The Lesbians and Policing Project: police monitoring in defence of dangerous lesbian-ness in 1980s London.

Abstract

This article provides a case study of The Lesbians and Policing Project [LesPop], a police monitoring organisation that existed in London between 1984 and 1990. Drawing on archives held at Glasgow Women's Library, the article reviews the activities of LesPop and outlines its aims and objectives. We consider both its origins and its demise in the political context of Britain in the 1980s. In doing so, we argue that LesPop offers an important, and hitherto unexamined, contribution to lesbian history in Britain. Centralising the experiences of lesbians in London in an era of state-sanctioned homophobia, LesPop provides a case study in lesbian political and community organising and engagement with, or resistance to, the carceral state. Understanding how LesPop sought to monitor and research the police and in turn, educate and organise lesbians, reveals much about the regulation of sexuality in the pursuit of social order and illustrates the importance then, and now, of grassroots efforts to challenge homophobia and hold the police to account.