"Kampen för homosexuellas rättigheter har förts på många sätt genom historien. I Malmö, liksom på andra platser, lades grunden till en mer synlig och långsiktig homoaktivism under 1970-talet. Efter sextiotalets (hetero-)sexuella frihetskamp och innan HIV-aktivismen tog vid på åttiotalet växte en rörelse för homosexuellas rättigheter fram som skulle komma att göra stora avtryck på den politiska arenan. I den här texten undersöker jag hur denna tidsanda
tog sig uttryck i Malmö genom att följa en grupp aktivisters arbete. Hur arbetade de? På vilka sätt stöttade de varandra och hur agerade de vid attacker och motgångar? Vilket arv lämnade de efter sig?
Jag har sammanställt en översiktlig bild av hur aktivismen såg ut genom att ta del av skriftliga källor i RFSL Malmös föreningsarkiv och tidigare forskning. En intervju med Pia Lamberth, aktivist i gruppen under sjuttiotalet, kompletterar bilden ytterligare. Jag presenterar först verksamheten och sedan fokuserar jag på socialt stöd och agerandet vid homofoba attacker. Avslutningsvis behandlar jag på vilka sätt detta arbete lade grunden för åttiotalets HIV-aktivism."
"This essay deals with the early trans movement in Sweden, which started in the sixties. Through the personal archive of Eva-Lisa Bengtson, activist and co-founder, it presents the groups Transvestia and FPE-NE (Full personality Expression, Northern Europe) as the first organisations to be started by and for any gender non-conforming people in Sweden. Their primary target group were heterosexual, male transvestites which means most of their members at times dressed as, acted as and in other ways personified women. The primary focus is to analyse how these transvestites viewed themselves and their gender non-conforming identities and practices.
Using the heterosexual matrix from queer studies but also acknowledging the primacy of lived and embodied experiences in the tradition of trans studies, this essay aims to capture what it could mean to be a transvestite during the sixties in Sweden. While there are some simple definitions, a closer examination shows that there were a multitude of ways to look at and practise transvestism. Looking at how the transvestites distanced themselves from transsexuals, homosexuals and men dressing in women clothing for sexual pleasure will show a large variety in interpretations, inclusions, and exclusions. The analysis of these areas of uncertainty will also discuss why these processes were important to the transvestites in relation to the surrounding society. This will be examined through contextualising in three arenas: the public debate on sex, gender and sexual freedom, the medical society, and the impact of contacts with the community of American transvestites surrounding the magazine Transvestia and its founder, Virginia Prince."
"The Swedish law for gender assignment in certain cases (Lag (1972:119) om fastställande av könstillhörighet i vissa fall) was adopted in 1972 to regulate the gender confirmation treatment and legal sex reassignment of intersex and transsexual persons. This essay aims to illuminate the coproduction between science and society that made the law as well as its accompanying institutions and regulations possible. With queer theory and the performativity of gender as a framework, the analysis focuses on the limits of normality and the handling of abnormally sexed bodies. The conclusion is that while the coproduction was a continuous process where power was produced through knowledge and concentrated in an institution, it also represented a recognition of intersex and transsexual persons that made them more legible than they had been before."
