Mimmi Makunen
Mimmi Makunen, 57, Lappeenranta, Finland:
Mimmi used to be called Hannu. One day he realised – she realised – that she felt more comfortable in women's clothing. I met Mimmi the evening before in the pedestrian area of Lappeenranta. It was a Friday evening in late summer and Mimmi was playing the accordion in her red spotted dress with a few friends. She invited me to come here today, to her summer house right on the water, on a beautiful bay on the sprawling Lake Saimaa, to tell me what it is like to live as a "tranny" in this Finnish province situated on the Russian border.
Mimmi used to lead a middle-class life, running a business consultancy firm which earned her so much money that she hasn't needed to work for several years. She had a house in the city and a country home with her own boat – and a wife. And yet, Mimmi was unhappy and had felt her entire life that she was somehow different. She looks back: »I was three when I tried on my mother's clothes for the first time.« She harboured that desire her whole life. She kept coming back to this place on the lake to think about it. Alone and in despair. She hid the women's clothes in her car and only when she was away with work did she unpack her skirts and blouses, in hotel rooms far from home. Mimmi ended up in a clinic. Several times. She had such severe depression that she had to take anti-depressants for years. Until the doctor said to her: »You have to let it out. You've got to be honest. Or you'll die.«
That was around 1998. Mimmi was away again, working for a week in an unknown town, Mikeli, 100 kilometres to the north. Again, she spent the evenings alone in her hotel room dressed in women's clothes and make up: »It changed my personality completely.« One evening she decided: »Now! – Now I’m going out!« For the first time she went out onto the street, in public. Mimmi remembers that evening: »Before that it was just a dream. Now my dream had come true. I realised that this is my world. I felt great, relaxed. No more stress. I can be what I want.« But the battle went on for years. Mimmi's wife wouldn’t accept it; she didn't understand it. She didn't want to talk about it. Mimmi mentions the day, years later, when they broke up and Mimmi's wife accepted it as »the start of my new life«. »I suddenly stopped needing the medication. I no longer needed to see a doctor. I was healthy!«
Mimmi now goes on the offensive: she gives interviews in newspapers and on television and fights for equal rights. »I have been an open trans lady for a number of years...« and in those years, a lot has changed in Finland, even out in the countryside. It is no longer a big deal to be a transvestite; it is just accepted.
But a few kilometres further east it is a completely different story. Through the LGBT association SETA, she has been in touch with people on the other side of the border. »I thank God I was born on this side, in Finland, and not in Russia!« Mimmi tells me what people have to go through in Russia if they are gay, lesbian, transsexual or transvestite. Violent gangs really hunt them down. They post fake advertisements on internet forums and lure gay and lesbian people to trysts to beat them up. They have even killed some of them. And it is only getting worse in Vladmir Putin's Russia.