When she first fell in love with a woman, homosexuality was considered a crime and a disease in her native Finland, where it remained illegal until 1971. She did this completely openly, never trying to hide her sexual identity, even if it was not socially tolerated at the time. Tove Jansson lived together with a woman for 45 years and had several same-sex relationships before that. ” “I’ve fallen madly in love with a woman”
But the important thing was that I fell in love with that person. Sometimes that person was a man, and sometimes it was a woman. Her approach to love is beautifully stated in this line, retold by her publisher and friend Helen Svensson in a documentary series about Tove: Jansson was both an ambitious painter and an illustrator, a writer of adult fiction and picture books for children, and she had relationships with both men and women. She was a searcher who wanted to be free to define herself both in private and as an artist, defying the strict gender roles of the time.
Tove Jansson was not an activist who stood on barricades, but the way she lived her life was a demonstration in itself. She was a bold woman – both in how she created art and the way she chose to live her life. After her death, Tove Jansson has become something of a queer icon, inspiring people from all over the world with her fearless life choices and insightful art, which can often be viewed through a queer lens.
