Special Issue Editorial: Nordic LGBTQ Histories

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in Nordic LGBTQ histories, both in and outside academia. In Nordic media, political institutions, and civil societies, narratives about lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and queer people’s historical experiences circulate each year during the Pride weeks that take place throughout the region. For the most part, these narratives tell a celebratory story about grand historical transformations from social stigmatization to citizen inclusion. The Nordic countries’ world leading role in introducing lesbian and gay registered partnerships in the late 1980s and early 1990s plays a prominent role in these narratives. Alongside later citizen rights for LGBTQ people, such as rights to marriage, adoption, assisted reproduction, and legal sex change, the early introduction of registered partnerships supports a widely held image of the Nordic countries as progressive and liberal welfare states. In line with this image, supporting sexual and gender minorities’ social equality has further become a hallmark of what it means to be a citizen in the Nordic countries, at least within most constituencies. The idea regularly surfaces in contemporary discussions about integration policies, especially in relation to the social status of Muslim immigrants and minority cultures (Kehl, 2018; Nyegaard, 2021; Petersen, 2013). Nordic book markets show a growing interest in LGBTQ histories. In the last couple of years, several publishing houses have reprinted older novels and literary texts with LGBTQ themes. For instance, in Denmark, the publishing house Ti Vilde Heste has reprinted an early lesbian novel from 1883, Nina by Otto Martin Møller (2021), and Escho recently reprinted a scandalous erotic lesbian novel, Kan Mænd undværes? (Carell, 2021) [Can One Do without Men?], originally published in 1921. More publications are on the way (e.g., Petersen, 2022). The interest has also resulted in an increasing number of activist publications that tell Nordic LGBTQ histories. Recent examples of well-received publications are Lars Henriksen and Chantal Al-Arab’s book Bøssernes Danmarkshistorie 1900–2020 [Gay Men’s History of Denmark 1900–2020] (Henriksen & Al-Arab, 2021), published in 2021, and Swedish Jonas Gardell’s book Ett lyckligare år (Gardell, 2021) [A Happier Year], also from 2021. Both books recount histories of male gay intimacy and love over the course of the twentieth century. In addition, several new lesbian and gay autobiographies have appeared. In 2020, Kristian Tofte Petersen and Ole Kongsdal Jensen published a joint memoir about their lives in the 1970s’ Danish Gay Liberation Front (Petersen og Kongsdal Jensen 2020). In 2022, the activist Vibeke Vasbo finished her memoirs about the Danish Women’s Liberation Movement and the Lesbian Movement (Vasbo, 2022). Last year, the prominent gay historian Arne Nilsson published a second volume of his memoirs about growing up and living as a gay man in Sweden during the last half of the twentieth century. The title of Nilsson’s memoir was Bög på klassresa (Nilsson, 2021) [A Gay Social Climber]. It succeeded a first volume from 2016 (Nilsson, 2016). All these examples reflect not only a growing public interest in Nordic LGBTQ histories, but also a willingness on the part of publishing houses to print publications about the topic. Studies of LGBTQ histories are furthermore on the rise within Nordic universities. In the academic world, historical studies of sexual and gender minorities often assumed a marginal position, driven by the efforts of individual researchers while receiving relatively little recognition and financial support. In the last couple of years, however, Nordic research councils and private funds have begun to support several large research projects. Among these is NordiQueer: A Nordic Queer Revolution that conducts a comparative examination of Nordic LGBTQI activism from 1948 NORA—NORDIC JOURNAL OF FEMINIST AND GENDER RESEARCH 2022, VOL. 30, NO. 3, 167–179 https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2022.2104022