Changing Our Lives

Changing Our Lives takes as its starting-point the 1970s, when the dawn of Women's Liberation allowed many women to express and politicize their lesbianism for the first time. The lesbian feminist politics of that era provided a natural home for many of the women interviewed in this book, such as Sheila Jeffreys, whilst others, including Jill Posener, tell how they felt damaged by its prescriptive definitions of lesbianism. The 1980s brought sweeping social and political changes - among them Clause 28 and the AIDS crisis - which for many women provided the catalyst to political action of a different kind, and a re-assessment of their personal perspectives, particularly in respect to working with gay men. The new queer politics of the 1990s and the rising profile of groups like the Lesbian Avengers represent a new era in lesbian politics. Different perspectives are expressed in the book on the radical tactics of queer and on its commitment to unite people of all genders and sexualities. Changing Our Lives is structured around interviews with a diverse group of women from the UK and overseas. They discuss their experiences of coming out, relationships, race, class, political campaigns and actions and a range of other issues.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of LGBTQ+, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.