Speaker introductions are in alphabetical order under each section of the event.
Read more about the event, program, registration and accessibility here.
Facilitators:
Wisam Elfadl (she, hon)
Wisam Elfadl is a cultural producer, queer activist and a member of the Wasla collective.
Wasla is currently leading the project Islamia queeristi (Islam in a queer way), funded by Kone Foundation and whose main goal is to increase knowledge of diverse and LGBTQI-inclusive interpretations of Islam in Finland. They do so by art, photography and writing. With its decolonising and queer point of view, the project challenges prevailing notions of Islam as the manifestation of a monolithic, cishetero patriarchy, and shines a light on the queer Islamic voices that have so long been silenced.
Tuula Juvonen (she, hon)
Dr. Tuula Juvonen works as a senior lecturer of Gender Studies at Tampere University. She has studied widely the historically changing position of homosexuality in Finnish society as well as the heteronormativity of diverse professional practices. Juvonen has been awarded for her ongoing collaboration with memory institutions to preserve Finnish LGBTQ histories, and she is a co-founder of the registered association Friends of Queer History. Currently she leads the Academy of Finland funded project Affective Activism: Sites of Queer and Trans World-Making (2021–2025).
10.40–11.30
The morality of criminalizing homosexuality (FI/EN)
Jens Rydström (he, han)
Jens Rydström is a professor in Gender Studies at Lund University and has published extensively on queer history during the 19th and 20th century. His publications include Sinners and Citizens: Bestiality and homosexuality in Sweden 1880-1950 (University of Chicago Press 2003); Odd Couples: A history of gay marriage in Scandinavia (University of Amsterdam Press 2010) and Loneliness and its Opposite: Sex, disability and the ethics of enagement (with Don Kulick, Duke University Press 2015).
Antu Sorainen (she, hon)
Antu Sorainen is a Docent in Gender Studies and works at The University of Helsinki (at leave until 2022). Her research focuses on queer and lesbian sexuality in law, in history and in kinship prefigurations. She has published widely on the field. Antu’s PhD analysed ”lesbian trials” in the 1950s Finland. She worked as the Academy Fellow and project director for the Academy of Finland until 2020. Her current 3-year grant project (The Finnish Cultural Foundation) approaches protolesbian desire and the nationalist sentiment in the 1920-30s Finland from a personal life perspective.
11.40–12.30
Living in the shadow of criminal law (FI)
Kati Mustola (she, hon)
Kati Mustola is a sociologist, she has studied among others youth, situation of LGBT+ people in working life and Finnish queer history. She has edited with Johanna Pakkanen the book Sateenkaari-Suomi on Finnish LGBT+ history, and with Jens Rydström the book Criminally Queer – Homosexuality and Criminal Law in Scandinavia 1842-1999.
13.30–14.30
Prohibition law in Finland (1971–1999) and elsewhere (FI/ENG)
Luca Dudits (she, hon)
Luca Dudits is the communications officer and a board member of Háttér Society. Luca graduated from University College London with BA in History, Politics and Economics, where her main research topic was the socioeconomic status of Eastern European minorities. She is responsible for public relations, marketing and communications, and is also involved in several projects including integration at the workplace and awareness raising campaigns.
Ulf Månsson (he, han)
Ulf Månsson has been a LGTB human rights activist within the Finnish organization SETA and in ILGA since 1978 during approximately a decade. He has also been involved in Greenpeace for some years. As a private lawyer since 1983, Månsson was specialised in family and inheritance law cases. Nowadays he is retired and lives part of the year in Helsinki and part in Barcelona. His hobbies are dogs, Spanish studies, fitness sports and human rights.
Jo Paxton (she, hon)
Jo Paxton is a lesbian activist who worked as a teacher during the Section 28 legislation, a short and homophobic law that had far-reaching effects on schools until it was abolished in 2000 in Scotland by the Scottish parliament and in 2003 in England and Wales – after a lengthy campaign.
Alisa Zhabenko (she, hon)
Alisa Zhabenko is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Helsinki, Gender Studies. She works on the topic of lesbian mothering in Russia in a historical perspective from the late Soviet period to contemporary times. She has been looking at how the changes In the Russian legislation concerning homosexuality influenced the everyday lives of lesbian mothers. Alisa worked closely with LGBTQ organisations in Saint Petersburg and Moscow and continues following the topic of queer in Russia.
14.40–15.30
Intersectional diversity of sexual and gender history in the museum (FI)
Sandra Hagman (she, hon)
Sandra Hagman is a historian, a social worker and senior lecturer in Diak university of applied sciences. Hagman has done her Ph.D. on the conceptualization and the control mechanisms over male same-sex behavior in Finnish 20th century history. She’s made the Finnish history of homosexuality visible in her popular history writings and lectures held in museums, universities and schools. Hagman has also studied Tanzanian LGBTIQ organizations, and advocated LGBTIQ rights in public services of Helsinki. Hagman has scripted the Cell of a ‘lover of men’ into The Prison of National Museum of Finland.
Elisa Sarpo (she, hon)
Elisa Sarpo works as a community manager in the National Museum of Finland. As a commuity manager, she works in the public engagement and strengthens equality by amplifying the participation of nationwide minorities as well as socially marginalized groups in cultural heritage. Elisa has worked as the project manager for the reform of Prison Museum and produces community based events for Prison Museum, Seurasaari Open-air Museum and National Museum. She also works in different exhibition projects. By profession, she is a MA, cultural producer and a graduate of a commercial institute.
15.40–16.30
Panel: Queer newcomers: perspectives on LGBTQ migration
Hassen Hnini (he, han)
Hassen Hnini is an LGBTQI+ activist who has experience in working with several organizations in Tunisia and Finland. Starting in the end of 2015, he was one of the key volunteer of the non-governmental organization HeSeta’s (currently “Helsinki Pride Community”) Together-project, which is designated to support LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers in Finland. During 2017-2018 he was the chair person of HeSeta. Since 2018, he is working for the non-governmental organization “Loisto setlementti” for the Bahar project and focuses on supporting youth who are targeted by honor-related violence.
Thomas Moose (they, hen)
Thomas Moose is a performer, a model, and a scientific researcher. During their performances, they explore the sexiness of a trans nonbinary body. They have a double Master of Science degree in International Nature Conservation from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and Lincoln University, New Zealand. Thomas is from Italy but now based in Helsinki, Finland. They’re pursuing a PhD position and creating a life filled with science, different art forms, and community.
Abdullah Qureshi (he/they, han/hen)
Abdullah Qureshi is a Pakistani-born artist, curator, and educator. Within his practice, he is interested in using painting, filmmaking, and methodologies of collaboration and organization to address personal histories, traumatic pasts, and sexuality. Through his on-going doctoral project, Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer Muslim Utopias, he examines formations of queer identity and resistance in Muslim migratory contexts. In 2017, Qureshi received the Art and International Cooperation fellowship at Zurich University of the Arts, and in 2018, a research fellowship at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston. In 2019, he joined the Center for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto as a visiting graduate student and is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Aalto University in Finland, supported by Kone Foundation.
Other staff
Gisela Schulz-Ala-Tala (she, hon)
Gisela Schulz-Ala-Tala is an entrepreneur and content creator, who finds the human scale in the big picture of history. She has an extensive working history in the museum field, in different roles. Gisela has produced content for the renewed Prison Museum, and at the end of the event, she takes participants to a guided tour in the women’s prison.
Kaura Raudaskoski (they, hen)
Project coordinator (Rainbow History Visibility), secretary of Friends of Rainbow History association.
Visual arts educator, philosopher, community educator.
Ville Syrjäläinen
Video production, streaming.
https://www.centredeville.com