The project of forming, upholding and managing a state, when examined across the history of the world, has always been a long, complicated process, where attention to the specific context of the area is vital. State formation involves compromise, at least, but often also conflict and the systemic suppression of those that resist, or even who just don’t ‘fit in.’ In Scotland, the idea of a Scottish State and resistance to the various forms it has taken seems to occupy a particularly resonant place in the cultural consciousness and memory: from ongoing commemoration of William Wallace and educational attention given to the Jacobite rebellions and the Act of Union (1707) that created the British State, to the multiple 20th century devolution referendums and current Independence campaigns. It seems that the idea of what exactly a Scottish State means has always been a contested one, particularly in the minds of Scots themselves.
Resistance is multifaceted, it can attack on political lines or it can work to change a deeper cultural consciousness and alter the status quo by connecting to the hearts and minds of a state’s people. This kind of resistance can even be argued to be more effective than political activism, as it shifts the tide of popular feeling and provides a sense of community and power to the people which, if it spreads to national and international levels, can seriously shake the governing political, social and economic institutions.
Resistance to the state can take the form of resistance to the specific policies enacted in government. It can also take the form of resistance to the ideas and values that are upheld by that state on the basis that it represents the will of the people.
There are prerequisites for social citizenship within a state: the type of person and the things that you must or must not do to be granted rights, status and humanity under the eyes of the state and its people. When you exclude someone from social citizenship, you exclude them from rights, a sense of humanity and set them apart from the community who is included within citizenship.
Belonging to communities is integral to how we orientate ourselves within the world that we live in and is an important way in which we can find pride and joy in who we are and those around us. On a national level, belonging to the state-wide community is essential in order to be granted freedom and protection under its laws and moral systems. When those who are excluded from social citizenship form their own communities they are able to provide support to each other where laws fail and organise resistance with the aim of altering the political and social culture that excludes them. Much of the focus on Scottish resistance focuses on it’s resistance to English domination. Turning the spotlight onto Scots that are and have been subjugated by the Scottish state itself is an important avenue for a history of resistance to consider.
The long story of the battle for LGBT+ rights in Scotland is an important and ongoing example of resistance to the Scottish state and how community building is a crucial part of resistance.
Up until the late 1980s, Scotland trailed behind England and Wales regarding gay rights, decriminalising homosexuality 13 years after them, in 1980. Just 8 years later, Section 28 of the Local Government Act was pushed into law. It was legislation brought in by Thatcher’s government, a Tory government that ruled Scotland, without being voted for by the Scottish people, for 18 years. The law forbade the “promotion” of homosexuality as “a pretended family relationship” by local authorities. In place between 1988 and 2000, this law is in living memory for the vast majority of Scots and yet speaks a language that the vast majority would find utterly dehumanising today. However, its effects on Scotland were the opposite of what the law intended. It drove the creation of a Scottish queer community where none had existed before. Although there had always been gay people in this land, the national attitude towards homosexuality in a country with strong cultural attachment to the church and heteronormative gender roles had always been an attitude of derision or silence. Gay men were seen as perverse and lesbians were not believed to exist at all.
The work to change these dehumanising views about queer people was undertaken by queer Scots themselves during the final decades of the twentieth century. Section 28 drove them out of the shadows and gave queer men and women the first incentive to work together since previously the law and therefore resistance to it had only recognised the reality and ‘problem’ of gay men. Section 28 attacked gay women too and came at a time when 2nd wave feminism was also taking off. This new community published books, collected oral histories and held events to challenge Section 28; provide access to healthcare information during the ongoing HIV crisis; and - arguably most importantly - grew a sense of community joy and pride among Scottish queer folk. A Gay Highland Games was held in The Meadows in Edinburgh (1994), with contests like stiletto hurling and a ‘two in the sack’ safer-sex sack race combining Scottish and queer cultures as well as raising awareness about HIV and the lack of access to resources for gay people.
Blue Moon Cafe provided a space where political organisations like S.H.R.G. (Scottish Homosexual Rights Group) could plan actions and publish newsletters as well as somewhere ordinary folk could meet for a cuppa. The activism that grew out of a desire to challenge a specific law grew into an activism that challenged the cultural status quo of Scottish society and made space for open queer Scottishness on the country’s streets - Scotland’s first Gay Pride took place in Edinburgh in 1995. Cafes, bookshops and clubs provided organisational places but also safe places where people could learn their histories and discuss their realities. Where people could begin to explore what it meant to be Scottish and queer; to consume art in which they saw themselves represented; and to meet like-minded individuals with whom they could stake their claim to Scotland.
One of the reasons that queer resistance is so important to the history of resistance to the Scottish state is that protests against Section 28 were taking place at the same time as devolution was finally happening. When Scotland won a devolved parliament in 1999, the debate around repealing Section 28 was one of the defining issues of its first year, with queer activists and communities fighting against a massively funded right wing press and Catholic Church that sought to keep the law. However, in the last 2 decades of the 20th century, the new Scottish queer community had managed to normalise their presence and lifestyles within Scottish society enough that the vast majority of ordinary Scots were pro-repeal.
Ultimately, the new Scottish government scrapped Section 28 in June 2000, 2 years before England and Wales. As it began to free itself from the shackles of a Tory and Westminster government, Scotland also began to free itself from age-old prejudices that had maintained that queerness and Scottishness could not coexist. The new Scottish state had been pushed by the people in its infancy to become a more LGBTQ tolerant space. The internal resistance of Scottish LGBT people to change the country’s culture then its laws meant that in 20 years it went from the most anti-gay member of the United Kingdom to its frontrunner in queer rights. In 2015 Scotland was identified as one of the best places in the world to be LGBT+.
The history of Section 28 in Scotland is an excellent example of how the creation of physical and discursive spaces builds communities by bringing together people who would otherwise be separated by a culture and law that seeks to silence them and the parts of their identity considered as alien to the state and culture. These spaces allowed queer Scots to develop a collective sense of self; to realise they weren’t alone. This in turn gave them the power to demand rights and recognition on a national scale.
The echoes of the resistance of the 1980s and 90s can still be heard today. Scotland’s first gay bookshop was established in the period discussed and lives on today as Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh and Lavender Menace Queer Book Archive, which aims to collect and make hard to find or out of print queer books publicly accessible. Books by gay authors Jackie Kay and Ali Smith line the bookshelves of ordinary folk all over the world. Edinburgh Fringe routinely hosts an enormous variety of queer-run shows. Scotland’s vibrant creative culture today would look fundamentally different without the earlier work of its LGBT+ community.
However, the awareness of queerness as something that is still intrinsically political has been watered down by the acceptance of the lesbian and gay parts of the LGBT+ into Scottish society and the rapid co-option of Gay Pride by huge corporations under the global capitalist system. The ongoing fight for transgender rights and the debate about self identification within the Scottish parliament and its parties evidences that the fight has not been won. There are still systems that decide who is and isn’t human and whether certain people are deserving of the same rights as others. The battle for social citizenship and right to care under the Scottish state is still being fought by trans folk and their allies, as well as by refugees, immigrants and people from ethnic minority or lower socio-economic background. Increasing crackdowns on protestors for climate justice and against the coronation of a new king reinforce the need to question how states do or don’t represent the will of the people, and if they can effectively be made to do so. Once again peoples right to exist - to have human dignity, health care and citizenship - are up for debate. Once again community building and mutual aid are integral to people's survival.
Thus, exploration of histories of resistance to the Scottish state are still crucially relevant right now and the history of Section 28 is an important example for posing questions about the acceptance of a state and its power as well as opportunities for resistance in the face of this power. The work undertaken by queer Scots in the face of state sanctions on their lifestyles and a national culture of silence proves that resistance can be creative and productive, not just oppositional. It is possible to create pockets of society that reflect the world as we want it to be, and the creative output of small communities can have enormous effects on the ways in which political states and national identities are constructed and changed over time. This progress is often hard-won and not set in stone - studying histories of oppression and resistance is an important reminder of the way things were not all that long ago; how hard those before us worked to fight for rights we now enjoy; and how we must continue to resist in order to continue growing. We can, and should, look to the communities who are or have been marginalised or made illegal by the state - and seek to understand their histories and realities - for examples on how to survive, resist and thrive.