Going to the ‘Men's School'? Non-heterosexual and trans youth choosing military service in Finland

Abstract

Military service is obligatory for those who are legally men in Finland, and the majority of men do their service, although there is the possibility for women to apply for voluntary military service. In this article I analyse the experiences and stories of non-heterosexual men, non-heterosexual women, transfeminine and transmasculine respondents in relation to their military service. My data are from a survey with 1861 responses from trans and non-heterosexual people under 30 years of age. I analyse what kind of significance they give to gender and sexuality in their perceptions of military service. Military service is often seen in their stories as a ‘men’s school’ from which they distance themselves or which they see as a way to prove their masculinity. The four respondent groups reacted differently towards military service in many respects. Their reasons given for deciding to avoid military service included pacifist concerns on the part of some, but concerns relating to gender and sexuality were far more frequent in decisions to avoid military service. The army was often seen as best suited for heterosexual man, and military culture was seen as sexist and homophobic.

Keywords:

• non-heterosexual
• transgender
• masculinity
• heteronormativity
• homonormativity
• military service

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jeff Hearn, Tamara Shefer and Kopano Ratele for their comments and all the other colleagues in the project ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, as well as participants in the panels at the JustEd (Nordic Centre of Excellence in Education) conference in May 2014 in Helsinki, and the Nordic Men and Masculinities Conference in June 2014 in Reykjavik. Thanks also, to Katarina Alanko for assistance with the data, the national GLBTI human rights organisation Seta and the Finnish Youth Research Network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Military service is often referred to as ‘going into the army’, if you choose do your service in the armed forces. Depending on the training and the conscripts’ abilities, the duration can be 165, 255 or 347 days. Non-military service is sometimes called ‘alternative service’, but I use the concept of ‘non-military service’ here, and it normally lasts for 347 days. This has been seen as a punishment, since it is clearly longer than the average time spent in the army. Service in the army without weapons lasts for 270 or 362 days, and only 0.1 % of men are doing it. A total objector’s prison time would be 181 days, and typically only one man per year has been imprisoned as a total objector. Twenty per cent of women, who do military service voluntarily, drop out of the service. Those who have served 45 days or longer and quit the service have to do non-military service, but otherwise it is not possible for women to apply for non-military service. People living on the Island of Ahvenanmaa, as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses, are exempted from conscription. It has been argued by the Council of Europe Human Rights director and the United Nations Human Rights Committee that the current situation is undesirable, that the groups to be exempted should be enlarged, and the time of non-military service be shortened. Amnesty International sees total objectors who are in prison as political prisoners (Aseistakieltäytyjäliitto, 2014; The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015; Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2011; Tilastokeskus 2014).

2. The gender equality law also prohibits discrimination based on a gender reassignment process. The anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. These cover workplace discrimination, so in the armed forces discrimination based on either gender reassignment processes or the sexual orientation of employees has been prohibited by legislation for about 10 years. The new law on anti-discrimination and gender equality came into force on 1 January 2015. It is more efficient than the earlier law as it prohibits clearly discrimination against trans and intersexual people in the workplace, such as the Armed Forces. It includes the prevention of discrimination based on gender identity and expression. The law against workplace discrimination does not cover military service or non-military service, as they are not considered as work but as duty or training.

3. This has also been criticised by many and, for example, the Council for Gender Equality has stated that the current situation is gender discriminatory, since only men are obliged to do military service (see Jokinen, 2010).

4. Though not in South Africa, Japan, China, nor in the USA, Canada and Australia.

5. These countries are typically Western countries (European, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), though Taiwan, South Africa and some Latin American countries are also listed as places where it is possible to serve as openly gay or lesbian.

6. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

7. Katarina Alanko wrote the first report and Riikka Taavetti the second (Alanko, 2013; Taavetti, 2015). The survey was produced in 2013 with 2515 respondents, both young and adult, non-heterosexual, heterosexual, transgender and others. Alanko and Taavetti focused on 1623 participants between 15 and 25 years old. Alanko’s report was based on statistical analysis. Taavetti did qualitative analysis on the stories of young people in the survey. Both of them also wrote on military service issues. The project was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

8. I left some respondents out of my data to make it possible to create the four groups of respondents. Initially I removed from both groups those responses which did not mention their gender at the time of their birth. This also meant that I did not take into account, in my analysis, the experiences of intersexual respondents. Trans people may have various kinds of sexual orientations and non-heterosexual people may express their gender in different ways. I wanted to create four separate groups and I divided them mainly using the question ‘Are you trans?’. If respondents answered in the negative, they were grouped separately from the ones who answered either ‘yes’ or ‘I don’t know’. The trans groups then included respondents who were either sure that they were trans, or unsure, if they were trans. Of the other group, I removed heterosexual respondents who defined themselves as heterosexual and did not report that they would have a sexual interest towards persons of their own gender.

9. The data were balanced in many ways. The original survey was aimed mainly at respondents between 16 and 25 years old, even if it was possible for all to respond. The most typical age group in my data were the ones who were 19–20 years old, and there are fewer responses from those under 16-year-old, and those older than 25. This means that quite a few respondents, whose juridical gender was man, were not obliged to do military service at the time of the survey response because they were too young (under 18 years). There are relatively more responses from Southern Finland and the capital area of Helsinki than other parts of the country. Higher educated respondents were more active in responding to the survey. The majority of all respondents were still studying or at school: 64% of non-heterosexual men and over 70% of the other groups of respondents. Some of the respondents had disabilities and chronic illnesses which might have affected their ability to do military service. Of the non-heterosexual men, one fifth indicated that they were disabled or had chronic illnesses, and of the transfeminine respondents nearly 30% reported the same.

10. For example, as part of the national health survey on military service at THL, the National Institute of Health and Wellbeing.

Additional information

Funding

This article results from a 3-year collaborative transnational research project ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, and the Academy of Finland. The work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 271546].

Notes on contributors

Jukka Lehtonen

Jukka Lehtonen is postdoctoral researcher at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland. His research focus is on sexual and gender diversity and heteronormativity in education and work environment.