The wilde west: Homosexual behavior in the court records of Saskatchewan, 1895 to 1930

This thesis examines homosexual behaviour as documented in extant court records from the Saskatchewan region of Canada's prairie frontier from 1895 to 1930. The courts of the Saskatchewan region varied greatly, having been reformed several times during this period as the legal mechanisms of the state apparatus slowly evolved into their current incarnation. This examination focuses both on consensual and nonconsensual homosexual relations in these different courts of the Saskatchewan frontier and the manner in which these cases were interpreted and described by judicial authorities. The records indicate that the frontier was largely characterized by permissible spaces for the homosexual indulgences of men, provided that men were discrete, mutual in their relations, and respected the dominant ideologies of the masculine gender role. Changes over time in the social and material conditions of frontier life precipitated changes in these permissible spaces, eventually indicating that the increased regulation of homosexual behaviour by the end of the frontier era led to the formation of at least two sexual subcultures.