Equality Act Civil Partnerships etc
Here is my question, I'd be interested to hear from any of you out there, We have made these significant steps towards greater visibility, civil rights etc, - but I'm wondering if we have lost our love of lesbian life. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of lesbian businesses, events, getting together in large numbers and so on. It may be that I'm a doomed throwback to late 1970/early 80s, but compared to the range of options happening in the States and Australia, we seem not to have embraced our new freedoms that much. Please ....tell me I'm deluded.

Re: Equality Act Civil Partnerships etc
I would love to have gone to the events you describe which occurred in the 70s/80s. Unless you are clubbing it is very hard to meet new groups of lesbian women. If you're fortunate enough to live in one of the major cities in the UK it helps but I agree that there are less options for British women than there are for American or Australian women. I know if there was a lesbian bar or coffee house near to where I live I'd be in there all the time.

Hey Virginia - this is obviously a bit of an obsession for me , (I notice I have gone on about this elsewhere, how tedious!) Yeah me too. If you go to Brighton or London how do you get on? Can you find people easily enough to spend time with or are people still in little enclosed sub groups?

On a superficial level I think you can meet people in London and Brighton. I can be quite gregarious depending on the social situation and when I've travelled down to Brighton and chatted to strangers in lesbian bars, they've all been friendly and easy to talk to. Although I've had nice evenings chatting to new people it hasn't ended in exchanging numbers (unless we've been flirting with each other) or deciding to meet up again. London is quite similar. I think, unless you join an organisation or meet other lesbians through existing mates or through work it can be quite tough to develop new friendships with gay women. We just don't have the same choices straight people have when cultivating friendships. I dearly love my straight friends but I am so glad I have at least one lesbian pal I am very close to because I can talk to her about things I really can't with my other mates.

What you describe sounds familiar to me. There must be a lot of dykes who are finding it difficult to build new social networks. I absolutely get your point - re: without organising around an activity etc there is little opportunity to gel on a longer term basis. Without getting too political - I also think have never received funding or resources to help us develop a/our community. I do subscribe to a couple of mags - do you?

I do not subscribe to any magazines. What kind of funding do you feel the lesbian community needs or do you mean the gay community in general and do you think the funding it has received has been utilised well?