The Legacies of the Stonewall Riots in Denmark and the Netherlands

This article concerns the legacies of the June 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, and of the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day march held on the first anniversary, and their effects on the lives of LGBT þ people in Denmark and the Netherlands. Though it focuses on the education and activism that Stonewall sparked in its first twenty-five years, the article also considers the legacies of Stonewall today. Although both countries had decades of homo-sexual organization and years of homosexual visibility ‘before Stonewall’, this article argues that in Denmark and the Netherlands Stonewall left two new legacies. The first relates to activists’ transnational orientation: Stonewall was a teachable moment in activist circles and catalyzed a ‘transnational conscious-ness’ or ‘solidarity’ not only between European and US American activists, but (in theory) among LGBT þ activists across the globe. The second legacy is perhaps more obvious: the 1970 anniversary march inspired what would come to be the most visible public demonstrations for LGBT þ identities and rights in Denmark and the Netherlands – the ‘Pride Parade’ – in which LGBT þ people have been encouraged to display their sexual orientation and gender identity openly by parading (on foot, on wheels, or – in Amsterdam – afloat) through a public setting in order to promote societal acceptance. This article provides an analysis of articles mentioning Stonewall in Danish and Dutch periodicals aimed primarily at gay men and lesbians (and, since the 1990s, at LGBT þ s) during the twenty-five years after Stonewall (1969–94). In Denmark, these periodicals are mainly those associated with the ‘Association of 1948’ or F1948 – founded in 1948, renamed from 1985

homosexual organizations in the pre-Stonewall years (1950s-60s).Earlier still, radical German institutions like Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (1897-1933) and the Institute for Sexual Science (1919-33), both Berlin-based, had prompted interwar sexual-rights organization in the Netherlands, and a network in Denmark.Though in Germany the Nazis destroyed these institutions and networks, in occupied Denmark and the Netherlands homosexual groups and activists were able to survive underground.Europe's first two postwar homophile organizations emerged in Denmark and the Netherlands, while the Netherlands also hosted the International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE, 1951-8), a revival of Hirschfeld's prewar movement. 3hereas in the 1950s homosexual acts were still illegal in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Finland, and Australiajust to name a few countries in the 'West' -this was not the case in Denmark or the Netherlands (nor Sweden), although social obstacles hindered many from engaging with homosexual organizations and uneven age-of-consent laws, along with loosely defined prostitution laws, meant that police still harassed gay men for sex with adult 'minors'. 4Nevertheless, Denmark and the Netherlands were uniquely poised to lead transnational conversations about homosexual rights in the postwar moment.
In the 1950s-60s, the newsletters of the COC and F1948 had a global awareness: these periodicals always included updates on homo and transsexual-related news stories across Europe, North America, Australia and sometimes beyond; they periodically published English and German invitations to drop into their meeting spaces, as well as English and German versions of their articles; and they often included contact advertisements from those wishing to correspond with or visit activists (and other readers) in Denmark and the Netherlands.
In Danish and Dutch mainstream media homosexuality was already visible in the years before Stonewall.COC chair Benno Premsela came out on Dutch television in 1964. 5In Denmark in January 1965, Martin Elmereditor of the independent gay journal Vennen -challenged the leader of the Scouts about the 1961 'prostitution law' that targeted homosexuals who had sex with 'minors' under twenty-one; their debate was published in the Sunday edition of a major Danish newspaper, Aktuelt. 6The harnessing of media interest in homosexual rights -something typically associated with the post-Stonewall era -occurred exceptionally early in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Six months before Stonewall, in January 1969, the Federation of Student Work-Groups on Homosexuality in the Netherlands organized the first Dutch demonstration for gay rights in protest against the age-of-consent law (which among other things, hindered anyone under twenty-one from participating in gay/lesbian organizations or venues). 7Thus Stonewall's part in stimulating transnational solidarity or in making 'gay liberation' activism visible should not be overstated.

STONEWALL AS CATALYST FOR TRANSNATIONAL
SOLIDARITY Nevertheless Stonewall did accelerate transnational solidarity in the 1970s, and -in tandem with Danish and Dutch education about the 'Gay Liberation Front' (founded New York City 1969) -contributed to the radicalization of Danish and Dutch activism in the 1970s.In Denmark, Stonewall's influence came quickly -already in 1971 -and solidarity was expressed in the names that activists chose for new groups: a 'Christopher Street Group' was formed within F1948 to plan late-June solidarity demonstrations, beginning in 1971; and that same year, a Danish 'Gay Liberation Front' split off from the dominant F1948, its headquarters in the hippie 'free city' of Christiania (also established 1971).In the Netherlands, the impact of Stonewall came later (most notably in 1977), but also with a clear reference to transnational solidarity.
References to Stonewall in F1948 and the COC periodicals initially informed readers about what had happened.Stonewall was thus a 'teachable moment': readers needed to know the sequence of events (but not any specific names) that were so central to the new US American movement.In 1971, for example, the COC published two pieces (in Dutch) related to Stonewall and GLF: one was a bullet-point summary of Newsweek's 'The militant homosexual' (23 August 1971) with some critique of its moralizing tendencies; 8 the other was a lengthier retelling of the 'Stonewall incident' ('It was 2 o'clock in the morning, 28 June 1969. ..') with some discussion of concurrent movements for African-American and women's liberation. 9nformative articles recurred throughout the 1970s often with similar narratives and phrases. 10In 1979, Danish activist and historian Wilhelm von Rosen translated the first chapter of Donn Teal's The Gay Militants (1971) as the leading story for Pan. 11That same year, the COC had an issue devoted to '10 Years Since Stonewall' with extensive summaries of both US and Dutch activism in and since 1969 (Fig. 1). 12However, Danish and Dutch activists did not explicitly link the events in New York City to the situation of homosexuals in Denmark or the Netherlands. 13In other words, Stonewall often stood on its own as a US American event.
Nevertheless, interest in this moment continued in the 1980s-90s, evidenced by screenings of the 1984 documentary Before Stonewall: the Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community in both Denmark 14 and the Netherlands, 15 reviews of American gay history books, and continued attention to New York City activities (such as Pride) in their periodicals. 16By educating readers about Stonewall the editors promoted feelings of solidarity with activists worldwide (as they had also done in previous decades with for example the publication of the Wolfenden Report).
Stonewall served as a rallying point for a 'transnational consciousness' in the 1970s.The term 'transnational' was not yet current; but left-wing activists frequently referred to consciousness in relation to an individual's self-realization as a sexual-political subject.As Denmark's Christopher Street Group summarized in 1979: 10 years ago there was a change in gays' and lesbians' relationship with and consciousness about themselves and society. . .Homosexuals come from all layers of society and. . .consciousness-raising takes place at many levels.Therefore, the Christopher Street Group has decided that the activities this year will give emphasis to the consciousnessdevelopment that has taken place since 1969. 17onewall encouraged consciousness-raising about the homosexual's identity and position in society; implicitly, this consciousness cut across all societies where homosexuals organized and thus had a 'universal' element.Ten years after the riots, Stonewall -as a teachable moment -had accelerated Danish homosexuals' feelings of belonging to a transnational, if not global, sexualpolitical identity and movement.
In Denmark, the 'Gay Liberation Front' did not use an English name, but rather translated the US group's name verbatim into Danish: Bøssernes Befrielses Front.Importantly, this translation reclaimed the derogatory term 'bøsse' to mean 'gay', rather than 'homosexual' or 'homophile', more commonly used by F1948. 18Drawing from the lessons of Stonewall, the Danish BBF sought to bring attention to police harassment of homosexuals.However, the Danish police (unlike those in New York) had tolerated homosexual meeting-places and dance parties since the 1950s, as long as they occurred behind closed doors.So to provoke them BBF held 'dance-ins' in non-homosexual spaces (which eventually changed the legal interpretation of 'public disorder' so as not to include homosexual dancing). 19Through these provocations, BBF not only demonstrated transnational solidarity with Stonewall and GLF, but also translated the ethos of Stonewall and GLF to a Danish context.
Stonewall's influence on new Dutch radical groups was less evident in their names: the 'Red Faggots' (Rooie Flikkers, 1975-80) emerged in the ethos of transnational solidarity, but GLF's influence was not reflected in their name.By choosing a word other than 'homosexual' or 'homophile', however, they showed some similarities with GLF and BBF. 20In 1977, Lesbian Nation organized the first late-June demonstration for homosexual causes.According to Gert Hekma, these annual demonstrations were 'copied from the New York Christopher Street Day Parade' but went by their own name, initially 'International Gay Liberation and Solidarity Day' and later 'Pink Saturday' (see next section). 21Thus both Denmark and the Netherlands saw a marked radicalization in gay and lesbian activism in the 1970s, though not necessarily directly connected to Stonewall or GLF.
Yet with time, Stonewall came to be used as a periodization, a retrospective understanding of how and when groups and actions radicalized.In Denmark a 1979 article in Pan about worldwide celebrations of Stonewall's ten-year anniversary referred to the riots as 'the beginning of gays' and lesbians' liberation struggle'.On the facing page two Danish activists shared their opinions about how homosexual consciousness had changed in Denmark during the 1970s.One man told the F1948 paper: 'Earlier -in the 1950s and 1960s -gays and lesbians were very reactionary', and then explained the 'weakness' of equality politics in the earlier movements.Another reflected that he had become 'much more militant in my attitude than 10 years ago'. 22Yet although these opinions were printed opposite the headline 'Christopher Street Liberation Day: 10 Years Later', neither activist explicitly mentioned Stonewall as the catalyst for their (or the Danish movement's) radicalization.
In 1994, in his 'Short History of Gay Denmark, 1613-1989', Wilhelm von Rosen used the subheading 'Legal emancipation in the Post-Stonewall Era' to introduce BBF and the Lesbian Movement (founded 1974) as groups that used 'confrontational means' to effect 'social acceptance'.Although various social changes were already brewing in Denmark, the Stonewall riots 'prepared the ground for the radical change in gay consciousness' in the 1970s, he wrote. 23imilarly in the Netherlands, some activists internalized the events of Stonewall more than others.Addressing the AIDS crisis in 1994, Herman Kaal in the Netherlands wrote: 'It must be about Stonewall', said Hans over the phone. . .[But]  What does Stonewall have to do with me?What does Stonewall have to do with AIDS?Think, Herman!. . .We mustn't let the freedoms that we fought for get taken away from us. . .We must stay militant and vigilant. 24spired by Hans to link AIDS to Stonewall, Herman reflected on the lessons of the riots.He did not refer to what 'they' did in 1969; he remembered the freedoms 'we' fought for that night.This snippet suggests that Stonewall, as a teachable moment, inspired decades of transnational solidarity and consciousness.
In sum, Stonewall was by 1971 a newsworthy story with a dramatic narrative.It was not just educational, but inspirational: readers could connect to the story and feel solidarity with the events in New York.Some homosexuals also used the American event as a period marker when reflecting on the radicalization of homosexual politics in their own countries.In the next section, we examine how Stonewall catalyzed June demonstrations, first in Denmark (c.1971), and later in the Netherlands (c.1977).bearing in mind nevertheless that the radicalization of 1970s activism took place within the larger ethos of radicalism and liberation (including youth movements, women's movements, secularization), most of which was unrelated to the Stonewall riots. 25

STONEWALL AND VISIBLE PUBLIC DEMONSTRATIONS ('PRIDE') Copenhagen's and Amsterdam's annual public demonstrations for
LGBTþ Pride are the most concrete legacies of Stonewall in Denmark and the Netherlands today.
F1948's Christopher Street Group planned its first annual demonstration in 1971.By the end of the 1970s, the Copenhagen 'Christopher Street Day' had become a full week of activities.The main event was the gathering on City Hall Square, and the visible march to Copenhagen Commons (Faelledparken).The day of demonstrations and marches ended with a party in Christiania.Holding these demonstrations in late June was a direct reference to Stonewall but meant they also coincided with the Scandinavian midsummer holiday that F1948 claimed as its anniversary.
Danish activists viewed Copenhagen's 1970s demonstrations and marches as part of a transnational solidarity: in 1979, for example, Pan reported them alongside the '100,000 participants in New York, 200,000 in San Francisco, 10,000 in London', and more in Sydney and Jamaica who gathered and marched for the ten-year anniversary of Stonewall. 26(Fig. 2) 'No one [in the Netherlands] spoke about Stonewall before the Anita Bryant campaigns', proclaimed activist and historian Theo van der Meer over dinner the night I told him that I was writing this piece.As this article has shown thus far, that is not wholly true: Stonewall was mentioned in COC journals even in the early 1970s.But these journals might not reflect the general sentiment of the gay and lesbian emancipation movement at the time; as van der Meer attested, Stonewall was not a queer-household name.This changed in 1977 with the first 'International Gay Liberation and Solidarity Day'.
Dutch activist Noor van Crevel had been in New York in 1969, and explained to Homologie in 1989 that the events 'formed the germ of the radical-lesbian Paarse September [Purple September] some years later'. 27It was not until 1977 that the Netherlands had its first late-June demonstration for gay and lesbian emancipation, in which about 3,000 people marched.Importantly, this event explicitly linked US American and Dutch activism under the theme, 'Against the anti-homo campaign of the American Anita Bryant'. 28The theme of this demonstration -along with its timing -thus referred directly to trans-Atlantic solidarity.In the following years the 'Pink Saturdays', as they came to be known, continued to choose transnational themes (for example in 1979 drawing attention to the possibility of accepting homosexual refugees from Iran), 29 and continued to cite Stonewall as the stimulus for these demonstrations. 30longside the 'transnational solidarity' of the 1970s, activists also focused on the unique challenges they faced in their own countries, as with the 'dance-ins' that invited police attention.Similarly, in Roermond (Netherlands) a 1979 protest directed at a bishop's homophobic comments served to 'glocalize' transnational solidarity by focusing on issues at home, This year was the 11 th time that the Association of 1948 organized Christopher Street Liberation Day.The group that arranged the day felt that it was time that the day got another name, and one that is in Danish.We felt that we couldn't mobilize the same enthusiasm as 11 years ago, therefore we chose the name Gays and Lesbians' International Liberation Day [Bøsser og Lesbiskes Internationale Frigørelsesdag or Homodag]. 31is explanation for the new name suggests that transnational solidarity had its limits, and that Danish gay and lesbian activists preferred to emphasize the particularity of the Danish context.Even with the new name, enthusiasm for the June events dwindled, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s there were several years without marches or demonstrations.
In the Netherlands from 1981 onwards, the June 'Pink Saturdays' circulated around the country rather than occurring in the gay capital of Amsterdam.Pink Saturdays travelled to seven provinces in the 1980s (in 1982 a notoriously violent clash with anti-gay/lesbian protesters occurred in Amersfoort, in the province of Utrecht). 32Dutch activists thus focused on the problems of integrating homosexuality in specific Dutch locations, while simultaneously encouraging international solidarity.Yet the Pink Saturday committee also struggled to find volunteers in the late 1980s. 33utch gays and lesbians were also aware that Belgian activists were asking why pride demonstrations needed to coincide with Stonewall commemoration: in 1985, the Gay Krant reported that the Belgian demonstration had been moved from June to late September to honour Hieronymus Duquesnoy, a seventeenth-century architect (and son of the creator of the Mannequin Pis statue) who was executed for sodomy in 1654. 34ith the arrival of the pan-European, political-cultural 'EuroPride' in Amsterdam in 1994 and Copenhagen in 1996, the annual Pride festival became a fixture in Danish and Dutch LGBTþ communities.Today, these locally organized events are the largest LGBTþ gatherings in both countries and use the names 'Copenhagen Pride' and 'Pride Amsterdam'.Despite the shift to August, and although the events have expunged direct reference to Stonewall from their names and dates, they are still relics of New York City's first march in 1970.Furthermore, in the Netherlands, the (smaller) Pink Saturday still occurs annually in late June at a changing location across the country.As public demonstrations of LGBTþ identities and politics, these events remain the most lasting legacy of the Stonewall riots and ensuing marches in New York City.FINAL REMARKS 'Our Stonewall'?Shortly after the Stonewall riots, one US American activist told the Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin that Stonewall was 'our Verdun'. 35This evoked the 1916 battle remembered in France not only as the longest and costliest battle of World War One, but also as a bittersweet triumph.France held its ground against the German Empire's offensive, but Verdun did not end the war; it took two more years before France emerged victorious.With this allusion the activist aligned Stonewall with memories of resistance and determination: despite the enemy's aggression, France held its ground; the homosexuals too.
By the 1980s, Stonewall had become a metaphor in its own right.In covering a 1988 demonstration in Australia -when 300 people gathered outside the Parliament in defence of gay rights -the Gay Krant summarized that '"Stonewall", 20 years after the date, had now penetrated Australia'. 36ere, 'Stonewall' was used as a metaphor: these activists gathered publicly to resist society's 'quite hostile attitude' toward homosexuality; their protest was thus, in Gay Krant's words, a 'commemoration of the Stonewall riots'. 37mplicitly, Australia had gotten 'its' Stonewall.
Anecdotally, I heard a Dutch student use the phrase 'Our Stonewall' when presenting to his classmates on the aforementioned disturbances in Amersfoort 1982.With this phrase, he meant that Amersfoort was a major event in LGBTþ Dutch history, one that Dutch students should know.However, the metaphor was not perfect: the Dutch demonstrators clashed not with the police, but rather with anti-homosexual protesters.Overall, this term is not commonly used in Denmark or the Netherlands, but this moment was telling for Stonewall's future as a metaphor.

Multidirectional Transnationalism Transnational
LGBTþ consciousness has been an important aspect of Danish and Dutch self-organizing and publications since the 1950s; Stonewall accelerated this mentality.But transnational solidarity and influence was not unidirectional: New York's activists admired the politics and culture in Denmark and the Netherlands after Stonewall.In 1990 two Danish men served as New York City's first foreign grand marshals of the 'Heritage of Pride' parade, which an estimated two to three hundred thousand spectators saw.The organizers drew attention to Denmark's historic passing of same-sex partnership laws in 1989. 38uture research must also interrogate Danish and Dutch influence on US American activism prior to Stonewall (as considered by Leila Rupp in her studies of the International Committee for Sexual Equality). 39Focusing on the 1950s-60s: how did Danish and Dutch homo-emancipation activismsuch as the appearances by open homosexuals in the media or in public protest -inspire US American activists to be more visible?Future queer histories must seriously consider the transnational flow of ideas, images and people.Relatedly, scholars must also not over-privilege the role of the United States; Germany's influence on radical homosexual politics and cultures in Denmark and the Netherlands was significant in the 1930s and from the 1970s on.

On Race and Trans Visibility
The European archive examined for the period (1969-94) was silent on intersectional issues, namely how race and trans visibility related to the legacies of Stonewall.Like (too) much of the concurrent US American coverage of Stonewall, the examined European archives did not highlight the contributions of Sylvia Rivera or Marsha P. Johnson, among others.(The archives of Sister Outsider -a 1980s Dutch organization for black, migrant and refugee lesbians not examined for this Stonewall studyshow a tremendous US American influence from Audre Lorde.)One can see a shift in the European discourse in recent years, due probably to new research and conversations from the US.At the 2019 conference 'Focus on LGBTIQþ Seniors', the director of COC Netherlands began the day with a speech about the work that many ageing people had done toward liberation; he urged the audience to remember that the 'trans people of color and other activists in New York stood up against repression' and changed conversations about rights and activism worldwide. 40The COC's float in the 2018 Pride Parade had honoured key women from queer history, and included a trans woman of colour, Barbie Tuinfort, portraying Marsha P. Johnson.(Fig. 3) In sum: the two main legacies of Stonewall in Denmark and the Netherlands have been the acceleration of a transnational LGBTþ consciousness, and the establishment of annual events for LGBTþ visibility.While the influence of Stonewall on LGBTþ communities in Denmark and the Netherlands should not be overemphasized -media visibility in both countries and public demonstrations in the Netherlands preceded Stonewall -the events in New York City did undoubtedly serve as an inspiring story that contributed to the ethos of LGBTþ radicalization in (and since) the 1970s.

Fig. 3 .
Fig. 3. 'Powervrouwen' (Power Women), the COC float at Pride Amsterdam 2018, with Barbie Tuinfort (in Stonewall sash) as Marsha P. Johnson.It won a prize for Best Themed Boat of the Year.
Andrew DJ Shield (a.d.j.shield@hum.leidenuniv.nl) is Assistant Professor of History at Leiden University.He is author of Immigrants on Grindr: Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), which explores the importance of hook-up apps in the lives of gay and queer newcomers, and Immigrants in the Sexual Revolution: Perceptions and Participation in Northwest Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), which challenges dominant theories linking immigration to sexual conservatism.He holds one PhD in History from the City University of New York, and a second PhD in Communication from Roskilde University in Denmark.