Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 22, Issue 3, 2019

This article deals with the discriminatory age-of-consent provision for homosexual intercourse in the Dutch Penal Code. Between 1911 and 1971 this age limit was 21 years, while it was – and still is – 16 years for heterosexual intercourse. The withdrawal of this legal provision is one of the landmarks of the sexual revolution that took place in the Netherlands during the 1960s and the 1970s. In this contribution, I will analyse how this political decision came about. How did abolishing this legal provision become a political issue and how did various societal and political actors frame this issue? Which social or political arenas did they pick for this fight and how did the issue reach the formal political agenda? How was a majority for abolishing the article built? I will also analyse how the withdrawal of this discriminatory legal provision cleared the way for the next phases in the relationship between the homosexual movement and the state.

In 1911, Dutch parliament changed and expanded the vice laws of the penal code. The most controversial change was the introduction of art. 248bis Sr., which created a specific age of consent (21) for homosexual contacts, while it remained 16 for heterosexual behaviour. According to Attorney General E.R.H. Regout, homosexuality was spreading rapidly, resulting from the seduction of minors between the age of 16 and 21. Referring to Greek pederasty, he claimed that adult homosexuals preyed almost exclusively on this age group. Once seduced, a minor would become a homosexual himself. Although a memorandum briefly mentioned that the new article would also apply to women, lesbian behaviour was not discussed at all during readings in parliament: originating from his previous role as public prosecutor, boys and young men were the minister’s sole concern.

Most publications about 248bis Sr. are descriptive with a near self-evident focus on its repressive nature. This contribution also recounts the way in which Regout’s proposal was turned into law. Yet, based on a rereading of parliamentary papers, as well as on extensive archival research by the author, it raises questions viz-à-viz Regout’s concern over young males and its relationship to contemporary sexual folk knowledge and prevailing etiologies. Moreover, this article will argue that 248bis, aside from criminalising aspects of homosexual behaviour, also turned a disciplinary eye towards male adolescents at a time when puberty as a cultural construct began to emerge.

As a result of a changing mentality in the 1980s in the Netherlands, the dismissal of workers because of their sexual orientation started to raise public indignation and contributed to the creation of lesbian/gay (later: LGBTI) groups in trade unions. Since then, discriminatory dismissals have become outlawed. These union groups, however, had and still have a broader agenda: inclusiveness in collective labour agreements and improving the social climate at work are major issues. Issues that still need to be studied include discrimination and exclusion mechanisms faced by bisexual and by intersex workers and how unions can stand up against these.

This year’s pride season marked the 50^th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, an event that, while not the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States, should at least be viewed as one of the first major milestones in the movement’s history. In the Netherlands, too, the history of LGBT activism has been commemorated in the recent exhibition ‘With Pride’, organised by IHLIA LGBT Heritage (see the review by Michiel Odijk in this issue). After its first successful run at the Amsterdam Public Library, the exhibition toured the Netherlands and opened in Utrecht during its annual pride festivities on June 3. While praised for its thorough documentation of 40 years of Dutch queer resistance, there was also critique. A number of activists and scholars pointed to a lack of inclusivity and representation, which they argued compromised the exhibition’s validity.

Wigbertson Julian Isenia and Naomie Pieter, founders of Black Queer and Trans Resistance Netherlands (BQTRNL) and Black Queer Archive, represent two of these critical voices and address the structural exclusion of queers of colour in history writing and archival practices in their work. Julian co-edited the previous issue of Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies (vol. 22(2): ‘Sexual Politics Between the Netherlands and the Caribbean: Imperial Entanglements and Archival Desire’) and, together with Gianmaria Colpani, Julian and Naomie organised the roundtable ‘Archiving Queer of Colour Politics in the Netherlands’ (Colpani, Isenia, & Pieter, 2019). In response to the IHLIA exhibition, they proposed an exhibition under the title Nos Tei (Papiamentu/o for ‘We are here’ or ‘We exist’), which is to serve as an addition to the original ‘With Pride’ exhibition and ran independently from 11 July until 4 September 2019. We were very happy that both agreed to an interview for this thematic issue on ‘narratives of LGBT history in the Netherlands’ to discuss their views on archival practices and the exclusion of queer of colour perspectives from mainstream exhibition and archival spaces.