Catalogue Number
NMLH.2026.12.1
Object Name
banner
Title
LGSM LESBIANS GAY MEN SUPPORT THE MINERS
People
LGSM, Mike Jackson, Alice Kilroy (designer)
Date
2014
Description
Large banner made from a plastic mesh. The Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) logo has been sewn into the middle of the banner. The logo is a pink triangle inside a black circle. Gold text in the back circle reads 'LESBIANS LGSM GAY MEN SUPPORT THE MINERS'. Either side of the triangle are dates 1984 and 2014. In the middle of the triangle is a gold 30. The banner commemorates the 30th anniversay of LGSM and was designed by Alice Kilroy. At the top of the banner, attached to the banner loops are pink, light purple and blue ribbons. These were added retrospectively to show Trans solidarity.
Known to the world through the 2014 film, Pride, LGSM was a solidarity campaign between left wing LGBTQ+ activists and the mining community in Dulais, South Wales during the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. The banner was designed by Mark Ashton, and the reverse features hand drawn cartoons by Ashton hand drawings of Margaret Thatcher and a police officer surrounding the first verse of the song 'Solidarity Forever'.
LGSM shows the importance of cross community solidarity - people were surprised the LGBTQ+ community would care about miners, as mining communities were perceived as universally homophobic. But LGSM members thought that the vilification the government and the press were aiming at the striking miners had the same intention the vilification of LGBTQ+ people - to divide and conquer. LGSM's acts of solidarity, raising £22,500 for the striking families in Dulais, and visiting the community to build bonds of friendship, encouraged mining communities to show solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in return. Hundreds of miners marched with their own union banners behind the LGSM banner leading Gay Pride in London in 1985, and following the strike, the National Union of Mineworkers began to successfully advocate for LGBT+ rights in the Labour Party.
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