Date: Sat, 26 Nov 1994 22:05:13 +0100 (NFT) From: Bj|rn Skolander FROM DEVIANTS TO SAME-SEX PARENTS - 100 YEARS OF LESBIAN LOVE IN SWEDEN Source: Kom Ut 5/94 Greger Eman On November 18, 1894, nineteen year old Klara Johanson fell into the arms of twentyfive year old Lydia Wahlstroem for the first time. This event was the beginning of passionate romance, that should last for the next four years. The relation between Klara and Lydia marks the first documented evidence in Sweden of a relationship between two women, which did not exclude the sexual dimension. Infatuation among women had been socially accepted in Sweden since the 18th century (the Danish researcher Karin Lu:tzen has described such relations in Denmark in: Hvad Hjertet Begaerer. Kvinders kaerlighed til kvinder 1825-1985. Tiderne Skifter. 1986.), but by living in a sexual relationship Johanson and Wahlstroem passed the bounds of accepted behaviour. They became outsiders and deviants. The history of lesbian identity does not run parallel to gay men's progress. Women were making their own way because their social, financial and ideological reality differed from that of the men. The identity of gay Swedish men is said to have had its break-through in 1907, caused by a number of public scandals. (1907 is also the year when the term homosexuality appears in Swedish newspapers for the first time.) Whereas the female homosexual identity got its break-through not until 1920. The period between 1884-1920 is a period of transition in the history of the modern Swedish lesbian. During this period women's struggle for human rights reached its peak. First of all for their right to vote, but for women who loved other women the solidarity in the women-only-collectives of that period was of equal importance to their personal growth. Between 1920 and 1972 the female homosexual identity did not change remarkably. The consequences of being a deviant, pathological and invisible member of society were the main ingredients of lesbian's lives. The noticeable changes appears to be more quantitative than qualitative. The number of women living in same-sex relations grows. One important event, however, is the biography of the author Karin Boye (1900-1941) published in 1950 by Margit Abenius. This made Karin Boye's homosexuality publicly known, and from now on Boye became an inseparable part of many lesbian's (and gay men's) lives. During this period even other persons and events made way for future changes: Freud, Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Loneliness", the decriminalization of homosexuality in Sweden in 1944, Kinsey, RFSL (The Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights) was founded in 1950, sexliberalism, debate of equality between the sexes, etc. In the early 1970s the women's movement had grown strong again, and we can notice a change of perspective. The homosexual woman becomes a "lesbian". Many lesbians were involved in the women's movement, and feminist ideology was strongly influencing the public discourse of homosexuality. Finally Greger Eman ends his article by describing how the perspective has changed once more from the 1990s, when the role of lesbian feminism has been displaced by the interest in other aspect of lesbian life: such as the butch-femme-debate, lesbian and gay parentage, s/m and other sexual variants. The 90s has become the period of lesbian pluralism. Klare Johanson. 1875-1948. Author and literary critic. Lydia Wahlstroem. 1869-1954. Historian, author and lay preacher. This text was typed by on November 26 1994, in Uppsala - the city where Klara and Lydia fell in love one hundred years ago.