ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses castration of patients in Norway during the period 1923-45, drawing on patient casebooks from two institutions in Trondheim, Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet Hospital. Reitgjerdet functioned as the only high security psychiatric institution in Norway from 1963 to 1987. Almost all of the patients were institutionalized for the rest of their lives, either in Kriminalasylet and Reitgjerdet, or in other health institutions. The chapter explores castration as practised on sex offenders and other patients. It focuses on castration, and presents examples related to sterilization. There was a wish to shift from being considered 'abnormal' and dangerous to the normal and harmless masculinity and sexuality. Swedish gender researcher Bo Nilsson argues that heterosexuality produces power in a legal and forensic psychiatric context. The chapter describes what was considered an 'abnormal sexuality' and how normality perspectives played an important role in the issue of castration.
