The Cultural History of Trans Activism in Scandinavia, 1964-2010

The purpose of this thesis project is to map and analyze the emergence and development of Scandinavian transactivism from 1964 to approximately 2010. Scandinavian transactivism began with a Swedish association that included all forms of transgender people in 1964. Two years later, the heterosexual transvestites left the association and formed together with transvestites from Norway, Finland and Denmark the association Phi Pi Epsilon – Northern Europe. This association was a Nordic subdivision of an American association. The beginnings of trans activism in Scandinavia illustrate the project's three themes: The first theme is the inclusion and exclusion of different groups. The second theme is transnationalism. The final theme is perceptions of gender among activists. There is a lot of research on gay activism in Scandinavia and more recent research has also started to look at transnationalism. However, research on the history of trans activism in the Nordics is very limited and there is no research that studies its origins in depth. The project uses qualitative methods, including oral history. The project's empirical data consists of publicly available archival material, but since transactivism is only sparsely represented in public archives, the project will also make use of interviews and collection of private archives.