Tanja von Knorring is a Finnish businesswoman and transgender and human rights activist with an extensive background in the aviation and transport industries. After building a successful professional career, she came out as a transgender woman in 2017, having known from childhood that she was a woman. Her experiences of living for decades according to society’s expectations have helped shape her commitment to making life easier for other transgender people. Von Knorring has become a prominent voice in Finnish and international transgender advocacy. She co-chaired the 2019–2020 Board of Transgender Europe (TGEU), a European and Central Asian network of transgender organisations, and helped establish Transfeminiinit ry, Transfeminines of Finland, where she has served as chairperson and executive director. The organisation works to improve the visibility, rights and wellbeing of transgender women, while also providing peer support and opportunities for community building.
In Tampere, she helped develop Swedish-language activities for LGBTQ+ people, addressing the needs of a linguistic minority within an already marginalised community. Her activism also extends to public policy. She served on the monitoring group for Finland’s reform of its transgender legislation, advocating for the right to legal gender recognition without unnecessary medical requirements. In 2019, she stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Swedish People's Party of Finland, with transgender rights, transport and urban planning, and elderly care among her principal concerns. She has also been involved with SETA, Finland’s national LGBTI rights organisation, and Trasek, which advocates for transgender and intersex people. Through her public speaking, educational work and participation in Pride events, von Knorring continues to challenge discrimination and promote greater understanding of transgender people and their rights.
Monika: Tanja, welcome! It is a great pleasure and an honor to have you with us today.
Tanja: Hello, and nice to meet you, Monika, in these very special times we are living in. I’m happy to be doing this interview with you.
Monika: Before we turn to your activism, your managerial career deserves a mention. You can boast a solid portfolio of leadership positions within the Finnish corporate community. How would you sum it up?
Tanja: Yes, I have had many both demanding and rewarding opportunities in my work life, first as a high-ranking civil servant in civil aviation, then leading an airline for eight years, and finally, before giving more time to myself and to activism, as CEO in the transportation field for another eight years.
Monika: What inspired you to become an activist for transgender rights?
Tanja: I became involved with human rights questions thirty years ago when I was appointed as employer’s representative to the refugee receiving committee at Helsinki airport. It was obvious that those in charge of such operations were not up to date with the human rights requirements.
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| Transgender Europe is a network of different organizations working to combat discrimination against trans people and support trans people’s rights. Website: tgeu.org |
Monika: Where did your commitment lead you after those years with the refugees?
Tanja: I continued after those three years with the refugees, defending many other minorities in various circumstances. Worth mentioning is the language minority I myself belong to, and which I defend: the Swedish population of Finland. We are struggling for such an elementary right as the right to use our own language with the authorities, Swedish being the second official language of the country. Unfortunately, it is an issue that is constantly under attack by the right-wing movement. That was one of the reasons I also became the first transgender candidate for the Parliament of the Swedish People’s Party (liberal) last year.
Monika: And what drew you specifically to the transgender movement?
Tanja: As the Finnish transgender legislation still requires sterilization and one to two years of psychiatric evaluation, along with a one-year-long real-life test, it was natural for me, after I came out in public with my gender, to become involved in transgender movements. I finally have the time and enough life experience, and I wish that the next generation will have an easier transition. So I started to devote all my time to the movements, first in Finland, then internationally. Our challenge is a completely new transgender legislation instead of the current one, which has been condemned internationally, even by the European Court of Human Rights.
Monika: The liberal Scandinavian countries have a surprisingly harsh record toward the trans community. In Sweden, unwanted people were sterilized in the name of eugenics, and although forced sterilization became illegal for everyone in 1975, it still applied to transgender people seeking gender recognition until July 2013. Finland has not changed this law yet, which surprises me even more. How did it end up this way?
Tanja: Finland got its first transgender law in 2002, valid from 1st January 2003. It has been very discriminating and not up to any human rights standards. Before that, there was almost nothing in the legislation that made legal gender correction possible. In the 1980s, if you wanted to transition, you had to stay for weeks in a mental hospital before you could get permission from the castration committee for surgeries.
Monika: Was there any room to maneuver in the years that followed?
Tanja: In the 1990s, if you knew the right person at the citizens’ register, you could have the gender marker changed under a law that existed for a while, stipulating that if you had a “wrong” ID number, it could be corrected. And yes, we still have that law of 2002, and even Finland has received remarks for it. The previous government included both the Real Finns (a right-wing nationalist movement) and the Christians; they did not even bother to answer the EU on the issue.
Monika: Does the current government promise any improvement?
Tanja: The current leftist-liberal government has promised new legislation, but the program was undermined already during the government negotiations by the Center Party (Agrarian movement), with the result that only people over 18 will be able to undergo gender correction, and only after a waiting time of half a year. Both requirements have been condemned by the trans and rainbow movement. And now, due to Covid-19, everything has been postponed, even though it should not be.
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| Rallying for transgender rights. |
Monika: You were the first transgender candidate of the Swedish People’s Party to run for Parliament. Building a manifesto probably meant pairing trans rights with broader slogans to widen your circle of voters. Did you face challenges along the way?
Tanja: Definitely, I had challenges. The hardest was that I was invited to become a candidate after the election campaign had already started, so forming a campaign suddenly was a challenge. Apart from trans rights, my slogans included other human rights questions, such as better rights for elderly people in care, which was topical then, due to large investments by some multinational companies in buying hundreds of traditional small old people’s homes, with unwanted effects for the patients.
Monika: Did you also draw on your professional background?
Tanja: Yes, I had some slogans related to my profession, transportation. In general, the campaign went well and was welcomed by the party and its leaders. But for the voters, a trans person was in some way still an odd bird. This fact and the late start of the campaign resulted in my lack of success. There were two other trans candidates from two other parties, but none of us has so far been elected to Parliament, while many of us, including myself, hold city-level positions of responsibility in committees or boards (I’m on the technical board of the second largest city of Finland).
Monika: As co-chair of the 2019-2020 Board of Transgender Europe (TGEU), you must have a “helicopter” view of what is going on in the rest of Europe. How would you describe the situation of the trans community there?
Tanja: Yes, indeed, it gives a good point of view on all 44 states where we have membership in Europe and Central Asia. If we look at the official legal situation per country, only Finland, Bulgaria, and Romania still have sterilization requirements in force. But the situation in many other countries is a different matter. Especially Hungary, with its new law that makes “birth gender” obligatory for everyone and not subject to any change, which is a direct violation of international human rights. The situation in Poland, with its LGBTI-free zones, is also worrying.
Monika: What role does the European Union play in all this? Does it have any initiatives or instruments to support transgender rights?
Tanja: Yes, it does, and well, through its legislation. The EU Parliament has an LGBTI network that is currently preparing an agenda of common requirements concerning LGBT issues, including trans rights. During the Finnish presidency last autumn, a high-level conference on LGBTI rights for the Union for 2020 and beyond was held. I’m happy that I contributed to the resolution, where I had the possibility to make a personal input, namely that the Union should create an agenda of transgender legal rights. This was eventually adopted in the conference resolution and is currently being worked on in the Commission. Also, we have to note the strong input of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency into our questions, not to forget the role of the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are binding for the EU member countries and their officials.
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| Tanja at home. |
Monika: The transgender agenda is usually promoted together with those of the other LGBTQ communities. Can the trans community make its own cause heard within such a diverse group?
Tanja: Yes, we can promote it to a certain extent. However, cooperation between trans rights organizations and other rainbow rights organizations is vital to get enough visibility for our rights among decision-makers. It is also important that we have both national and international trans rights movements and organizations advocating our trans-specific questions related to gender correction processes, including legal, social, and specific healthcare issues, which we are doing policy work on.
Monika: When you started your transition, was there any transgender role model in Finland whom you looked up to?
Tanja: I must say I cannot understand why I should have had a role model; there was none thirty-six years ago, and since then I have been my own role model. I knew at the age of 8 that I was a girl, and at the age of 24, in 1984, I came out of the closet for the first time, with success.
Monika: What was the atmosphere in Finland at that time, and how easy was it to find information?
Tanja: It was a time when the Nordic countries started to adopt international winds, with ethnic restaurants, the first satellite TV channels, and new fashion winds. They were the mirror of the world, and you couldn’t get much or any information about gender correction possibilities. Unfortunately, I had to return to the closet partially, several times, before I finally made the decision to come out publicly three years ago.
Monika: I often wish I could have transitioned earlier myself. Do you feel the same way?
Tanja: Of course. I came out of the closet in 1984, so transition was my biggest wish from the day I learned it was possible, which was only some years later. At that time, there was no internet, limited TV and radio, and even less information in the library about us, so it’s a miracle that those of us who dared to come out did so. I must admit that from time to time I wish I had been born 30 or 40 years later than I was.
Monika: Fulfilling the dream of being ourselves often comes at the highest price, and many trans women lose their families, friends, jobs, and social positions. Was that true for you as well, and what was the hardest part of coming out?
Tanja: We pay a high price, definitely, be it family or friends in our social frame, work as the economic frame of living, or something in our health frame. For me, after having worked in a good position around the clock every day for 16 years, but unfortunately not benefiting much economically, it was actually a relief when I left my position as CEO in a transport company nearly a year after coming out in public. I was finally free to do smaller-scale things that I want.
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| Trasek is a Finnish association for transgender and intersex rights. More information available at trasek.fi. |
Monika: Has the transition changed your professional prospects since then?
Tanja: Yes, the transition has also led to a situation where it’s not easy to get well-paid work anymore, even for me, as there is obviously still a reluctance to hire trans people. Although I have been involved with the Finnish Business Network (FIBS) in a project that emphasizes the benefits of a versatile working environment, it does not put me in any better situation.
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Tanja von Knorring.
© 2020 - Monika Kowalska
