Lesbians and gay men, long treated as outsiders by this society, have begun to make advances towards achieving a measure of citizenship. In so doing, they are causing re-examination of the values of those institutions which have oppressed and excluded them for so long. Few involved in the consciously revolutionary politics of the Gay Liberation Front or lesbian feminism would have predicted that such advances would have been made in local government.

Labour-led local government has proved to be one of the key areas of resistance to the Thatcher regime. Its strength lies in the fact that it seeks not simply a return to the old centralised system of state welfarism and nationalisation. Rather, it acknowledges that people had, by 1979, genuine grievances with the legacy of the 1945 settlement. It recognises the popular desire for a social order which is democratic, accountable and responsive to the specific needs of its people. People’s perceptions of their own needs had changed since 1945 and many groups, particularly women, black people and workers in service industries had become increasingly articulate in opposing the processes which excluded them. Feminism, in particular, had highlighted the elements of social control which existed in what had previously been seen as private life and had begun a re-assessment of the hidden criteria which determine the provision of public services. Lesbians and gay men, whose exclusion from the benefits of 1945 had been almost total, eagerly began to participate in this process of re-construction. The question arises, as it does with all oppressed groups, as to how any system can give equal rights to people whom it has long excluded without undergoing some process of change itself.

Many assume that the Greater London Council (GLC) was the first local authority to support the demand for lesbian and gay rights. In fact, Islington had, as early as 1975, given some funding to Friend, a national counselling organisation. But the GLC was the first council whose leadership was prepared both to speak out and to act openly on behalf of many of their lesbian and gay constituents. The GLC has been criticised by lesbians and gay men both for trying to co-opt lesbian and gay politics and for not allocating enough resources to them, but what is undisputed is that the GLC changed the terms of debate on lesbian and gay issues. They were unable to prevent to anything like the extent they would have wanted people being sacked, being made homeless, being harassed, being deprived of their children, being imprisoned on grounds of their sexuality. But what the GLC’s pronouncements and the reports from GLC-funded groups such as Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights, the Gay Teenage Group and the Gay London Police Monitoring Group did do was to provide the kind of evidence which generated a growing sense of confidence and resistance among lesbians and gay men.