Born in Sweden in 1932, Eva-Lisa Bengtson understood from childhood that she was a girl, long before she had the language or the freedom to explain what that meant. In a society where being transgender was scarcely understood and where homosexuality itself could carry enormous stigma, she spent much of her life searching for places where she could simply be herself. In 1964, she finally began reaching out to others like her. An advertisement placed with Erika Sjöman brought more than eighty responses from Sweden and Finland, revealing a hidden community that had been waiting, often in isolation, to find one another. Eva-Lisa became a remarkable connector. Through Transvestia, which grew from correspondence into meetings and parties, she created one of Sweden’s earliest spaces where trans people could meet, exchange experiences and recognize themselves in one another. She later became involved in the wider queer and feminist movements, including Lesbisk Front and the building of Kvinnohuset in Stockholm. Yet her story was never a simple journey from exclusion to acceptance. She was sometimes welcomed and sometimes pushed aside, including by movements she had helped build. Her experiences reveal the complicated history of solidarity, belonging and boundaries within Sweden’s LGBTQ movement.
There was another side to Eva-Lisa that is just as important. She preserved. Photographs, letters, magazines, meeting records, invitations, membership cards and countless other fragments of queer life accumulated around her. She understood, perhaps more clearly than most, that people who are forgotten by official history have to preserve their own evidence of having been there. After Eva-Lisa’s death in 2018, artist and researcher Sam Hultin found themselves entrusted with this extraordinary archive. But Hultin did more than preserve it. Through Eva-Lisa’s Monument, the archive became a living encounter with a woman whose life had intersected with some of the most important chapters in Swedish trans, lesbian and feminist history. Hultin has transformed Eva-Lisa’s documents and memories into exhibitions, performances, city walks, films and now a book, allowing her story to return to the streets and communities where it once unfolded. What emerges is not only the portrait of a pioneering trans woman, but of someone who spent decades creating connections in a world that repeatedly told people like her that they were alone. In speaking with Sam Hultin, we can look beyond the dates and milestones to discover the woman behind the archive, the friendships and disappointments, the parties and protests, the moments of belonging and exclusion, and the extraordinary determination that made Eva-Lisa preserve a history that she could not know would one day be so valuable. And that is where I would like to begin.
Monika: Sam, before we enter the history, I would love to begin with something personal. You first met Eva-Lisa at one of your lesbian sing-along evenings in 2016, and she approached you because she had something she wanted to show you. What do you remember about that first encounter, and what was it about her that made you want to hear more?
Sam: The reason we got talking was that she showed up more than an hour early for the event. I guess it was the combination of her being there so early and being visibly queer and over 80 years old, which is not so common, at least in Stockholm. So I went over to her table in the cafeteria, where we were both sitting, and said that if she wanted to come and sit with me and the band, she was welcome. She said yes and quite soon started to tell us about herself. From the stories that just started to pour out of her, I quickly understood that she had quite the story to tell and that she understood that as well. That’s why I was so happy that she approached me after the event and said that she had something to show me. And of course, I couldn’t say no to that!
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“Coming out as trans would most likely mean losing your job and perhaps friends and family.” |
Monika: You have described discovering a person who had quietly preserved an extraordinary part of Swedish queer history. When you first saw the archive, what was the first object, photograph or document that made you realize just how significant her story was?
Sam: I had seen parts of the archive during our first meetings, and the amazing photographs from Transvestia’s parties were probably what was most exciting to see. But it wasn’t until after Eva-Lisa’s passing, when I picked up the archive from her house, that I realized the magnitude of it. After months of calling her daughter and fearing that it would just be thrown away, I finally picked up the eight (!) moving boxes from Eva-Lisa’s house. Then I found what I still think is the most interesting and historically valuable part of the archive: the letters from the start of Transvestia. These are letters from trans people all over the Nordic countries, answering Eva-Lisa’s first ads about Transvestia in a porn magazine (the only magazine that would accept the ad). The letters, mostly written by people who had never been in contact with another trans person before, are like small biographies, filled with dreams and life stories. Besides being of great historical value, they are absolutely beautiful.
Monika: To understand Eva-Lisa’s story, we also need to understand the Sweden she was living in. What was life like for a transgender woman in Sweden in the 1960s, and what kind of society did she have to navigate?
Sam: It’s pretty telling that Eva-Lisa “came out” in the mid-60s in Sweden. In the early 60s there was an intense “sexual debate” going on in the Swedish media. The liberal newspapers and organisations were debating everything from sexual education in schools to access to free abortion to porn. Several books that argued for gay rights and questioned norms regarding sexuality and gender were published, and a big conference, Sex and Society, was arranged. Sweden was a wealthy country and social justice movements were growing. Still, the social stigma of living openly as a trans person was huge, and we had no laws protecting trans people, or other queer people for that matter, from discrimination. Coming out as trans would most likely mean losing your job and perhaps also friends and family. Still, there was really a momentum for a more liberal view on sexuality and gender, which helped Eva-Lisa to organize with others.
Monika: Eva-Lisa understood from a very young age that she was a girl, and your research suggests that she even had the name Eva-Lisa in her mind as a child. Is that something she herself remembered and talked about later in life?
Sam: Yes, definitely. She told me about a few very strong memories of understanding she was a girl early in life. This is of course different for all trans people, but Eva-Lisa described it as something “natural”. The name just came to her at a young age.
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“Eva-Lisa could wear some women’s clothes at home, but not in the open.” |
Monika: She apparently understood that she could not live openly as a woman at home or at work, yet she also knew that she had to find somewhere where she could be Eva-Lisa. What did you learn about the practical compromises she had to make in everyday life?
Sam: The reason Eva-Lisa could not live as a woman full time was largely that her wife, whom she met in middle school, could never accept her as a woman. Like many other couples at the time where one was trans, they made a compromise: Eva-Lisa could wear some women’s clothes at home, but not in the open. This worked, at least in one way. But the emotional pain of living as someone she didn’t identify with, and the knowledge that her wife didn’t accept her, was of course great and sometimes too much for her to bear. Eva-Lisa suffered periods of depression, and this compromise was a constant conflict for her.
Monika: I think it is time to bring up the name of Christine Jorgensen, the famous Danish-born transgender woman whose transition became internationally known. What impact did Christine Jorgensen’s story have on Eva-Lisa and on her understanding of what might be possible for her own life?
Sam: Like for many trans people with access to Western media in the 1950s and 60s, the news about Jorgensen was the first time Eva-Lisa ever heard that it was actually possible to transition. Seeing this graceful, confident American woman doing it was world-changing for Eva-Lisa.
Monika: When she sought medical help in Sweden in 1964, she was reportedly refused treatment. Was this because gender-affirming medical treatment was not yet available through the Swedish healthcare system, or were there other reasons behind the refusal?
Sam: Gender-affirming treatment was still at a very small experimental stage in Sweden at the time. But it was possible to get, if you met the requirements, which were in large part developed by the American endocrinologist and sexologist Harry Benjamin. The box that Eva-Lisa failed to tick was the one about being heterosexual in her new life as a woman. Eva-Lisa was attracted to women and identified very strongly as a lesbian. According to her doctor, Jan Wålinder, being a lesbian meant that she was not a transsexual but rather a “heterosexual transvestite”, as he framed it. Therefore, she could not get access to gender-affirming care. Instead, he gave her a medicine that he hoped could “cure” her. Eva-Lisa persisted and finally, in the late 1960s, she was prescribed hormones by another doctor.
Monika: In 1964, Eva-Lisa and Erika Sjöman placed an advertisement seeking other trans people, and more than 80 people responded from Sweden and Finland. What do those early letters tell us about what trans people of that period were searching for when they reached out to her?
Sam: I’d say that most people were searching for community. For someone they could share their joy, fear, excitement and feelings with. When you read the letters, it’s very clear that most people are very scared to be exposed because of the social stigma. Yet there is a great longing to live as themselves and to get in touch with others who share this longing.
Monika: Transvestia began partly as a correspondence club before developing into physical gatherings and parties at the dance studio on Östgötagatan. What do the photographs and documents reveal about the atmosphere inside those early meetings, and what did people actually experience when they entered that room?
Sam: What Eva-Lisa has described, what the letters about the club described, and what I think you can also see in the photos, is a warm and playful atmosphere. Eva-Lisa described the big dance studio mirror as particularly powerful for people who had never been able to be themselves, in the clothes, hair and so on that they felt comfortable with, among other people. With friends cheering them on, the big mirror and the dance hall became a perfect catwalk and a great place to feel community and freedom for many.
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| Virginia Prince, courtesy of University of Victoria Libraries, Transgender Archives. |
Monika: The name Transvestia came from Virginia Prince’s American magazine and movement, yet Eva-Lisa’s own life eventually exposed some of the limitations of the transvestite movement of the period. How did international ideas influence her, and where did her own experience begin to challenge those ideas?
Sam: Prince’s ideas were, as you probably know, very influential around this time, and they certainly were in FPE-NE, the Nordic version of Prince’s organisation. Eva-Lisa also identified as a transvestite for some time, I guess because this was what her doctor told her. But as time passed and she expanded her network, she realized it wasn’t that simple. Despite Prince and the medical professionals, Eva-Lisa stood her ground and finally got prescribed hormones at the end of the 1960s.
Monika: There is something moving about the fact that people who could not necessarily meet openly could find one another through letters. Did you find evidence of particular friendships or relationships that began through Transvestia, and what did those connections mean to Eva-Lisa?
Sam: Most people in the community found each other through Transvestia. One example is Marianne and Yvonne, two trans women who came to produce Transvestia’s newsletter, Kvinnospegeln (which translates to “The Women’s Mirror”, clearly inspired by Virginia Prince’s “Femme Mirror”). Eva-Lisa of course found important friendships in Transvestia. Perhaps the most meaningful was Lena, a lesbian cis woman who was part of introducing her to Stockholm’s lesbian scene. Knowing that Eva-Lisa could not live as a woman in her daily life, I think that the connections she made meant everything.
Monika: Her archive contains not only political documents but photographs of parties, dresses, clubs and friendships. What do those more intimate and joyful materials tell us about her that a conventional activist biography might miss?
Sam: Probably that the joy of community is one of the biggest driving forces in being an activist.
Monika: Jerry’s damklubb seems to have been one of the places where she felt particularly welcome, even taking on the role of meeting people at the door and bringing them into the locked club. Why was that place so important to her, and what did Jerry and Märta offer that other spaces did not?
Sam: It was particularly important both because the club opened just after Transvestia had its last party (because the trans movement had become increasingly influenced by Prince’s excluding ideas) and because it was trans inclusive. Or rather, labels just didn’t seem so important to Jerry and Märta. But also because Eva-Lisa’s lesbian identity was confirmed in that environment.
Monika: She later became involved in Lesbisk Front and participated in its dramatic protest at the porn club Pussy Cat. What drew her into the lesbian movement, and how did her understanding of trans identity and lesbian identity coexist within her political work?
Sam: What drew her into the lesbian movement was that the trans movement had become very influenced by the ideas of Virginia Prince, and it didn’t leave much room for a transsexual lesbian, which was how Eva-Lisa identified. So when the lesbian world opened up to her, I think she felt that it was a place where she was welcomed. I also think that her identity as a woman was strengthened by her identity as a lesbian, because that identity was very strong among the other lesbians.
This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when lesbian identity and the lesbian movement became very strong and important for people who identified as lesbian. By the early 1970s, her lesbian identity had perhaps become even more important than her trans identity, partly because lesbians at that time didn’t have much knowledge about trans identities, and there wasn’t much knowledge about trans identities in society as a whole. So I think it was easier for her to simply choose the identity of a lesbian, because there was no real conversation about being trans and lesbian at the same time. So it was easier for her to just be a lesbian among the other lesbians.
Monika: Eva-Lisa was among those who literally helped build Kvinnohuset in Stockholm in 1979. What have you learned about her role there, and what did the Women’s House represent to her at that moment in her life?
Sam: Lesbisk Front took the initiative to create this meeting place, this headquarters for the feminist movement in Stockholm, which was Kvinnohuset, the Women’s House. Eva-Lisa was an important part of renovating the building. It was a big house in the center of Stockholm that had previously been a photo studio and needed extensive renovations. Because she was one of the few people who had the skills to do that, I think, she was there almost every weekend and many nights during the week, just getting this big house ready for the women’s movement. For almost 20 years, she was an important part of it. Of course, nobody was paid. Everyone worked for free. I think it was so important to her because, at that time, this was one of the few places where she could be herself. That’s why it became so important to her, and that’s also why she became so important to the Women’s House. She put so much time and effort into creating this meeting place.
Monika: There is a painful irony in the fact that someone who helped build Kvinnohuset was later excluded from it when parts of the feminist movement decided that trans women should not be included. How did she describe that experience to you, and what did you sense it meant to her personally?
Sam: Yes, she was excluded from the Women’s House in the mid-1990s. What’s important to know is that in the early 1990s there was an economic crisis in Sweden. There was an increase in violence, including murders of immigrants and gay men, and there was also a rise in transphobic ideas. These ideas were spread through the book The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond, which had come out in the late 1970s in the US but began to circulate in feminist and lesbian circles in Sweden around 1990.
These ideas, which basically portrayed trans women as men who wanted to infiltrate women’s spaces to commit rape or sexual assault, gained a foothold in the Swedish feminist movement. A debate began around 1994. It wasn’t a large number of people, but a small group started to question her role there. Of course, many people defended Eva-Lisa and emphasized that she was one of the people who had started the house and had literally helped build the whole organization.
END OF PART 1
All photos unless stated otherwise: courtesy of Sam Hultin.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
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