Gay Guide to Stockholm
Sweden decriminalized homosexuality in 1944 and then went on classifying it as a mental illness for another thirty-five years. On 29 August 1979 roughly forty RFSL activists entered the National Board of Health and Welfare in twos and threes so as not to attract attention, gathered on the main staircase and occupied the building. The famous version of this story, in which the whole country phoned in sick with homosexuality, is mostly myth: a few people did call the insurance agency, one woman was actually paid, and RFSL is careful to say the occupation was the protest. On 19 October the Board struck homosexuality from its register of diagnoses, the first country anywhere to do it.
The scene is spread thin rather than gathered into a district, which catches people out. Södermalm has The Hills, and Gamla Stan holds Secret Garden and Chokladkoppen on the old square. Side Track, Haralds, Bar Replik, House of Q and Rågsveds Krog are scattered across the rest of the city.
Patricia is the one to plan around: a club on a boat moored on the water, running famously late on Sundays, which is a genuinely Stockholm arrangement. SLM covers leather and Backdoor the club nights.
Stockholm Pride fills a week in early August and is the largest in the Nordic countries. RFSL, founded in 1950, is among the oldest LGBTQ organizations still operating anywhere in the world, and Cinema Queer programs the film festival.
Stockholm is expensive and the scene is small for the size of the city. Summer is when it opens up, the water is everywhere, and in winter everything moves indoors and gets considerably quieter.