Charlton, Beth; (2026) 'I Felt Like I Was Part of Something': Lesbian Space, Social Life and Networks in Late Twentieth Century London. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis is a social and spatial history of lesbian experience in late twentieth century London. It examines the emergence of a rich and expansive social scene that took shape throughout these years. Looking to the space-making practices employed by lesbians throughout these decades, it argues that the capital’s lesbian spaces were, for the most part, characteristically fleeting and mobile. Drawing from the field of lesbian geography, the thesis demonstrates how lesbian spaces were brought into being by the action, performance, movement and feeling of individuals, generating key sites of sociality and contributing to an ever-changing, transient lesbian geography of the city. As lesbian space brought individuals into contact with one another, facilitating the formation of connections and relationships, a complex array of social, support and contact networks emerged. Tracing these connections, I underscore how such networks coursed throughout and beyond the city, intersected and overlapped in space, played a key role in information sharing, and provided consistency and a continued sense of belonging in what was otherwise an unstable social scene. Utilising the ‘lesbian grapevine’ to encapsulate these innumerable networks, I argue, allows us to comprehend the interconnections and interactions between London’s lesbian population, and emphasises a move away from static and singular notions of ‘community’. With lived experience at its core, this thesis draws out the everyday interactions between individuals and space to underscore the ways in which different facets of life impacted and informed one another; social life, home life and political life were, I argue, utterly entwined, each inseparable from and affecting the other. Rather than viewing these realms as isolated and distinct from each other, the thesis draws out the connections between them, produced by the everyday mobilities of individuals moving in, out and between different sites of sociality in the capital.

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