: Queer Riot by
Sluts from Outer Space

"Dykes get a lot of trouble
cos we don't suck their dicks.

"Why don't we get together
and throw some fucking bricks?"

♪ Dykes get a lot of trouble
cos we don't suck their dicks

♪ Why don't we get together and
throw some fucking bricks? ♪

A - you couldn't be a woman
in a band.

B - you couldn't be
a women-only band.

C - you couldn't be lesbians.

So, you know, on all commercial
fronts, we were fucked.

But we didn't care -
we just did it.

♪ Queer riot

♪ We want a riot

♪ Queer riot

♪ Want a riot of our own. ♪

That's the first time I came
to London, just to find a band.

We got to organise this big
concert

in the Fabrik in Hamburg,
which is this big music venue.

They said,
"This doesn't actually exist.

"There aren't women bands
to play there."

And I said,
"You must be joking.

"We will find them, bring them
here and they will play."

So, I came in December 1986.

I mean, on this Monday evening

is kind of when my life
really totally changed.

It was... It was amazing.

I met these Finnish women
that were visiting.

Seija was telling me
she wanted to start

this women's S and M club
in London.

I was really
fascinated with the idea

and I was also very fascinated
with Seija, I have to admit.

She was very gorgeous-looking.

Tall. They were wearing
this uniform - caps,

these long military coats,
big boots and very...

She was very passionate about
her ideas and I loved that.

We had already been running
a club called Extasy in Finland

since 1985, doing
the kind of things

with arts, pornography and SM.

And we always mixed those
three things together.

There were lots of trans people
there and lesbian mothers

and there were bisexuals
and androgynous people,

like how we called ourselves.

It was kind of, like, a really
open queer group

and it attracted people who
were artist-minded

and who were really free.
Free in their will.

BAYA: She was an artist
but she wanted to also

bring sex into art
or art into sex.

MUSIC: Primal Bond
by Tapanda Re

Chain Reaction had had a real
build-up

from women all over the place.
Some were saying,

"Oh, no, you don't want to
go there.

"Don't... You know...
Dodgy lot of women."

And then other women saying,

"Oh!" You know, "You've got
to go, you've got to go."

FISCH: I knew you had to wear
a dress code

and I had a leather jacket

and I had Dr Marten boots.

So I thought, "Oh, that'll do."

So I went and, you know, I paid
my pound and I got in

and I was just so scared of
meeting anybody

and I thought it was
gonna be...

You know, I didn't really have
an understanding

of what happened there.

We would arrive
at about nine o'clock.

I think we opened about ten.

And we would
have our tool of choice,

which was a roll of black
bin liners, and then we would

cover up all the windows
with black bin liners.

That was all the decorating
we did,

was just covering
up the windows.

There was a back room, where...
That was almost like

a culture of its own, actually,
the pool room.

Sometimes you'd wander in with
your rubber dress,

trying to
attract a butch's attention.

-Everybody was very busy,
of course, coming there

and looking very cool
in their leathers,

and finding people to
have sex with.

But the cabaret was
a bit like the highlight.

I had seen maybe one
Monty Python film

and when I saw the first
cabaret at Chain Reaction,

that's what it reminded me of.

It was so bad it was good.

We had things like mud
wrestling - yes, I did that.

THEY YELL

CHEERING

Baby-oil wrestling -
yes, I did that.

Spaghetti-hoop wrestling -
no, I didn't do that.

Spaghetti, which we haven't
actually forgiven Baya for.

-Spaghetti?
-Spaghetti.

BAYA: I could just really fancy

having ketchup
poured all over me

and have it, sort of,
run over me.

I thought that'd be
quite theatrical.

-I got to be the person who did
a lot of the cabarets,

because I was quite excited
about getting fucked in public.

My name, in those days,
was Jane Campbell,

and I was known as
Jane, Jane, Queen of Pain.

When I was a kid, I had
behavioural stuff

about attention seeking.

They used to call it
attention-seeking behaviour.

And, you know, I was actually
quite a lonely kid.

But anyway, it developed into
a kind of sexuality,

and I was very ashamed of
wanting sex all the time.

You know, that slut-shaming
thing that goes on about,

if you love sex there's
something wrong with you.

And, yeah, I just got loved
and all my friends

were really accepting of it
and indulgent of it,

and I learned to
love it myself.

Love that part of myself.

I was crucified to a cross,

er, tied to a motorbike, er...

It was just thrilling.
My eyes popped.

A lot in leather.
Just really sharp-looking.

You were allowed to be
butch and femme,

but not in the old-fashioned
'50s way,

which is kind of the image
we had behind us.

Depends how far we go back
but there was that whole...

pre-Chain Reaction thing which
was really, kind of,

about butch and femme
and looking like

a straight man and
a straight woman.

Because if you were
able to pull that off,

you could walk past a homophobe
and they wouldn't clock you.

So what that was the idea
behind butch and femme.

Especially if you wanted to be
a bit tarty,

you were better off with
a really, really butch woman,

because then you really did
pass for straight.

I could wear lipstick
and I could be girlie.

I could wear heels

but I wasn't buying into

the straight world at all.

Which I would never have done.

So, yeah, it felt like
a freeing.

DEL: There were very few
safe spaces.

And at Chain Reaction,

it was a space for femme dykes
to be femme.

Another thing about
Chain Reaction

which was very different for
lesbian clubs of the time

was that it was
trans-inclusive.

Little did I know that,
you know,

some years later I
would identify

as both trans and intersex.

ROZ: I mean, this was the '80s.

Trans people
identified as lesbian or bi,

tended to be very
deeply in the closet about it -

both because of
getting access to surgery

and drugs from the
gatekeeping doctors,

and because people were
led to believe

it was unacceptable
on the scene.

Compared with every other
lesbian scene in London,

Chain Reaction was
comparatively accepting

of trans women.

The same month that
I actually transitioned,

The Transsexual Empire was
published in London,

which was demanding
the expulsion

of all trans people
from all women's spaces.

So, having a place to go

where being trans wasn't...

an absolute no-no...

..was very, very cool.

Chain Reaction - I don't know
how long it lasted, but...

maybe it was only a couple of
years or so. But it really...

It really created an incredible
bond between us.

We hung out together...

in a big house.

MUSIC: Soray by
Tapanda Re

LULU: There were three houses
of lesbians,

all, you know, like,
almost in a row.

-There were just lesbians
stuffed into every room.

There was, like, I don't know,
maybe about six rooms

but there'd be
18 people living there.

There'd always be a menagerie
of animals.

Rats, terrapins, dogs -

everything.

Cats, obviously.

It was a real creative time.
I mean, everybody was...

You know, people were either
taking photographs

or, you know, writing or
making art or doing theatre.

The scene was...different.

It was a lot more intimate.

DEL: Everybody sleeping
with everybody else.

FISCH: That thing in
The L Word,

where they've got that big
chart at the beginning -

they nicked that off us.
That was our idea.

It was like a lesbian soap.

And there was one woman on
there who was incredibly cute

and she pretty much slept with
everybody,

and so they make this big chart
with her name in the middle

and then, like,
arrows going off

to all the people
she'd slept with

and then all the people
they'd slept with.

We loved each other and
then we loved people

who loved our lovers,

so why wouldn't we want to
shag them as well, then?

DEL: Jane and I had exactly
the same taste in butchness.

So, really, I had great fun
for years

playing "nab that butch".

You know, Jane would see,
and if Jane saw me

being interested
in somebody, you know,

we had a real fierce
friendly competition.

She usually won.

We loved each other.

It was one big happy
shaggy family.

BAYA: Originally, I come
from East Germany.

When I was 17, my family
escaped to West Germany.

My father, he had real problems
in East Germany.

He was put in prison as
a political prisoner

for two and a half years.

I knew if I stayed on my own,

I would have a lot of
repercussions of them escaping.

I found it really difficult to
fit in in the West

and I had quite a...

My parents left and lived
somewhere else.

I was on my own,
and feeling quite lonely.

When I came to London,
I was single for quite a while.

What really saved me
was the women that I met

and who I made friends with.

That became my family.

That was something that
was lasting.

There were people...

that loved me and that I loved.

-Our birth families had
rejected us, basically.

So we would get
together at Christmas...

This one Christmas, I think we
had 26 women

for Christmas dinner.

BAYA: So, we'd wake up
in the morning,

everybody would be in jimjams
and we'd have Bucks fizz.

-I think we all got drunk
before 11 o'clock.

-Mountains of presents that we
all just gave each other.

We spent all day just
unwrapping presents

and, of course,
we'd have to have a turkey.

Baya fisted the turkey
and everyone watched.

Had this enormous turkey.

It was so big, it wouldn't
fit in our tiny little oven.

Probably had taken some acid
in the afternoon

to go with the buck's fizz.
And then about eight

in the evening, everyone
went, "Oh, my God -

"we've got a turkey.
We need to put it in the oven."

So I started, you know,
mixing the apples,

onions, breadcrumbs, stuffing.

As I was stuffing the turkey,
I just so tripped out.

As if I was in
a different galaxy,

where having sex with a turkey

was a perfectly fine thing
to do. It was weird.

MUSIC: Wrapped Up In Sex
by Mouth Almighty

SEIJA: It was like our little
own fantasy world.

♪ I have got

♪ No, no, no regrets

♪ I don't need

♪ A permanent lover... ♪

We were decorating only
with black plastic, you know,

and all black stuff.
So I had this idea that tonight

I'd do something really
nice and soft

and I went to Waterloo
flower market in the morning

to pick up flowers that had
been left on the floor.

And we had a huge amount of
flowers

and we took them to the club
and we were putting them up

everywhere, when we heard
a knock on the door.

They were all covered
in the face -

we couldn't recognise them.

With sticks and bars and shit.

And they had crowbars and axes.

Mashing up the bar,

hitting some of the women
who were there,

and just screeching about
violence against women.

And, finally,
the woman behind the bar,

she started screaming
out really loud.

It was an organisation called
Wavaw.

Women Against Violence
Against Women.

It was a group called Women
Against Women

Who Are Into Sadomasochism.

It was like, er,

Lesbians Against Violence
Against Women

standing outside.

And they would
sit outside the club

and hiss to everybody
who came in.

MUSIC: Life - No
by the Petticoats

♪ All those people
in the dole queues

♪ All those businessmen
in the... ♪

I was brought up as
a socialist -

I was never to
cross a picket line.

I had to cross
my first picket line

because they were trying to
stop us from going in.

And I knew some of those women.

So, the women that I took
to Greenham

ended up being
some of the women

that picketed Chain Reaction
on the first night.

One of my performances did get
stormed, actually,

by some of those women.

I had my friend
in the audience,

who came and volunteered.

She had to pick things out of
a bag and I would say,

"How would you like me
to use this you?"

But she was blindfolded, you
know, and had to touch things,

and ended up with her
on all fours, tied up,

and hot wax started and it
just went absolutely crazy.

Because a whole load of women
stormed the stage,

trying to beat us up.

They didn't realise it was
a whole set-up - that it was

playing with this idea of,
how far can you push things?

And almost putting a mirror up
to oneself and others.

Then there was a huge debate,
with some of the other women

saying, "What the hell are you
doing? You can't go and

"attack women for this. You
don't know even the context."

I understood that they
perceived SM

as aping or copying domestic
violence relationships.

SEIJA: That there is blood in
your hands

and there's a man in your head
and you're violent.

When we were beating each other
and cutting each other,

it took the power away
from that thing.

Somehow we felt much more like
we could survive a beating.

Even though I knew a lot of
these women

were sweeties underneath,
very often there was

a kind of callousness
displayed.

DEL: I had ideological
political differences

with some of the women
in Chain Reaction

who wanted to enact
Nazi fantasies

or wear Nazi uniforms
to the club.

And that was the line
you do not cross.

I did not want to be part
of that

and I argued fiercely
against it and I won.

TYPEWRITERS CLACK

We got denounced in the London
Women's Liberation newsletter,

for wearing instruments of
torture and Nazi regalia,

which was, like,
a little over the top.

Never worn a swastika in my
life, shout at people who do.

But, you know, we got
denounced

for wearing a Muir cap
and a biker jacket.

A hugely political thing,
wearing a leather jacket,

as a lesbian.

You were a Nazi if you did.

MUSIC: Rococo Subversive
by Sister George

CHANTING

CHEERING

We at Chain Reaction,
on the contrary,

work towards a mutual and equal
power exchange

based on the
principle of consent.

Lesbian S and M is a woman's
right to say "no"

and her choice to say "yes".

DEBBIE: There was a great big
talk about the lesbian scene

and sexuality,
and we went down -

the Bell dykes and
the Chain Reaction dykes -

in our leather and Muir caps

and, you know, chains
and what have you,

and sat there clanking
away in the seats,

listening to people talking
about how wrong S and M was.

ANDERSON: Despite attempts at
sexual repression,

both within and outside
the gay community,

Chain Reaction continues
to be successful

because we encourage women to
explore their sexual fantasies,

to be themselves and to make
each other feel good.

We work to create an atmosphere

that is safe and
non-judgemental.

Everybody had completely

lost their sense of humour
by this time.

Lesbian dykes are being told
that they're fascist

and they're perverted
and they're male oriented.

I mean, that's
what needs to stop

and I think that's what
we need to talk about.

Linda Bellos, I think it was,

said that if she saw a black
woman with handcuffs on

it reminded her of slavery and
she thought that they were

diminishing themselves
and their ancestors.

And at that point, I was,
sort of,

getting nudged by people
sitting next to me,

and I stood up and I was like,
"Well, I'm black

"and I wear a leather jacket
and I've got chains, so..."

And then I sat down again.

So, that was my...

My immense contribution
to the conversation.

But, you know, I think even
just that little thing

did actually make a bit of
a difference because,

you know, it just showed
that you can't generalise

and you can't say that

what I believe has to be
what you believe.

As far as I know, my experience
of women involved

or defining themselves
as S and M

or interested in exploring
role-play and sexuality

in general, are absolutely
anti-racist,

anti-sexist, anti-fascist
and...

What we're doing, basically,

is trying to play with
all these symbols -

and they are symbols, and they
are very powerful symbols -

of oppression and violence,

as opposed to being, ourselves,
oppressive and violent.

It's not "anybody can do
anything to anybody

"whenever they like,
whether it's violent or not".

It's not about that.
It's a very structured thing.

There are certain rules
within that anarchy.

The issues about S and M
and lesbians really arose

because of arguments
within feminism.

And those happened
right from the '70s upwards.

When I came out
in the mid-'70s,

I felt like I was a bit of
a second-class lesbian,

cos I was a lesbian out of lust
and not out of politics.

I have quite a lot of
vanilla sex.

-What is vanilla sex?
-Um...

-What is it?
-What is it?

Well... I don't know. Maybe you
should define what

vanilla sex is, cos you say
you're a hot vanilla dyke.

I think it's fantastic that
you're a hot vanilla dyke.

..a lovely ice cream or a...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I just wanna say
one other thing...

CHATTER DROWNS SPEAKER

..attack.

No, I don't.
I just said to you...

Can we listen to
what's being said?

That's basically what the whole
lesbian scene was

around the '80s. It was a...

hugely homogenised
view of lesbian society,

in which you had to be wearing
pastel colours and dungarees

and going to Greenham
and wear Birkenstocks.

And we did not want to do that.

That's why we were
the rebel dykes, you know.

We wanted to do what
we wanted to do.

We came out of punk.

You know, we came out of
art school. We were musicians.

We were artists.

We didn't want to do,
necessarily,

what everyone else
wanted to do.

You don't look
like a bunch of dykes -

you look like a bunch of
poofs.

CHEERING

That kind of
"every woman can be a lesbian",

which started as
a political theory,

ended up as a kind of rule
of thumb, and then we started

making more and more rules
for ourselves

about what you had to do
to be a proper lesbian.

And there started to be all
these rules

about what you did
and didn't do in bed.

Penetrative sex was wrong,
and any kind of

dominance and submission games
were wrong.

Any kind of role-playing
was wrong.

And that's where the hatred of
SM dykes

by the mainstream lesbian
feminist movement came from

and it was never the twain
shall meet.

And it came out of really
genuine concerns in things

like Women's Aid and stuff like
that about male violence

but it got transmogrified into,

essentially,
the lesbian sex police.

-There was this joke
back in the day

that the authentic version of
lesbian sex

was holding hands
in 20 passionate positions.

Because it was the only way
that you could possibly

remove all inequality.

You can't go around
telling people

who they're allowed
to have sex with

or how they're allowed to
have sex.

LISA: I think there were quite
a lot of women

who got labelled S and M dykes

who probably did very little
S and M activity in bed.

But I swear a lot of people
joined in

cos they were having
more fun.

♪ Does it fuck you off

♪ When dykes strap on?

♪ "They're taking over
our clubs!"

♪ Does it fuck you off?

♪ Drag king! ♪

I honestly believed that we
could actually win

fights and battles and it was
up for grabs.

They were not gonna
take it from us

and they were not gonna tell us
what to do.

So I think the anti-censorship
battle

was one of those battles
that they weren't gonna be able

to tell us what we could
and couldn't read.

Particularly when it was about
our own sexuality

and our own identity.

And, unfortunately for
the radical feminists,

they picked the wrong side

when they went against
pornography

and they went against
people's own sexuality.

They were just, like,
so off message.

Because the bottom line was,

"We love women.
We really love women."

-Quim was a lesbian magazine

for dykes of all
sexual persuasions.

The first issue was
on penetration

and we asked questions about

what your experience
of penetration was.

Cos at the time,
it was a bit of a no-no.

Obviously, a lot of us
were doing it

but there was a whole
politics around it.

So we thought,
well, we'll just say,

"What is it for you?
How does it feel for you?"

And the idea was
to give everybody

their voice and their say.

When I first came out,

and first, you know,

found out about dildos,
essentially,

we were lucky if we could get
black rubber dildos.

But they always had balls
on them.

So, of course, all the lesbians
would chop off the balls.

And they were really quite
ugly. And then, of course,

you couldn't keep them held in
very well.

So there were always
chopped-off, lobbed-off bits.

And then when I moved
to San Francisco,

my first dildo,
I bought at Good Vibrations.

And not very hygienic
but it was a leather one.

But it didn't have balls,
so it was the first one

we'd ever seen
that didn't have balls.

So that was my first one.

Then, of course, coming back
to London.

And Ky Hoyle,
who is the MD of Sh!,

she is also a rebel dyke

and Sh! was born out of this
period when we were saying,

"We don't wanna be dictated to

"about how we should
be having sex.

"We don't want people to tell
us what to do.

"It's women's right to decide
on their own sexuality."

And very much that we
don't want penises.

You know, we do want
penetration

but we don't want penises.

So, Sh! started making dildos -

ball-free,
un-penis-like dildos -

which sort of revolutionised,
really.

Lesbians then could actually
finally

get hold of things
that they wanted.

MUSIC: Wrapped Up In Sex
by Mouth Almighty

With my girlfriend at the time,

I ran the first mail-order
sex-toy business

by lesbians for women,
we always said.

And it was called
Thrilling Bits.

Which was terrific, because I
was able to stand up on a chair

at places like Fallen Angel
and go,

"I'm one of the women
with Thrilling Bits."

We imported terrific stuff
from San Francisco,

which was a bit hairy because
customs didn't like it.

And so, we had to name
all these things,

because we weren't gonna give
them the names

they had in the straight
catalogues,

which were all really sleazy.

So we named them
after famous lesbians

or women we thought ought
to be lesbians, were icons.

So, we had a Dusty.
We had other things like that.

And our sense of humour
got the better of us again.

And so we called our smallest,

most inoffensive vibrator

the Sheila,
after Sheila Jeffreys,

a radical feminist separatist,
who went through the roof.

One of the things we sold -
and we sold quite a lot of -

were dental dams, and they were
actually squares of latex

and you were supposed to
use them for cunnilingus.

So if you were going down on
your girlfriend,

you would put this between
you and her

and it was the equivalent
of a condom,

except they were thicker than
condoms,

they used to come covered
in medical talcum powder,

so you had to wash them
before you went anywhere.

People tried to manufacture,
sort of,

little harnesses for them, like
those things you used to have

with sanitary towels
in the '60s.

It was these strange harnesses.

People tried
all those things

but it was completely
pointless,

cos it's very, very, very
difficult indeed

to pass HIV
through cunnilingus.

But we weren't entirely
certain about that at the time.

Like, people used to put them

on their coffee tables
as discussion.

I was actually running this
business at the same time

that I was helping to found
the Stonewall Group,

as we called it then -
Stonewall now.

And we would have
meetings in my living room

and I remember one time, we'd
just had a shipment of stuff

from America and we got out
the dental dams

and the lesbian-porn
magazines -

On Our Backs
and all that stuff -

and showed it
to everyone who was there.

And Stonewall was mixed -
lesbian and gay -

and I remember the group
passed this dental dam around,

pretty much in two fingers
from one to the other.

And, God bless him,
Ian McKellen looked at it,

stretched it, pulled it about
and went, "May I?"

"Do what you like with it."
He just pulled it to his mouth

and stuck his tongue
through it,

and experimented with how it
would actually be to use it.

And I just thought, "Oh, God,

"I wish I had a camera
at the moment."

You know, one of our great
stage actors

having fun with a dental dam.

I had started photographing
queer dyke life in 1982.

Love Bites was created by a
kind of sexual performativity.

Instead of performing what was
actually going on in the clubs,

because we all wanted that to
be a safe and private space,

instead, we kind of created
sexual happenings.

We created, like, a lot of
interest and intrigue

in what we were doing, and we
were performing for each other.

At the time,
the sex wars were raging.

They were trying to exclude us.

The radical lesbian separatists
did still have

quite a lot of power
at that time.

SOPHIE: Many book shops
wouldn't stock it

because they thought
it wasn't feminist.

And our argument was that we
were women

and this was our lives
and we were feminists,

and we may be experimenting
with sexuality

but that did not mean
we weren't feminists.

When Love Bites came out
in 1991,

they successfully excluded
Love Bites

from gay-and-lesbian
book shops -

in Silver Moon,
Sisterwrite and Gay's The Word.

When the book shop was opened,

we were a lesbian, gay,
feminist book shop.

It was different from gay
book shops in the past,

which were book shops for men,

where they could go and get
erotic material.

And this was a book shop
set up by socialists

and it was about ideas.

So, gay politics and biography
and history and coming out.

And it wasn't about selling
erotic magazines

and we didn't sell them.

You have to remember,
this was also the era

when Gay's The Word book shop
in London

was raided and seized.

The case eventually
collapsed in court

but the police were trying to
say things like

The Joy Of Lesbian Sex was
inherently pornographic

and things like that.

Stuff that would not have
been pornographic

amongst heterosexuals
was definitely pornographic

if it was lesbian.

On Our Backs was a lesbian
publication from San Francisco

and it was essentially
mostly soft -

a little bit, occasionally,
of hard - porn for lesbians.

On Our Backs was definitely
a banned publication.

I started as
photographic assistant

and I went in there, sort of,

on this mission to kind of
change the look of it a bit.

I felt like...

the style of the photographs
and the women

was a bit old school and I
wanted to, kind of, you know,

get the newer, younger
generation

that was out there involved.

LISA: It featured, actually,

some of the English S and M
dykes,

and it was run partly by
English women

who'd gone out to
San Francisco.

And that's where I first
met my London dykes, actually,

and it was very early on in
my employment there.

And I first met, er,

Seija from Finland.

She came into the office
one day

and she had with her
Baya and Aphra.

And I saw these women and I was
just kind of like,

"Whoosh! Who are they?

"OK. Pictures. I want to take
pictures with them."

I was, at the time, still back
and forth between here

and San Francisco
and I still had On Our Backs.

So I was working with
Del La Grace.

I love worked on Love Bites.

I'd met Del in San Francisco

and I interviewed Del for
On Our Backs.

We became really good friends

and we've worked together
ever since.

JIM: One of the books that we
didn't stock at the start

was Love Bites
when it came out.

We were worried about it
and we took legal advice -

we had a big meeting about it.

Cos there were a number
of images in the book

that we thought could make us
liable to prosecution.

But I have to say, Sisterwrite,

which was the women-of-colour
book shops,

were the only ones who were
honest enough to say,

"We disapprove of the content.

"We do not support, you know,
lesbian SM."

And we did this whole
performance march

against the censorship
of Love Bites.

I wasn't too worried about the
obscene-publications squad.

There was all sorts of rules,
archaic rules,

you know, to do with how erect
a dildo can be.

It can only be... It has to be
less than 45 degrees.

Really weird stuff.

I didn't expect to find myself
in court

for an over-45-degree dildo.

It was an awful distraction,
all of that stuff,

because, really, we wanted just
to get on with the creativity -

exploring of
what we were doing.

FISCH: And I think that started
the realisation that this was

a backlash against people
for their sexuality.

There was always this attempt
to silence.

The Aids activism was...

"Silence equals death" was one
of the slogans that we used,

because nobody recognised us

as a community

and having a voice at all.

-Act Up is the Aids Coalition
to Unleash Power

and it's an Aids activist
group, which I got involved in

after going to the '87
march on Washington

and seeing the Names Project
be unfolded

and just standing there
for hours,

hearing name after name
after name.

In Act Up, we wanted to talk
about women and Aids.

One of the things that was
happening on the women's scene,

on the dyke scene, is that
there was becoming a, sort of,

faction that was saying,

"Well, you know, we're
lesbians - we don't get Aids,"

who became very judgemental.

And so we needed to talk
about behaviour -

that the virus was, you know,

passed by behaviour and not
by identity, you know.

It was great, because it really
did get people

talking about
the nuts and bolts of,

you know, what we did.

You know, lesbians use
IV drugs.

Lesbians are strippers
and sex workers.

Erm...

And something that very
few people talk about, but...

lesbians sometimes
sleep with gay men.

And, you know, with men.
But also with gay men.

The proximity - um...

And in those days, you know,
drugs, party -

you know, things happen.

But I think particularly with
sex workers it was an issue,

because there was...

From one faction, there was
this whole attitude that,

you know, if you slept with men
in any way, shape or form,

you were not a lesbian.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Up until then, lesbians are not
seen as particularly activist

and the gay-male scene was
split between activist gays,

who all wore loads of badges
and did gay volunteering

work for Switchboard or Friend
or whatever,

and scene queens who went to
Heaven and all those things,

and none of the groups
got together.

And lesbians didn't mix
much with gay men

and the two types of gay men
didn't mix much.

Section 28, as well as HIV,
brought us all together.

CHEERING

Section 28 of the
Local Government Act

said that local authorities
were not allowed

to promote homosexuality as
a pretend family relationship.

And these are
the sort of things

that made us rebel dykes.
It wasn't we just woke up

one morning and goes,
"Oh, let's be rebels."

We actually had things
to rebel against.

My girlfriend in the late '70s,
early '80s -

she'd left her husband to come
and live with me

and brought her baby.

He took the baby
and he never came back.

And we were both very
distraught.

Like, "What's going on?"

This solicitor who we hired
took the case to court

and the judge ruled
in his favour

because we were lesbians!

That's why we were rebels.

Children who need to be
taught to respect

traditional moral values

are being taught that they have
an inalienable right to be gay.

-To have Margaret Thatcher's
government come up with an idea

that your relationships
were pretend

and that you should be
silenced,

you shouldn't be
allowed to be spoken of -

it was a really
outraging feeling.

It was, you know,
quite celebratory in the '80s.

There was a lot of fun and
pleasure in it

and we'd moved on a lot,
I think, from the kind of

'50s or '60s sense of people
feeling a bit apologetic

about their sexuality,
to feeling great about it.

Hi! We're all gay -
it's great, innit?

LAUGHTER

We went on a lot of matches
against clause 28.

It was horrifying, because I
had so recently been at school

and then clause 28 was coming
to really stop even teachers

being able to respond to
a child

who might be in real danger.

Even if you've got nice
parents, it's hard to come out.

So a teacher is
the next port of call

and they weren't allowed
to even listen

or even respond in
any positive way.

It was just hor...
We knew that it was dangerous.

We knew already that
people killed themselves

because they needed
to come out.

And then the government was
telling teachers

that they can't be themselves.

It's relationships.

You can't start
by being covered up

and being restricted
and being scared.

-It was quite
a pernicious idea

within this
Local Government Act

that the promotion of
homosexuality

should be outlawed in schools.

And in particular that schools
should not be able to teach

what they called a pretended
family relationship -

that having two lesbian
mothers, for instance,

was actually a family,

but they were saying
that's not a real family.

It felt like it was mainly
gay people fighting it.

There were straight people
fighting it

but I didn't feel like the
media was supporting the fight.

Erm...

Yeah, it felt quite scary,

like that we weren't going to
win.

We were talking to ourselves
by the '80s.

We were completely
self-referential,

internal looking. We weren't
capable

of talking to anybody
we didn't agree with.

We weren't capable of
the grand gesture

and the thing that happened
with Section 28

and the abseilers was that the
grand gesture came back

and the grand gesture came back
led by lesbians.

SUSANNAH: And I think for us,
that came very naturally.

That was the kind of...
I think, part of, in a way,

the training camp that Greenham
Common was for activist women

and for activist dykes
at that time.

Greenham was very much
about that,

about doing physical things -

cutting fences, blockading,
entering the USAF base,

pushing at boundaries and
stepping over boundaries

and making quite symbolic
actions that, you know,

were headline grabbing as well.

We were quite conscious of
that - the way to use the media

and grab headlines in that way.

It was actually loads and loads
of women who'd never been

seen before, absolutely
livid at this legislation.

SUSANNAH: We had a meeting at
my flat in Clapham

to talk about direct action

and where we wanted to
go with it next.

There was a debate in the
House of Lords coming up

and the first idea we had was
a bit more ambitious -

we wanted to hijack a boat and
board the Palace of Westminster

from the river, sort of
storm it from the river.

And, you know, we were
seriously talking this through

but there was issues of
the tide times

and where we were going to get
this boat and everything,

so it was maybe a
little bit ambitious.

And then I think we were...

I think the TV might have
been on.

We were reminded of the way
the House of Lords is, where

there's the public gallery
above where the lords sit.

And so, we had this idea
of abseiling in, or sliding in.

A couple of people went...
Sally and Janet, I think,

went up Clapham High Street

and bought a couple of
washing lines,

and we kind of chopped those
into four

and then we wrapped them...

Like, four of us had them
under our jumpers

or whatever,
wrapped around us.

We were queueing to get into
the House of Lords

for this debate, so Paula was
kind of shouting out,

"Are you a lord?
Are you a lord?

"Can you sign us in as a guest

"to come into your guest
gallery?" And before too long,

one guy said,
"Yes, OK, I'll take you in."

So, he signed in
four or five of us

and we went into this side
gallery, which was lucky,

actually, because the visitors'
gallery is significantly lower

than the public gallery.

So, we were sitting there and
the debate was going on

and I can't... You know,
it's a very adrenaline-y thing.

I can't honestly remember
much about it now.

But got these ropes out,
tied them to

the little wrought-iron balcony
and pitched over.

I kind of got rope burns
going down this nylon thing

very badly to the floor,

and then other friends who were
in the public gallery

were shouting and, you know,
kicking off and everything.

Their security moved
quite quickly.

They held us in there for
a good number of hours.

We didn't get
charged with anything at all.

They could have
charges within their own bylaws

but I think they just thought,
"Let's get rid of them."

And this actually caused
a huge stir, because it was

the first time that a lot of
gay men had seen lesbians

involved in direct action

and doing something
that was for everybody.

It was lesbians who became
the outrageous activists.

SUSANNAH: The invasion of
the Six O'Clock News at the BBC

was another high-profile action
that we did.

I didn't actually go in there
but I was, kind of,

involved in
the thinking about it.

Red and Stella in particular,
who'd been on the abseiling,

and then various other dykes

who hadn't been on
the abseiling

but were really, really keen
to do some more direct action

around Clause 28, came together
in a new group

for activists
and we started to plan.

It was helped by the fact that
one of the dykes

had a friend who worked,
I think, as a runner in the BBC

and passed us a floor plan,

so that they had an idea of
where the studio actually was

in this massive TV Centre.

There was quite a lot of
hair-raising bits

of being on completely
the wrong floor.

I seem to remember they had to,
sort of,

lock themselves in the toilet
for quite a long time.

They were a bit more
organised this time -

they had T-shirts with
"stop the clause" on.

I think they had to go and
strip off

and get their T-shirts
in place.

But, anyway, they kind of
pulled it together, as we know,

cos we do have the film
footage of that.

And they got into this studio
and padlocked themselves

to the bottom of the desk,

which is why they couldn't
so easily get rid of them,

and you could hear
these muffled voices

from under the desk.

The Six O'Clock News from
the BBC,

with Sue Lawley and
Nicholas Witchell.

Good evening.
The headlines at six o'clock...

In the House of Lords,
a vote is taking place now

on a challenge to the poll tax.
Tory rebels have said...

-This is about rights
for lesbian and gay people.

-..the tax is unfair
and unpopular.

-Stop Section 28.
-And I do apologise

if you're hearing quite a lot
of noise in the studio.

-Stop the clause.
-I'm afraid that we have rather

been invaded by some people
that we hope

to be removing shortly.

In the meantime...

And Sue Lawley holding it
together very well.

I think we all have to agree
she did a masterful job there,

whereas Nicholas Witchell,

who then went on to be
the royal correspondent,

you know, he got stuck in
off-camera...

Get off me, you arsewipe.
Stop section 28!

Stop section 28!

..helping the security guards
to squash them

and get on top of them.

-And direct action
is important.

With one thing done by half
a dozen people,

you can be on
the Nine O'Clock News

and reach the whole country,

and make a point.

And, you know,
sometimes it doesn't work,

but when it really works,
by God it works.

And it was horrific and yet,
looking back, it was the thing

that brought us all together
and founded

what has since become one of
the most successful

lesbian and gay movements
in the world.

Because it really pissed
a lot of people off.

People really became aware of
how oppressive

the Tory government
were becoming.

Lots of people came out
and said, "This is not on."

Then there was far
more marches,

far more demonstrating,

and it became very hardcore
with the police.

And round the same period
was the poll-tax riot.

We were pretty much doing
a riot a week, I think,

at some points. There was a lot
going on

where we were protesting
and agitating, really.

About 1990, I kind of got
bored of the party lifestyle.

You know, I wanted to do
something,

yeah, bit more challenging.
I mean, it was fun

but I just got bored of it.
You know, we didn't have...

You can't do the same things
for years on end.

ROZ: I moved on.

There was a point where
I dropped out of

the Chain Reaction collective.

DEL: She was pretty much
excluded - not exactly

for being trans but that was
a factor that was used.

It was weird because, like,
nobody would actually say

what I'd done and most people
just got the idea

I'd done something
and it was awful.

Maybe Roz slept with
the wrong person.

In the end, all of the fights

and the debates within feminism
absolutely got me down

and in the end, I left London
because it just did my head in.

I tried to find a squat in
Amsterdam.

It was fucking freezing.

Every day, I would take
an acid tab.

I just lived in this completely
psychedelic, fucked-up world.

I ended up getting arrested
on some demonstration.

I still, to this day,
don't know

what the demonstration
was even for.

And it was actually during
those three days

in the police station when I,
sort of, detoxed off drugs

and realised this wasn't
a very good idea.

MAJ: After being a traveller
for about a year,

which didn't really work,

I found myself in
Women Only Space.

So, it's a rural women-only
community.

It was bought and paid for by
some of the women

coming from Greenham.

I don't want to say
exactly where it is,

because it's
kind of like a women's refuge.

People went on and became
famous artists,

famous film-makers,

lecturers, journalists,
barristers, nurses.

All sorts of things.

DEBBIE: A few months after
Mouth Almighty split,

I actually got my first job

as an indie guitarist with
the band Curve.

I saw them
on the telly on the Monday,

answered the advert on
the Wednesday.

I went to the audition
on the Friday

and was in the band by
tea-time. So, that was good.

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

At least, I hope that nowadays
for young people

it's much easier to be
what they are.

And I think it's taken these
30 years to develop,

that people can start feeling
more comfortable

in the way they feel inside.

YVONNE: I'm about to start
a new club,

which is about
all women welcome.

It means queer folks,
it means non-binary.

You know, when I hear
my nieces and nephews

talk about their experiences

with gay and lesbian
young kids...

..that's when I kind of go,
"We've moved on."

The trouble is that we've gone
so far into the mainstream

and we're so respectable now

that we're losing all our sharp
edges and we're losing

our ability to be the rebels.

MUSIC PLAYS, WHISTLES BLOW

One thing I find most
amusing is about SM,

because it was very secretive
in the '80s.

And it's taken all
these 30 years to become

something, like,
of a normal thing.

And now you see these books
like 50 Shades Of Grey

and it's a normal thing.

You know, anybody does it

and they discuss it
in the workplace.

I can have sex in private now
and still enjoy myself!

Yeah, and in the end,
it isn't two groups, is it?

-No groups are homogeneous.
-No.

But the thing about us
as SM dykes

was that we were ostracised
from the lesbian community,

and so we formed a family
around that.

And, you know, 30 years later,
we're still friends

because there were
so very few of us

that felt we were really
interested in sex

and being positive about sex.

SEIJA: It was like
a real energy

of what people had they
wanted to say

and they wanted to explore.

And that's maybe why it
continued after the clubs

and after the movement,

that people took it in their
lives and they continued.

Every Tuesday, we took over
a gay men's club in Vauxhall.

We started the UK's first ever
lesbian S and M night,

Chain Reaction.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yay!

We wanted what the gay men
had access to -

places to have sex.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

The show I'm doing now
is my perspective

of gay pride from the viewpoint
of a rebel dyke.

There's that whole
thing of just being...

Always challenging,
always challenging the norm,

challenging what's expected,

and getting power from
doing something else.

And, you know, I've been called
"sir" my whole life!

And so I thought, "OK, I could
probably be a drag king again."

Funnily enough, the drag-king
community very much reminds me

of the rebel dyke community,

because we're a minority and
we've got each other's backs

and that's a really, really
lovely feeling.

MUSIC: Remember Me
by Mouth Almighty

YVONNE: We, as older lesbians,

have paved the way so younger
people can come along and have,

kind of, like, the freedom
that they've got now.

Not that most of us have
any clue...

In the same way I have no clue
about all the previous,

you know, older lesbians
that had gone before me.

It's very necessary that
this story gets told,

because we all stand on
the shoulders of giants.

And if the women hadn't
started Gateways,

we would never have
started Chain Reaction.

But this story has been,
so far, unsaid.

So I'm very happy that it's
finally been documented.

MUSIC: Skirt
by Nightnurse

LISA: I don't want to be
a straight gay,

which is how we used to
refer to people like that

in the '80s. For me,

the whole point of
gay liberation,

the whole point of coming out,

is to come out as yourself.

Whatever that is, wherever it
leads you,

you should be yourself.

And rebel dykes in the '80s
did that at a time

when there were really
far too many people,

both inside the movement
and in the general public,

all trying to tell us
how to behave.

DEBBIE: And, you know, we had
to fight long and hard

to find our place
but, you know, we did.

I mean, look at
lesbian society now.

That's cos we did that.

We did that. Be thankful.

♪ I met a girl
and she didn't have a heart

♪ But I never really found out
till the morning

♪ I let her take me home

♪ Even though I knew the signs

♪ I know it wasn't smart
but I'm not sorry

♪ What can you do
with a girl that has no heart?

♪ We kept each other up
until the morning

♪ So, even though I knew

♪ She was trouble
from the start

♪ I stayed another night
and I'm still yawning

♪ Having no heart

♪ You never need to care

♪ You don't have to satisfy

♪ It is the ones

♪ You know you'll never have

♪ You always want too much

♪ End of story

♪ I met a girl

♪ She never had much time

♪ She always had to rush out
in the morning

♪ So, even though I knew

♪ We were a million
worlds apart

♪ I stayed another month
but I'm not sorry

♪ Having no time

♪ You never need to care

♪ You don't have to justify

♪ It is the ones

♪ You know you'll never have

♪ You always want too much

♪ End of story

♪ You can have it all

♪ Practising freefall

♪ Then you pay the toll

♪ In the morning

♪ Having no heart

♪ You never need to care

♪ You don't have to satisfy

♪ It is the ones

♪ You know you'll never have

♪ You always want too much

♪ End of story

♪ I met a girl

♪ She never had a heart

♪ I should have known it
from the start

♪ We were a million
worlds apart

♪ Well, I know it wasn't smart

♪ But I'm not

♪ Sorry. ♪

MUSIC: Trouble by
the Well Oiled Sisters

♪ You don't know
the trouble I'm in

♪ And you don't know
the trouble I've seen

♪ Talking to myself

♪ I'll drink to kill the pain

♪ Knowing in my heart
that I won't see you again

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ So, please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ You're so cold

♪ You can't meet my eye

♪ You laugh too loud

♪ You calculate and lie

♪ Looking at the stars

♪ I'm waiting for a sign

♪ If I don't lose my nerve

♪ Then I'm gonna lose my mind

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ So, please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ You don't know
the trouble I'm in

♪ And you don't know
the trouble I've seen

♪ Living in the past

♪ I'm thinking about us

♪ Counting out my change

♪ And I'm getting on that bus

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ So, please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ Yeah, please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ Please come home

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble

♪ I'm in trouble. ♪

MUSIC: Remember Me
by Mouth Almighty

♪ Well, your love left much
to be desired

♪ You were everything
but not enough

♪ Each tear you shed
is just another lie

♪ Behind each smile, a sullen
scowl

♪ Remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ The lies you told
to pass the time

♪ Well, I became accustomed to

♪ But I no longer
need your closeness

♪ You ripped
the wellness from my soul

♪ Remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Don't call me
or call, call around

♪ To say you've seen
the inner void

♪ And leave with your
dead-hearted smile

♪ Another while

♪ Just a little bit more

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember me

♪ Oh, remember me, remember me

♪ Won't you remember. ♪