ABSTRACT
At the turn of the twentieth century, numerous efforts at the emancipation of homosexuals proliferated across Europe. They particularly occurred in the grand metropolises of those European countries where same-sex relations were objects of legal discrimination. The modern city afforded the masses and public spaces necessary for the performance, constitution and negotiation of homosexual identities. 1 As scholars of gay history have noted, many of the period’s homosexual emancipation struggles focused on the issue of civil citizenship, the claim to freedom from state interference in same-sex relations between consenting adults. They have further pointed to the key role played by medical science in these claims to full civil citizenship. 2
