Tom Ovlien (born 1955)

Skeivt Arkiv
2025-07-29
Ovlien and the Blikk editorial team combined journalism and activism throughout the 1990s. Together with political youth parties, they pushed for change and called for research. The result was NOVA Report 1/1999, which revealed shocking insights into the living conditions of young gay people. The report led to a White Paper in Parliament and marked a fundamental shift in Norwegian LGBTQ+ policy.

In our life story interview, Ovlien shares personal reflections and his work with Blikk. The magazine maintained an overview of resources available to support young people in distress, and many reached out for help in various ways. Major media outlets also turned to the Blikk editorial team as a resource when covering LGBTQ+ topics.

He also speaks in detail about the 1999 NOVA report, which landed like a bombshell with sobering findings about the lives of many young queer individuals.

An excerpt from the interview is available in the video window below, where Ovlien recounts, among other things, the time he interviewed the parents of a young man who had taken his own life because he could no longer bear living as a gay person.

The full interview is available at Skeivt arkiv, part of the Special Collections at the University Library in Bergen.

We met Tom Ovlien in Oslo, in March 2017.

Video: 

Tom Ovlien var journalist og aktivist i Blikk.

Address: Skeivt arkiv
HF-bygget, Sydnesplassen 7, 5007 Bergen

Postal address: Postboks 7808, 5020 Bergen
Contact: skeivtarkiv@uib.no

Skeivt arkiv has taken every effort to ensure that texts and image use are correct. Any corrections will be performed regularly. Please contact us if you discover any errors. All texts are available under Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram og Twitter.