Switchboard - Homophobia, HIV and Hoax Calls - BBC News

3/5/2019 Switchboard: Homophobia, HIV and hoax calls - BBC News
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Switchboard: Homophobia, HIV and hoax calls

By Alice Evans
BBC News
4 March 2019
SWITCHBOARD
Switchboard, the LGBT helpline, took its first call from a tiny office in the basement of
a bookshop in King's Cross on 4 March 1974. To mark the 45th anniversary, people
have been sharing memories of a charity that's helped millions across the world.
Lisa Power used to think of herself as a supporter or ally of the gay community, rather than a
member.
But in 1976 at a march in Lancashire protesting against an employee at a BHS department

store losing his job after coming out as gay, Lisa "accidentally" revealed herself as a loud
and proud lesbian.
"Somebody handed me their placard while they went to the loo… I didn't even see the
photographer from the local paper," she says.
"The next thing I know there's a big photo in the local paper with me carrying a placard saying
'BHS unfair to gays'… oops!"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-46932894 1/23
After that Lisa thought she "might as well" go along with her new identity.
She's been a sharp-tongued LGBT activist ever since.
SWITCHBOARD
JON POUNTNEY
Lisa joined Switchboard in 1979, as the gay liberation movement made waves across the
world.
Although homosexuality was partly decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967, British
culture had not adapted fully to the change.
People continued to face discrimination at home, at work and in public.
After a meeting in a pub between several gay groups across London, Switchboard was set up
to cater for the needs of people who needed information or an understanding ear.
Lisa, who now lives in Cardiff, describes the helpline as being "gay finishing school where you
learned about everything".
Each shift, volunteers answered calls varying wildly in subject matter and tone.
The caller might want to know when certain gay club nights were happening.
Or maybe the call had come from a giggling group of teenagers, squished into a phone box,
having persuaded each other a hoax call would be a laugh.
Or sometimes, the caller would be on the brink of suicide.
The responsibility Lisa had as a listener really hit home while on holiday in Greece with her
girlfriend.
A woman who'd been sitting near her on the beach came up to her to thank her for being the
first person she had ever spoken to about being gay.
"She'd recognised my voice, she remembered my name, and she wanted to tell me what a
difference that year had made," Lisa says.
"That's why we did it."
Lisa, who went on to found the charity Stonewall, adds: "Switchboard gave me the motivation
[to be an activist] because you would come off shift sometimes just feeling utterly bloody
angry at the lives people were being forced to live.
"The unnecessary stultification of people's lives, people who were just too scared to tell
people they were gay."
MARK GATISS/SWITCHBOARD
One of the callers to Switchboard at around this time was a confused 12 or 13-year-old boy
called Mark.
Mark Gatiss wasn't to know he would grow up to be a household name as an actor and writer.
Back then, all he was worried about was that he could not say out loud what he knew in his
heart.
"I knew I was gay," he says. "I just wanted to talk to someone about the actual experience.
"I lived in terror of [coming out]... what I was afraid of was judgement. I couldn't conceive of a
moment in which I would actually say it.
"I was from a very solidly working-class north-eastern background in which such things didn't
happen."
He decided to call Switchboard after seeing a poster with the number on it in the ITV sitcom,
Agony.
After hanging up on the volunteers several times, he eventually said down the line: "Hello, I'm
gay."
"There's a sort of affirmation there," the Doctor Who and Sherlock star says. "There was no-
one else to say it to, except, you know, in the bathroom, in the dark.
"They often say you can probably unburden yourself more to a total stranger than to an old
friend because there's no comeback, there's no judgement," he says.
LSE LIBRARY
ROBERT WORKMAN
In the early days, Switchboard was a small organisation, and volunteers had to adopt
underhand tactics to get the number out to as many people as possible.
Groups of gay activists would sneak into libraries across London and stick the Switchboard
number "into any book they thought a young gay man or lesbian might go to to read," Lisa
says - such as on to pages of the Bible expressing anti-gay sentiments.
But at the start of the 1980s, everything changed.
Scientists began to notice a sinister rise in deaths in previously healthy, young gay men.
The HIV epidemic had reared its ugly head.
WELLCOME COLLECTION
Government-issued information leaflets sent to every household in the UK had Switchboard's

number printed on them - and demand for the helpline soared.
Switchboard became a vital source of information to help people avoid HIV transmission.
But this did not stop the virus from ripping through the gay community, with tragic
consequences.
Looking at a photo taken at a gay pub in Islington in 1984, Lisa says: "It's very poignant as a
shot of the brightest and best of the London lesbian and gay movement, as HIV was only just
beginning to hit us.
"All that sunshine, all those hopes. And a total lottery of who got through."
GREGG BLACHFORD
Diana James describes this era as being "a heartbreaking but also fantastic time to be LGBT".
The 60-year-old, who lives in Cornwall, became Switchboard's first transgender volunteer
when she joined in 1988.
It was the same year Margaret Thatcher's government introduced the hugely controversial
policy, nicknamed Section 28, to stop the "promotion" of homosexuality.
Section 28 backer 'sorry' if people hurt
Protest at 'gay conversion therapy' film
How young people love to hate
Standing inside a tiny office above Housmans bookshop in King's Cross, from where she
used to sit and answer phones, Diana remembers the homophobic prejudice she and her
colleagues would face.
"We used to have a little hole cut in the door so you could see outside to see if there was
anyone waiting for you when you left," she says.
"It was a tough time. There was all sorts of right-wing groups that thought kicking a queer was
a good way to spend an evening after a few beers."
For Diana, the prejudice didn't always come from straight people.
At that time the helpline was called London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (having rebranded
from Gay Switchboard in 1986), and some volunteers felt hostile to the idea of bisexual or
trans people answering the phones - even though many callers identified as bisexual or trans
themselves.
Lisa Power had argued vigorously for Diana's recruitment, and she was only accepted on to
the team because she was a lesbian, not because she was trans.
"There was a lot of protest and a lot of upset. People left [because of me joining]," Diana says.
"This was at a time when trans issues were not understood. Sex and sexuality were still very
much mixed, in not only the average straight person's mind, but those of the gay community
as well.
"But as a dyke, I wanted to help people. And it was also the kudos of being a Switchboard
volunteer - I really wanted to do it," she says.
SWITCHBOARD
Homophobic legislation, right-wing thugs and fear of Aids might feel like ancient history to
young LGBT people today.
But many of the issues of the 1970s and 80s are still prevalent.
Ki Hng, a microscope technician at UCL, believes she helps other volunteers to understand
that many LGBT people still struggle to come out to their families.

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3/5/2019 Switchboard: Homophobia, HIV and hoax calls - BBC News

Home News Sport Weather Shop Reel Travel M

Switchboard: Homophobia, HIV and hoax calls

But in 1976 at a march in Lancashire protesting against an employee at a BHS department

She's been a sharp-tongued LGBT activist ever since.

People continued to face discrimination at home, at work and in public.

Or sometimes, the caller would be on the brink of suicide.

"That's why we did it."

But at the start of the 1980s, everything changed.

The HIV epidemic had reared its ugly head.

Government-issued information leaflets sent to every household in the UK had Switchboard's

Section 28 backer 'sorry' if people hurt

Protest at 'gay conversion therapy' film

How young people love to hate

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