Panopticon in the Urinal? the Stockholm homo-sex Commission C. 1950–1965

ABSTRACT

This article examines the records of the so-called homo-sex commission—a part of the municipal Stockholm police force dedicated to the policing of male same-sex practices—as a case study of the role of policing in shaping historical understandings of homosexuality. Building on a series of documents left by the commission and high-ranking police officers, from memoranda describing the nature of homosexuality to descriptive records of individual suspects and cruising sites, I argue that anti-homosexual policing in Stockholm served three key functions: producing knowledge about homosexual identities and practices, rendering the homosexual population and social spaces visible, and regulating the perceived homosexual use of the urban landscape. While historians have carried out important work on the policing of homosexuality in Anglo-American cities, issues pertaining to other national contexts remain largely unexplored in an international setting. Thus, this article is an effort to bridge geographic gaps in the international historiography of sexuality. It is also an effort to enrich the history of sexuality with a theoretical framework from governmentality studies, examining how sexual categories are produced, made legible and thus becomes possible objects of regulation and management.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban space
• homosexuality
• policing
• surveillance
• Governmentality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003), 1–12; Margo Huxley, “Space and Government: Governmentality and Geography”, Geography Compass 2, no. 5 (2008).

2. Matt Houlbrook, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); David S. Churchill, “Mother Goose’s Map: Tabloid Geographies and Gay Male Experience in 1950s Toronto”, Journal of Urban History 30, no. 6 (2004); Anna Lvovsky, “Cruising in Plain View: Clandestine Surveillance and the Unique Insights of Anti-homosexual Policing”, Journal of Urban History 46, no. 5 (2020).

3. Julie Abraham, Metropolitan Lovers: The Homosexuality of Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009); Robert Aldrich, “Homosexuality and the City: An historical Overview”, Urban Studies 41, no. 9 (2004); George Chauncey, Gay New York: The Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (London: Flamingo, 1995); Houlbrook, Queer London; Phil Hubbard, “Queering the City: Homosociality and Homosexuality in the Modern Metropolis”, Journal of Urban History 33, no. 2 (2007).

4. Houlbrook, Queer London.

5. Phil Hubbard, Cities and Sexualities (London: Routledge, 2011), 11–29.

6. Wannes Dupont, “The Two-Faced Fifties: Homosexuality and Penal Policy in the International Forensic Community, 1945–1965”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 28, no. 3 (2019); David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

7. Gert Hekma, “Queer Amsterdam 1945–2010”, in Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe Since 1945, eds. Matt Cook and Jennifer V. Evans (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Frank Mort, “Mapping Sexual London: The Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution 1954–57”, New Formations: Sexual Geographies 37, no. 1 (1999); Peter Edelberg, “The Long Sexual Revolution: The Police and the New Gay Man”, in Sexual Revolutions, eds. Gert Hekma and Alain Giami (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

8. Dupont, “Two-Faced Fifties”, 361.

9. See, for example, Jens Rydström, “Sweden 1864–1978: Beasts and beauties”, in Criminally Queer: Homosexuality and Criminal law in Scandinavia, 1842–1999, eds. Jens Rydström and Kati Mustola (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007). There are important exceptions that have written about anti-homosexual policing in Stockholm during the 1950s, albeit in swedish, Cf. Göran Söderström, “’Homofiljakten’ i Stockholm på 1950-talet”, in Sympatiens Hemlighetsfulla Makt: Stockholms Homosexuella 1860–1960, ed. Göran Söderström (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 1999); Stig-Åke Petersson, Bara Bögförtrycket Blomstrade: Samhällets Åtgärder mot den s.k. Kriminella Homosexualiteten i Stockholm under 1950-talet (Stockholm: Rosa Rummet, 1983).

10. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 an Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin, 1990).

11. See, for instance, Houlbrook, Queer London; Rydström, Sinners and Citizens.

12. Michel Foucualt, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 87–123.

13. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 12.

14. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 66.

15. These analytical categories originate from the field of governmentality studies. Stephen Legg, “Foucault’s Population Geographies: Classifications, Biopolitics and Governmental Spaces”, Population, Space and Place 11, no. 3 (May/June 2005); Stephen Legg, Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007); Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: SAGE Publishing, 2010); Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

16. The commission was a three-man team consisting of one senior criminal detective and two criminal detectives and was part of the vice section of the plainclothes detective branch of the Stockholm city police force.

17. In total, 4,028 individuals were interrogated as suspected of criminal homosexuality in Stockholm between 1943 and 1964 (Attachment 1, case number 1034/1964 (hereafter 1034/1964), Box 1437 (hereafter 1437), Akter i avgjorda mål (hereafter F1), Justitieombudsmannen 1810–1990 (hereafter 01), Riksdagens ombudsmän och revisorer 1809 (hereafter 623), The Swedish National Archives (hereafter RA).

18. Houlbrook, Queer London, 5–8; Jennifer V. Evans, “Banhof Boys: Policing Male prostitution in post-nazi Berlin”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 12, no. 4 (2003); Jens Rydström, Sinners and Citizens: Bestiality and Homosexuality in Sweden, 1880–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 18–22.

19. Houlbrook, Queer London, 5–6.

20. Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).

21. Rydström, “Sweden 1864–1978”, 183–187.

22. Arne Nilsson, “Creating Their Own Private and Public: The Male Homosexual Life Space in a Nordic city During High Modernity”, Journal of Homosexuality 35, no. 3–4 (1998). Cf. Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade [electronic resource], 105; Houlbrook, Queer London, 167–194.

23. Rydström, “Sweden 1864–1978”, 183–187, 200–207.

24. Arne Nilsson, Såna och Riktiga Karlar: Om Manlig Homosexualitet i Göteborg Decennierna kring Andra Världskriget (Göteborg: Anamma, 1998), 206–227; Rydström, “Sweden 1864–1978”, 200–207; Jens Rydström and David Tjeder, Kvinnor, Män och Alla Andra: En Svensk Genushistoria (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2021), 216–219; Göran Söderström, “Homosexuella i Vardagslivet”, in Sympatiens Hemlighetsfulla Makt: Stockholms Homosexuella 1860–1960, ed. Göran Söderström (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 1999).

25. Birger Sjödén, “Den homosexuella prostitutionen”, Dagens nyheter (hereafter DN), 8 March 1950, 6.

26. Johan Hagander served as Governor 1949–1963.

27. Excerpts from the protocol, 4 July 1950, Box 1456, Handlingar till huvuddiariet (hereafter E2), Kommunstyrelsen Stadskansliet 1920–2000 (hereafter 0566B), Stockholm City Archive (hereafter SSA); Excerpt from the protocol, 22 June 1950, Box 106, Handlingar till polismästarens diarier (hereafter F2A), Stockholms polismästares expedition (hereafter 0067B), SSA; Letter to the police commissioner, 22 June 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Memorandum by Hj. Mehr, 22 November 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

28. Memorandum by Hj. Mehr, 22 November 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

29. Memorandum by Hj. Mehr, 22 November 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

30. Nikolas Rose, “Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies”, in Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government, eds. Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne and Nikolas Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 44.

31. Rose, “Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies”, 44–45.

32. Dean, Governmentality, 32–33, 42–43; Stefan Vogler, Sorting Sexualities: Expertise and the Politics of Legal Classification (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021) 10–12, 196–199.

33. Cf. Anna Lvovsky, Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2021); Lvovsky, “Cruising in Plain View”.

34. Memorandum by director Otto Wangson, 6 September 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

35. Letter to the police commissioner, 5 August 1950, vol. B:III:b 1950, Detective branch (hereafter Krim.), Archive of the Stockholm Police Authority (hereafter PSA); Memorandum to detective chief inspector Larsson, 17 July 1951, vol. B:III:b 1951, Krim., PSA.

36. Memorandum by detective chief inspector Larsson, 30 August 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

37. Memorandum to detective chief inspector Larsson, 17 July 1951, vol. B:III:b 1951, Krim., PSA.

38. Memorandum to the police commissioner, 16 March 1953, vol. B:III:b 1953, Krim., PSA.

39. Memorandum to the detective chief superintendent, 4 November 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

40. Cf. Lvovsky, “Cruising in Plain View”.

41. Memorandum to detective chief inspector Larsson, 17 July 1951, vol. B:III:b 1951, Krim., PSA.

42. Letter to the police commissioner, 30 June 1961, vol. B:III:b 1961, Krim., PSA.

43. Michael P. Brown, Closet Space: Geographies of Metaphor from the Body to the Globe (Milton Park: Taylor & Francis 2000), 92–96; Joyce, Rule of Freedom, 24–34; Rose, Powers of Freedom, 200–215.

44. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 34–37.

45. Joyce, Rule of Freedom, 35–56; James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press), 53–63.

46. Leslie Moran and Derek McGhee, “Perverting London: The cartographic practices of law”, Law & Critique 9 (1998); Mort, “Mapping Sexual London”.

47. Excerpt from the protocol, 22 June 1950, Box 106, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

48. See Table One.

49. Excerpt from the protocol, 27 January 1954, Box 156, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

50. Excerpt from the protocol, 5 December 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Memorandum, 22 November 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

51. Memorandum to the police commissioner, 5 August 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

52. Memorandum by Hj Mehr, 22 November 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Memorandum, 15 June 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

53. Letter to the police commissioner, 4 April 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Letter to the police commissioner, 20 July 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

54. Memorandum with a proposition of regulation regarding the register of certain homosexuals within the detective branch, 21 March 1951, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Letter to the police commissioner, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

55. Excerpt from the protocol, 29 September 1951, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

56. Excerpt from the protocol, 14 November 1951, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

57. Memorandum to the detective chief superintendent, 29 July 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Proposed order, 4 September 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

58. Memorandum to the, 29 July 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Proposed order, 4 September 1950, Box 108, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

59. Report, 5 July 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA; File appendix 13, 15 February 1949, vol. B:III:b 1949, Krim., PSA.

60. File appendix 13, 15 February 1949, vol. B:III:b 1949, Krim., PSA.

61. Request to all police districts, 20 July 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

62. Memorandum from assessor Hawor, 5 September 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Memorandum, 15 November 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

63. List of cafes where notable conditions have been observed, 21 June 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

64. Report of “special assignment”, 7 December 1949, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

65. Memorandum to detective chief superintendent, 17 July 1951, vol. B:III:b 1951, Krim., PSA.

66. Memorandum regarding observations made during surveillance, 17 July 1951, vol. B:III:b 1951, Krim., PSA.

67. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 200–209.

68. Legg, Spaces of Colonialism, 12; Rose, Powers of Freedom, 51–55.

69. Michael Brown, “2008 Urban Geography Plenary Lecture: Public Health as Urban Politics, Urban Geography: Venereal Biopower in Seattle, 1943–1983”, Urban Geography 30, no. 1 (2009).

70. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), 170–230.

71. File appendix 13, 15 February 1949, vol. B:III:b 1949, Krim., PSA; Report, 5 July 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA; Letters from the police commissioner, 14 January 1954, Box 41, B1C, 0067B, SSA.

72. Memorandum, 15 June 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

73. Memorandum, 15 November 1950, Box 107, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

74. Memorandum, 22 November 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Memorandum, 15 June 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Letter from the police board, 26 June 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Excerpt from protocol of the municipal finance board, 18 September 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA; Memorandum by Hj. Mehr, 22 November 1951, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

75. Torsten Nothin served as Governor 1933–1949.

76. Letter to the police commissioner, 20 March 1944, Box 56, F2A, 0067B, SSA.

77. Letter to the police commissioner, 8 December 1964, vol. B:III:b 1964, Krim., PSA; Memorandum by detective chief inspector Larsson, 30 August 1950, Box 1456, E2, 0566B, SSA.

78. Attachment 1, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Letter to the police commissioner from the superintendent of the public order police, 25 November 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

79. Cf. Söderström, “Homosexuella i Vardagslivet”, 504–506; Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966), 215–219.

80. A-order, 27 May 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

81. Attachment 1, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Letter to the police commissioner from the superintendent of the public order police, 25 November 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

82. Complaint, 6 September 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Attachment 1, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

83. Complaint, 6 September 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Letter to the police commissioner from the superintendent of the public order police, 25 November 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

84. Complaint, 6 September 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Attachment 1, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA; Attachment 4, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

85. Attachment 7, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

86. List of the files and registers that should be kept at the investigative branch 19 January 1965, 1965, vol. B:III:b 1965, Krim., PSA; Decision, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

87. Complaint, 6 September 1964, 1034/1964, 1437, F1, 01, 623, RA.

88. “Kamp mot pojkotukten”, DN, 6 December 1950, 1, 32; “Polisregister för misstänkt homosexuell”, DN, 15 May 1951, 1, 35.

89. Cf. Wayne A. Logan, Knowledge as Power: Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws in America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 136–141.

90. Cf. Issa Kohler-Hausmann, Misdemeanorland: Criminal Courts and Social Control in an Age of Broken Window Policing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 256–268.

91. Cf. Steven Maynard, “Through a Hole in the Lavatory Wall: Homosexual Subcultures, Police Surveillance, and the Dialecticts of Discovery, Toronto, 1890–1930, Journal of the History of Sexuality 5, no. 2 (Oct. 1994), 239–242.

92. Peter Edelberg, Storbyen Trækker: Homoseksualitet, Prostitution og Pornografi i Danmark 1945–1976 (Copenhagen: Djøf Forlag, 2012), 201–239. See also Lvovsky, “Cruising in Plain View”, 994.

93. Cf. Legg, Spaces of Colonialism, 2–19.

94. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 31.

95. Cf. Edelberg, Storbyen Trækker, 232–239; Lvovsky, “Cruising in Plain View”, 994.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [grant no. 2018-01161].

Notes on contributors

Andrés Brink Pinto

Andrés Brink Pinto is an Associate Professor (docent) in History at Lund University. His research deals with the urban, with a focus on the regulation and use of urban space. Currently he is working on a project about the policing of homosexuality in Stockholm 1944–1968. Among his latest publications are “Youth Riots and the concept of Contentious Politics in historical research”, Scandinavian Journal of History 44:1 (2019), with Martin Ericsson, and “Public toilets for women: how female municipal councillors expanded the right to the city in Sweden, c. 1910–1925”, Women’s History Review (published online ahead of print), with Malin Arvidsson.