LGBTI research in the Nordic countries is strong and multi-faceted but has to a large degree been conducted within different research disciplines.

The aim of the Nordic Network for LGBTI Research on Health and Living Conditions is to consolidate the Nordic LGBTI research on health and living conditions in a wider sense across the Nordic region, to share research results, and facilitate conferences, workshops and network meetings to further support this field of study across disciplines. To achieve this, we will establish regular meetings and activities that facilitate the sharing of research results and ideas.

The planned activities are one network meeting per year in the coming two years. The meetings, taking place in different countries, will be organized to provide space for sharing results and planning future research collaborations, including an international conference on LGBTI research.

LGBT+ individuals in the Nordic region face significant online harassment, hate and violence, often targeted with derogatory comments, threats and cyberbullying, leading to severe psychological distress. Anti-gender ideologies exacerbate these issues by promoting harmful stereotypes and misinformation, undermining the LGBT+ movement.

With the Safer Queer Cities Program we aim to address these issues and build a safer Nordic region for LGBT+ people. Using Reykjavik City as a pilot case, we unite researchers, politicians, analysts, civil society, policymakers and local stakeholders from across the Nordic region to create a local action plan for a safer city.

The Safer Queer Cities Program aim to enhance the safety and resilience of LGBT+ individuals by equipping municipalities and organizations in Reykjavik with up-to-date knowledge and tools to combat online and offline threats and harassment. Building on this work we aim to create an report with concrete recommendations and actions to be shared with all Nordic cities to create safer Nordic cities for queers.

The project focuses on higher education for human services professionals by developing a multilingual Nordic digital curriculum to enhance LGBTQIA+ competencies within social work and healthcare. Research has highlighted the limited and inadequate coverage of these topics in existing social and healthcare education programs.

There are challenges that include inadequate training about encountering LGBTQIA+ populations, professional’s possible biases to encounter LGBTQIA+ people and heteronormativity in social work practice. These issues negatively impact LGBTQIA+ individuals  and increase their unequal position in social and healthcare settings.

The project uses a co-creation approach involving students, NGOs, and experts to create a digital curriculum accessible in Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and English. The curriculum includes modules covering sexual and gender diversity, life course perspectives, and LGBTQIA+ issues in social work and healthcare. The curriculum will be hosted on a digital platform and made openly available for students, professionals, and educators.

The project aims to produce equality data for trans people and people with trans experience, focusing on the situation in the labour market and personal finances. A study will be carried out in two stages: a large quantitative survey with a follow-up qualitative study to deepen the results. The study will also highlight variations within the group, which is often wrongly analysed as a more uniform group than it is.

By making visible the consequences of discrimination for transgender people at the societal level, actors who design and implement policies regarding the labour market, social measures and discrimination can have better opportunities to design targeted measures for transgender people.

The results of the study, including statistics and analyses, are presented in a report. It will be made available online to the public, researchers, authorities and other relevant stakeholders. The results are also disseminated at a final conference in 2024, which also serves as a basis for continued networking in the area between the collaborating NGOs.

Even though the Nordic countries are at the forefront of LGBTIQ rights in Europe and globally, LGBTIQ Roma are subject to a complex web of intersectional discrimination and marginalization. Little or no research has been carried out on this group in the Nordics, neither are we aware of any specific programmes or activities to support them. This project is a first step towards putting Roma LGBTIQ communities on the agenda in the Nordics. The project aims to provide information about Romani LGBTIQ minorities in the Nordics and the intersectional discrimination they face, including antigypsyist homophobia. The outcome of the project will be a publication with a series of public book launches/seminars in three Nordic capitals (Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo). The publication will bring the voices of Roma LGBTIQ persons and Roma activists promoting LGBTIQ rightsto the forefront.

The project will provide an overview of good practices from other European countries where Roma LGBTIQ rights movements have grown and visibilized the challenges that these communities face. The aim of the publication is to equip organisations, institutions and stakeholders with relevant knowledge and tools that will raise public awareness about specific forms of discrimination that Roma LGBTIQ people face in order to create an accepting environment that values diversity within LGBTIQ and Roma communities; to combat antigypsyist homophobia; and to support Roma LGBTIQ persons in pursuing their struggle for equality in Nordic societies. The book launches will bring together relevant stakeholders to ensure that the knowledge is communicated to places where it is needed.

This project builds on a collaboration between five organizations within the Nordic region that have been involved in the growing QTIBIPoC movement. The project’s purpose is to collaboratively create a practical toolkit in partnership with QTIBIPOCs – a resource designed by and for the community. This toolkit will partly serve as a transformative intervention for Nordic organizations, welfare systems, schools, and other institutions that engage with QTIBIPOCs. We also want the toolkit to serve as a resource for QTIBIPOC organizing and create opportunities for cross-border coalitions.

The toolkit will introduce readers to an intersectional understanding of systems of oppression and power, and develop a contextual and historical analysis of the Nordic region. Most importantly, the toolkit will draw its strength from real-life experiences, activist strategies, organizational skills, and movement expertise from across the region.

QTIBIPoC stands for Queer, Trans*, Inter* and Black, Indigenous, People of Colour.

The aim of this project is to create a network of queer history archives and activities in the Nordic and Baltic countries and to promote the sharing of experience and knowledge and to explore opportunities for partnership, infrastructure solutions, and financial conditions. The network’s partners in Sweden, Finland and Norway have different competences and will use these to conduct their individual seminar days and network gatherings. The seminars will invite queer archives, researchers, cultural heritage professionals and artists from the Nordic and Baltic countries to share experience and knowledge, for development and for partnerships. The network will challenge previous marginalising historiography in the Nordic countries, broaden interest in queer history in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and contribute to a more inclusive view of history. The work to change this view will be communicated through an open digital platform where activities and discussions will be documented and made accessible, and include links to the different LHBTQ archives and history activities.

The background to the project was the need for closer Nordic co-operation between organisations working for LGBT+ rights. Although the organisation and situation in the countries are somewhat different, we all experience that the LGBT+ population has poorer living conditions and greater challenges than the majority population, and that trends in the world and Europe mean that we must continue to work for equal rights and opportunities regardless of gender and sexuality. ILGA Europe’s rainbow map shows stagnation and decline. The largest LGBT+ organisations in the Nordic region therefore joined forces to organise a conference that brought together staff and activists from across the Nordic region in Oslo on the weekend of 20-22 May 2022.

A total of 100 queer activists and staff from queer organisations gathered in Oslo to discuss and learn about a range of topics that affect queer lives. Participants represented Finland, Åland, Sweden, Sápmi, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

The conference was followed up with a two-hour webinar on 12 December on the topic of the living conditions of queer seniors in a life course perspective in the Nordic countries, hosted by the Norwegian-Swedish research duo Janne Bromseth and Anna Siverskog. There were 30 participants from Finland, Åland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Greenland.

The conference also saw the establishment of a Nordic LGBT+ council consisting of small and large LGBT+ organisations in the Nordic Region. SETA, Samtökin ’78, RFSL, LGBT+ Denmark and FRI had the main responsibility for the conference and invited organisations from their respective countries and autonomous regions.

The formalisation of a Nordic LGBT+ council and network will enable the exchange of experience and knowledge on how best to strengthen efforts on a more permanent basis.