Research and shared memory combine to form a documentable history for Finland's LGBTQ+ community. Friends of Queer History coordinates activities and builds bridges between generations. It received the State Award for Public Information in 2024.
Kaura Raudaskoski [pictured above, fourth from the right], you are the chairman of the board of Friends of Queer History and former editor of the online magazine published by the association. The Committee for Public Information was particularly impressed by your website. What is its importance for the LGBTQ+ community?
Kaura Raudaskoski: The online magazine is a central, permanent part of the association's activities. We publish research information about the queer community from different perspectives. It is very important for us to have an accumulating and permanent record of projects and events. The website is also a central part of our activities. We have compiled information on the site about current affairs, the historical timeline, collections and publications.
The history of the queer community is not only recorded on our website but can be found in many places and archives. The records have been centralised to the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas and the Labour Archives, which professionally archive and record history. In Sweden, for example, it is different. Over there many small associations from the queer community maintain their own archives. The associations are closer to their members' material than the larger archives, making it easier to access historical memory. But if you don't know the record keeper, as can happen in Finland, the threshold for handing over your personal material can be very high. You are no longer in control of where it goes and what you do with it. So, there are pros and cons to different record keepers. Interestingly, Swedish queer history can also be found here and our history in Sweden. You must know where to look. We tell people about the different archives and sources on our website.
Why was your association founded, and do you have sister associations elsewhere?
Kaura: Friends of Queer History was founded in 2020 to continue the coordination of Queer History Month. At that time, Queer History Month had been celebrated twice in Finland under the leadership of Seta and the Culture for All service. A wide range of events had been organised in different parts of Finland. We continued from there. Our association got a flying start for its activities after receiving two years of funding from the Kone Foundation. Now we are doing a lot of Nordic and international cooperation to find out how things have been organised elsewhere. There has been a lot of movement between countries, and we have lots of shared archival material between countries.
What role does research play in the association's activities?
Kaura: Queer history in Finland is very research-oriented and academic, but we need coordination between research and museums and civil society. As a millenial myself, I recognise the burning need for knowledge about queer history among my generation and even younger ones. Former Member of Parliament Jani Toivola aptly said that a lack of history is a tool for control. That is why research is so important to us, and that is also why it is so important that the right queer history methods have been applied in the production of knowledge. In fact, there is so much information missing; the need for missing information is even greater than the need for existing information. We do not have a single queer community with a single history, but a diverse community. There is very little recorded information on many minority groups, such as Sámi, disabled, Roma and migrant queer people. There is also a lack of research on the history of trans people. Scarce resources also need to be prioritised, and at present the priority is recording the memories of activists born in the 1960s and 1970s.
The history of Pride in North America is well known in Finland, but if we don't know the local queer history, the roots of our own movement will remain clouded. Through research, we can produce knowledge about this local queer history. However, we do not want to highlight individuals, although it is said that people need stories. We have a really distorted record of queer history, because it emphasises the upper class. Research brings more diversity to history. Research is a kind of counterforce to story-hunting.
How do you approach integrating LGBTQ+ history into mainstream history?
Kaura: As an association, we get a lot of enquiries, and we connect people. We act as a facilitator for many events. For example, during the last Queer History Month we organised guided tours in museums and walking tours in the city. The programme included art and history exhibitions, lectures, debates, conferences and webinars. There were exhibitions in libraries and an exhibition on queer migrants in the Helsinki City Museum. Many queer Finnish people moved to Sweden in search of a more active queer life. We organised a reminiscence workshop at the City Museum, where we reminisced and recorded memories together. In the summer of 2024, we held a low-threshold workshop in Helsinki at the U-Haul club, a favourite of brown and black people, to record information about that community too. Together we made small publications, zines.
A multidisciplinary network, but also a vibrant community, has formed around queer history. It helps us to identify information needs. Among other things, we heard that the The Finnish Women’s Association Unioni was moving out of its long-standing premises on Bulevard. The Union has a huge amount of not only women's history but also lesbian history. We realised that the material was in danger of being lost during the move. We were proactive and asked for the material to be stored. It is important for society as a whole that certain aspects of history are not lost. We must remember to record the history of our own community.
Text: Helen Partti, Ella Ranta (translator)
Photo featuring Friends of Queer History: Usva Torkki
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