METHOD AND MATERIALS

This knowledge review is based on literature on the working life conditions of trans people in the Nordic countries and on dialogues conducted with civil society organisations and labour market actors. Interviews were conducted with representatives of civil society organisations in Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland to get a picture of the situation there.

In the process of collecting material, literature searches were carried out and civil society organisations consulted, with a particular focus on trans organisations and researchers in the field, as well as experts and officials in authorities and ministries.

The first inclusion criteria for material was that the information should be specifically and discernibly about trans people. Material that, for example, deals with the LGBTI community without such a differentiation was excluded. Other inclusion criteria were that the material should be based on the Nordic countries and related to working life issues. The search was limited to the last 15 years, i.e. 2008-2023.

Initially, a literature search using the Scopus database was tested. Search terms related to trans, working life and the Nordic countries were used. This search yielded few hits, and a scan of the articles’ abstracts revealed that only one of the articles fell within the inclusion criteria. Following this search, emails were sent to trans organisations and umbrella organisations for LGBTI issues in all the Nordic countries, researchers in the field and experts and officials in government authorities and ministries, with a request for any material on the theme that they knew of and to pass on the request to others working on the issue. This method resulted in a number of reports, scientific articles and ongoing projects being identified. When the project’s reference group were asked to read the first draft of the knowledge review, they were also asked to suggest additional material, if they knew of any. This provided some additional indicators for relevant publications.

This is a form of snowball method (see, for example, Browne, 2005), i.e. a method based on gathering relevant information and knowledge in a context of people with a high level of personal involvement. By identifying key people for a particular issue, the movement of the snowball can capture the knowledge needed. Our reference group – as well as other key people identified for us by the reference group – is one such context. This is particularly apparent when compared to the literature search, which yielded very few results and was therefore misleading. At the same time, it may of course be the case that relevant publications are not included in this review. However, we do not claim this to be a comprehensive compilation, rather the intention is to provide a picture of the various themes that appear in the literature collected through this method.

Texts in Danish, English, Norwegian and Swedish were read in the original language. In most cases, reports written in Finnish and Icelandic were also available in Swedish or English. In one case, a Finnish text was translated into Swedish. One Icelandic report was published after the material collection was completed; for the purpose of including the results, we read a summary of the findings in English and maintained a dialogue with participating actors.

The knowledge review also includes documentation from discussions held with national actors to identify needs and propose measures to improve the working life conditions of trans people in the Nordic countries. Meetings were held with representatives of national civil society organisations, anti-discrimination ombudsmen and central trade union organisations. The civil society organisations were invited to a workshop in connection with the Nordic LGBTI Conference in Reykjavik 2023, which brought together many LGBTI and trans organisations. The Nordic anti-discrimination ombudsmen were consulted at a workshop in connection with a Nordic network meeting between the ombudsmen, to which NIKK was invited. All Nordic trade union confederations were invited to a meeting organised by NIKK with the support of NFS, the Council of Nordic Trade Unions. The views and discussions presented during the workshops are included in an aggregated form. Of course, different organisations have different approaches to the issues, and it is not necessarily the case that all organisations agree with the positions presented in the text.

NIKK has also sought to contact employer organisations in the Nordic countries. As there is no umbrella organisation for employer organisations in the Nordic countries, we instead contacted them by means of a short questionnaire sent out by e-mail. Few responses were received to the questionnaire. One employer organisation provided responses from its respective member organisations.

The publications that have been identified are important sources of knowledge about the working life conditions of trans people in the Nordic countries. The material covers a wide range of topics and authors and includes peer-reviewed scientific articles and reports produced by authorities and municipalities as well as by LGBTI and trans organisations. The publications have different focuses and use different methods and approaches to produce and summarise knowledge on the subject. In this knowledge review, reference is sometimes made to the percentages described in the various reports. It is important to note, however, that the sample groups are often small. This, and the fact that the surveys were conducted using different methods, means that they should not be directly compared. However, they do give a good idea of the working life conditions of trans people in the different Nordic countries.

Sometimes results are presented from international research conducted in and about contexts outside the Nordic countries. This is especially the case when it comes to themes on which there has been a lack of knowledge produced in the Nordic context. This has been done on the basis of an influential publication produced in the Nordic countries: HBTQ-personers organisatoriska och sociala arbetsmiljö (HBTQ people’s organisational and social work environment), produced by Mynak, the Swedish Agency for Work Environment Expertise (Eriksson et al., 2022). It provides an overview of international research in the field. Although many studies, especially those concerning trans people’s circumstances, are often small and have limited generalisability, we see it as important to present some of the research related to themes on which there is an absence of or limited Nordic knowledge.

When studies and reports are referenced, the terms used in the referenced publications are used throughout. This differs between the various publications and therefore also in this paper, but the term trans person is used as an umbrella term. In Finland, it is common to use the terms ‘transfeminine’ and ‘transmasculine’. In the rest of the Nordic countries, the term ‘trans person’ is most commonly used. Some use the term ‘trans experience’, indicating that transition is an experience rather than an identity for some people.

There are also differences between the publications in terms of how groups have been studied and differentiated. The studies have different purposes and examine different themes and groups in different ways. For example, some of the studies differentiate by gender identity, with findings reported separately for trans people who identify as men, women, or non-binary. Others distinguish between binary and non-binary trans people. Finally, some refer to trans people without differentiating within this group.

Several of the reports that form the foundation of this knowledge review study both trans people and other members of the LGBTI community as a whole. In this review, findings on trans people are sometimes compared to findings on other parts of the LGBTI community for context.