I was considering making my character Anders Pedersen Strøm gay. And then – just like when I was deciding on a lady detective or not and the world went bonkers about a female 007 – there was a mighty palaver about LGBTQ+ as well, and a rather aggressive one, and sorry to say but from their corner. The whole ‘you’re not allowed to write about gays without being one’. So I didn’t. I left the matter open. Strøm’s personal life is not in the books apart from him being on a rowing team.
Now, however, I feel I have to say something. First of all my second cosy Christmas crime story ‘Murder a la Mode’ hint at it, anyway. There are several gay guys in the story and a whole drag cabaret. I sort of more than hint, that Strøm’s assistant detective is leaning that way. Which, I hurry to add, would not have been a problem in any legal way in Copenhagen in the 30s.
I once contemplated the proclivities of Strøm because of a book, the contents of which has been supported by my own research reading vast amount of papers from 1910 and a rather large pile of police files.
Not too bad
From the book you’ll know that gay life in Copenhagen wasn’t too bad. Maybe not quite as stellar as in Berlin, but pretty safe. Certainly in relation to the police. Yes, there were conservative and especially religious groups going on about sins and the bible and ‘unnatural goings on’ demanding raids like in other places around the world, but they didn’t have any more luck than the ones trying to get contraception banned in Denmark. It never was. You could use, make, buy, advice about etc. about contraceptive products and methods; only advertising had to be circumspect because of public decency.
We did however have the – I’d almost call it the obligatory – bible derived paragraph in law about ‘against nature’ in relation to people’s sexuality. Only the police weren’t happy about wasting police time on that subject. So they didn’t. And I mean, they really, really didn’t. As in getting rather creative in avoiding it. Supported by the courts, I might add.
The park or the palace
There were places you could go, places you could stay, places you could pick up company as a gay man and everyone knew where. A woman once complained about what she had seen at the Ørsted park at night, and was asked what business she had there after dark – she hadn’t even got a dog to walk, had she? And she was told to just not go after dark or at least stay on the paths and not look behind the bushes. This park is still famed for its ‘business’.
I have one murderer, who might or might not have been gay. He certainly worked as a male prostitute for male clients, but it was never established if he was actually gay or not. He was investigated, prosecuted etc. for murder, but his sexuality was never part of the legal bit. It was a murder case and stayed that way. Even in the papers. His ‘work’ was mentioned, like where he picked up his customers – a very popular entertainment venue known for it – because his lookout was probably one of them and they’d probably met there. It just wasn’t a big deal. He was a pretty boy and didn’t fit people’s imagination of a killer, but…
Not against nature at all
Early 1900s there was a surge of interest in homosexuality all around the world, and of course, police and courts in Denmark knew they had to deal with the matter. First of all they had to decide on what homosexuality actually was. Doctors – the leading forensic expert at the time, who was also a psychiatrist, police and judges got together to define what that actually meant. And they decided, that homosexuality was a variation in the nervous system; that you were born that way, that there was no treatment, and that homosexuals were perfectly normal in every way except for the gender of their love interest. Everything the same – even they way they fell in love etc. just like everyone else but for the same sex bit. And thus police, doctors and court concluded – and this is the really good bit – that to a homosexual person, falling in love and acting it out with a same sex person was perfectly normal and in accordance with their nature. De facto making the ‘against nature’ law null and void. Acting like a homosexual was perfectly normal and thus perfectly natural for a person born homosexual. End of.
The chief of police in Copenhagen, whom some have described as old fashioned, is quoted in a paper for saying, that what people got up to in their own private bedrooms was absolutely not police business, and they had quite enough to do fighting crime. Which they were actually good at. In 1910 all murders were solved.
There were very few court cases. Of course not totally unavoidable, but what I have found included other things like violence, minors or blackmail. No raids. No appalling attempts at ‘curing’.
Of course there were private people and gangs wanting to beat up gay guys. A police officer wrote in his memoirs of an incident where he encountered such a gang chasing a guy, who’s jacket got stuck on a fence. He helped him over the fence and later charged the gang with violence. He recognised them.
Well, they did their research
In 1911 a provincial paper wrote (in my translation): ‘In Berlin homosexuality thrives in a way beyond description…’ then about other countries with much better jurisdiction, going on to describe Danish law mentioning ‘the §117 against nature which is supposed to carry time in the workhouse’, and that ‘homosexual depravity is always punished if money is involved. But… if agreed between adults, general practice is, that it is not punished.‘ Then there is a reference to a current case with young people and a rant about homosexuals gathering ‘at certain places in Copenhagen where homosexuals can meet without risk.’ The writer – and probably the paper, being one with a lot of missionary ads, is really not happy, but does confirm, that gay life in Copenhagen in 1911 was free from prosecution (unless involving minors, force, violence or money), though not quite on par with Berlin.
The scandals
There was a sort of scandal. The poor sods at the Royal Life Guards Hussars barracks at Rosenborg didn’t make much money but were thought of as rather sexy (fetching uniforms and all that) so a lot of them had an extra income as…. eh… companions. Well, escorts really. For both sexes. Very embarrassing. Them being hussars that is.
And there was the scandal of alleged homosexuality of a royal prince, but only because of the very special lady detective who did the investigation into his private life on behalf of a conservative, Christian paper. Who ended up in serious trouble ‘offending the king’. Didn’t seem like anyone else cared much. It just wasn’t an issue. Danes are not easily worked up about anything, but we do like a good laugh. There certainly were giggles when the paper’s editor, the reverend Matthiesen, ended up in the supreme court and got 3 months for offending the royal family and insulting the king by spying on them. There were even reports of amusement in court.
The law
The paragraph about ‘against nature’ disappeared from the law formally in 1919 (in reality from 1916) and in practice a lot earlier. A law from 1912 de facto legalises the act if consenting adults.
This means that in the time of the Lendorph & la Cour series, homosexuality is not legal by letter but it is by practice, and at the time of the Merkantia Mysteries series (early 30s), it is legal by both letter and practice. Of course this doesn’t mean that everybody thought it ok. You can find vitriolic letters to the editor, violence etc. through the decades. But I think it was much harder being gay in the 50s when American ideas, not least bigotry, had been introduced to Europe after the war.
In 1989 ‘gay marriage’ (called ‘registered partnership’ at the time) was introduced. I still remember watching telly – the massive crowd at the Copenhagen town hall square cheering the first couple out – two old guys having waited some 40 years for that. Everyone in tears. Me too.
No, this is not a gay guy in court. This is the reverend Mathiesen receiving a 3 months sentence for having a private investigator spying on a royal prince in his anti-homo campaign in his Christian paper. (Drawing by Carl Bang, 1911)