Les Clubs de « Manches de ligne » et du Dr Geoffrion : sociabilités gaies, discours publics et répression dans la région de Montréal, 1860-1910
This essay explores the emergence of a gay male subculture in the Montreal area between 1860 and 1910, and studies social perceptions and repression towards men having “homosexual” and gender inversion behaviours. Analysing journalistic, judicial and legal documents, this thesis deconstructs several prejudices: about primary sources, presumed rare; about public discourse on same-sex acts, presumed nonexistent; about men perpetrating those acts, imagined invisible and isolated from each other. A case study on two of the oldest same-sex clubs presently recognized in Quebec, both dismantled during police operations in 1892 and 1908, combined with the reading of a considerable corpus of press articles, confirms the existence of gay sociability networks in Montreal area, as early as the nineteenth century, as well as the development of a public opinion on the subject of same-sex acts. Thereby, it underlines the existence of practices observed in gay sub-cultures, such as the use of a specific vocabulary or display of effeminate manners, by men who would be called today homosexuals.
histoire XXe siècle scandale history Montreal nineteenth century twentieth century homosexuality gay press scandal repression club