LGBT+ History Month: Queer widowhood then and now
February 2025
As well as being a time for looking back, LGBT+ History Month is a time for examining where we are now and for looking forward. WAY volunteer Suzanne delved into the Switchboard LGBT+ archives and found some food for thought…
“Over the last year, I have had the privilege of spending time looking through the 1980s Switchboard LGBT+ day books as research for a writing project about women’s voices in the HIV/AIDS crisis. As well as giving me an understanding of the lives of LGBTQIA+ people during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, it also gave me a window into the lives of a group of amazing volunteers who gave up their time to support the community.
The day books – simple A4 hardbound notebooks that bulge with notes and leaflets and fliers – are held in cream folders tied up with ribbon. Opening them up feels like unwrapping a gift. I saw the same volunteer names coming up again and again, recognising their handwriting and knowing their patterns of speech, leaving me feeling like I knew them. Seeing the names fade out and then come back after a contract or a holiday made me feel like I was welcoming back an old friend. Sometimes, though, there would be a note to say that one of the team was in hospital with AIDS and wanted visitors, or a funeral announcement, and I felt like I’d lost someone I knew.
The day books told the stories of everyday life. Calls to ask about opening hours of gay clubs and lesbian bars. Warnings of police raids on cottaging sites. Offers of queer-friendly jobs and accommodation. People wanting to talk about love and loss and fear. Coming-out and going-back in stories. Kids questioning their sexuality and talking about being bullied. Threads lasting days and weeks piecing together fake stories. Notes about the latest late-night drunken hoax calls, from funny to fearful. And reminders to lock the door (security was important), along with arguments about what had been taken from the fridge or left on the floor and who didn’t do the washing up. All of queer life writ large in scrawling handwriting on cheap lined paper.
Queer widowhood in the 1980s
One of the things I learned from going through the archives was the lack of recognition of widowhood from outside of the LGBTQIA+ community, and the lack of targeted support. I believe that this was due, at least in part, to the relative newness of the legalisation of homosexuality (this occurred in 1967), and the myth that same-sex relationships weren’t stable or long term, like heterosexual ones.
As is often true in the LGBTQIA+ community, the support came from within. The Switchboard volunteer and gay rights campaigner Dudley Cave recognised the need for support and created the Lesbian and Gay Bereavement Project in the 1980s. His mentions of the project appear throughout the day books, along with stories of widowhood, anticipatory grief, angry and combative families, rejection and loss of property. There are, however, stories of kindness from employers, clergy, families and friends.
What has changed
As well as being a time for looking back, LGBT+ History Month is a time for examining where we are now and for looking forward.
Sadly, some things haven’t changed between the 1980s and now. I was told on Facebook the other week that there was no such thing as a LGBTQIA+ community, and this was reiterated even after I said that there truly was, and I knew because I was part of it. There are still people who don’t regard same-sex relationships as real relationships (and therefore don’t see same-sex bereaved people as real widows). And there are still widows who have to fight for their rights as bereaved people to plan funerals for their loved ones, stay in properties and access pensions and inheritances. Dudley Cave advised people in same-sex relationships to make wills and name partners as next of kin, and this remains vital for LGBTQIA+ people who are not married or in civil partnerships.
There are things that have truly changed for the better, though. There is greater acceptance than there was in the 1980s. Generally, LGBTQIA+ people are much more able to present as who they are, and walk down the street hand in hand with the people they love, although there are still challenges. Same-sex couples can legally marry or enter into a civil partnership, thanks to years of campaigning, and people across the LGBTQIA+ community are legally protected from discrimination.
Things are better for LGBTQIA+ widows too. There are communities and charities that provide support, building on the work of Dudley Cave. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I have received amazing support from the peer support network WAY Widowed and Young.
The WAY LGBTQIA+ group provided me with a safe space to come out after my husband’s death, and has supported me, and so many others, as we navigate queer widowhood, with its associated challenges.”
The Widows Handbook
Suzanne won the Helen Bailey Award for best blog in 2022 for her the Widows Handbook. You can read more blogs by Suzanne here
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