Catalogue Number
NMLH.2022.371.14
Object Name
Badge
Title
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners
Place
London; Wales; Neath; Swansea; Dulais
People
LGSM
Events
Miners Strike
Description
White badge with blue text reading "Lesbians and Gays support the miners", surrounding a pink triangle.
The badge was produced and sold by the activist group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). The group was established in London in 1984 to support striking mineworkers. By the end of the strike, eleven groups had emerged throughout the UK. The extreme rhetoric against miners from the government connected with many LGBTQIA people, including Mark Ashton who helped found the organisation. LGSM raised money in support of the striking miners through benefits, concerts and donations. Like other support organisations, the LGSM branches 'twinned' with mining communities to support them; the London organisation worked with Castell-nedd (Neath), Dulais, and Abertawe (Swansea) mining communities.
The pink triangle symbol was reclaimed by the gay community after originally being a symbol of persecution. The symbol originated as a pink triangle cloth patch, used to identify gay men in prisons and concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Its reclaimed use spread through the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and is now positively associated with the wider LGBTQIA community.
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