Lesbians' attitudes to children
1978
Betty: “In Birmingham I don’t think boy children was an issue, like in
London. I remember noticing when I moved up from London to Birmingham
that in London there were things like the Women’s Arts Alliance which
wouldn’t even allow newborn boys in because they said it changed the
atmosphere. Anyway, there were divisions in the London lesbian
community that existed rather less in Birmingham, purely because of
numbers, I think. Because there was the Old Mo, there weren’t enough of
us to allow political differences to stop you from playing pool with
somebody or whatever. Lesbians generally were not keen on lesbians with
children at that point. There was a fair amount of hostility I think”.
G: “There weren’t very many lesbians with children, and I was also a
lot older than a lot of the people anyway, just from being in my early
thirties, I was old”.
B: "I was in my twenties. We used the big room in Barbie’s old flat to
meet in for a group of lesbian mothers with children. But some of the women
were so hostile to their own children, women who had come out of
difficult marriages, who were very much saying ‘I no longer wish to
know my children, that is part of a different life’. And I just
remember being really uncomfortable with that. But at the Gay Community Centre I
remember children being quite acceptable”.
Contributed by: Gill Coffin, 63, Betty Hagglund, 50