Hidden women: Hints of queerness in Icelandic sources from 1700–1960

Article: Lísa Margrét Gunnarsdóttir

Translation: Lísa Margrét Gunnarsdóttir

Image: From the website Huldukonur

Huldukonur is a project dedicated to collecting source literature, managed by Ásta Kristín Benediktsdóttir, Íris Ellenberger and Hafdís Erla Hafsteinsdóttir. The project consists of Icelandic sources which mention or suggest queerness regarding women and other people seen as women at the time, in the years 1700 - 1960. The project aims to make these sources accessible to researchers, students and the public and to encourage more research in the field of queer history. The Student Paper sat down with Ásta Kristín Benediktsdóttir to discuss Huldukonur and the status of queer history studies.

In 2017, Ásta Kristín, Íris and Hafdís Erla edited the book You know you were never here: Queer studies and queer history in Iceland. While working on the book, it became evident that finding sources on queer women or other genders was much harder than finding sources on queer men.  

,,In the years 2016 - 2017, there wasn’t a lot going on with research regarding queer history, and when publishing this book we all agreed that something needed to be done, we needed to find more source literature on queerness. One often hears from researchers and feminitsts that there simply aren’t any sources available about queer women, so we decided to actively look for them - that’s how the project Huldukonur came to be.“

Ásta, Íris and Hafdís applied for grants from Iceland’s Equality Fund, Women’s History Museum and The National Queer Association. They pored over documents, read everything they could get their hands on and asked the public to provide tips and stories. 

,,We had to choose our point of view - what were we looking for, and where? The terms lesbian and homosexuality didn’t exist until the middle of the 20th century, so we tried to base our research on the idea of queerness, look into what was thought to be normal and what was considered queer, and we took care not to confine our search to some predetermined ideas about lesbians. A part of what we were looking for was records of women who were considered different.“

Their search resulted in many 18th and 19th century records of women who people found a little strange.

“We found a lot of sources which mentioned women who wore pants or worked in fields meant for men, such as seamanship - some were even given the nickname “karlmaður” [man]. We also kept noticing the nickname “graða” [horny], which doesn’t mean horny as it does today, but rather a male nature - this word was used to identify women as manlike. We don’t have any sources stemming from the women themselves from this time period, but how they are spoken of gives us a clue about societal ideas regarding how women were supposed to behave, how men were supposed to behave and how people in general were meant to be.”

Ásta says that older sources are often silent regarding queerness.

“While we did find mentions of unusual women, we definitely felt the lack of sources. A lot of periods in Icelandic history don’t speak of queer people at all, let alone women. This lack of sources, this silence, can be dealt with easily by stating that we simply don’t know anything and that no sources exist, but in the case of queer history, silence can be very important. Silence has deliberately been used as a tool to erase queer history.“

While searching, Ásta, Íris and Hafdís found a lot of clues regarding queerness and upper-middle class women in Reykjavík at the turn of the 20th century. 

“That was something we weren’t prepared to find, but should have suspected, women who were involved in what we call romantic friendships. There are examples of Icelandic women living with other women for decades. We found a network of women in the years 1900 - 1930, who all knew each other, there were love triangles and interactions between women who ran independent businesses, women in parliament and professional sports. These women never married, and sought emotional support from each other. This pattern is very evident in other Western countries during this time period - women trying to navigate life outside of the institution of marriage, and manage because of their social status. At the time, nobody really turned their nose up at these relationships, these women are simply called vinkonur [friends] and the sources don’t mention whether their relationships have a sexual aspect to them - because that’s not what they’re documenting.” 

As the 20th century progresses, these sources start disappearing, and hints of the erasure of queerness in women become evident. 

“It’s clear that these relationships start being considered as something embarrassing, and that brings us back to silene. Many civilian women leave something behind, diaries, collections of letters etc., but there is a lack of personal writing. There’s often a lot of writing to look into, but there’s no mention of the woman’s partner through life, someone they lived with for decades. We also noticed this in obituaries, friends and family don’t speak of their female loved ones living with other women. What we want to point out in this regard is how the absence of this information isn’t necessarily normal - that it’s deliberate. Why do people suddenly fail to mention Jóna and her friend, or the fact that they raised a child together, why do they act as if that friend didn’t exist? We consider this to be hints of the erasure of queerness, that these relationships are deemed undesirable.” 

Ásta says that the project’s main purpose is to dig up this information and to make it visible as well as accessible for those wanting to research queerness in Iceland.

“The web Huldukonur is not meant to be a collection of research results, and that’s how we’ve set it up - it’s very important to us, not to keep for ourselves but to make this information available to students and researchers working on essays and research in many fields, not just history. We also decided to prepare material for high school teachers, to make it easier for them to add this to their teaching material.”

The Student Paper encourages all to check out the web Huldukonur and learn more about the presence of queerness in Iceland before the year 1960. The web includes four different categories of material; an introduction of sources, a more detailed overview of sources, teaching material and a list of sources as well as information about how to use them. This is an excellent tool for students in search of material for their essay, an interesting read for the general public looking to further educate themselves, and an accessible pool of information for teachers wanting to update their teaching material. The project is still open for source tips and suggestions, which can be submitted through the website huldukonur.is. 

*International students, please note: the website is only available in Icelandic at this time, but feel free to reach out to the Student Paper if you’d like to look into Huldukonur and need someone to translate.