When adventure awaits right outside your door
By Simone Lindvall (she/her)
Meet Charlotte. She is the new Head of Culture at Copenhagen Pride and is at the same time an unusual woman and a completely ordinary one. With a calm and stable presence, she is also full of surprises and rarely sits still for very long. Sounds confusing? Read on to learn more about who Charlotte is, how she ended up in one of the most influential positions at Copenhagen Pride in just under two years, and what she plans and hopes for the future in her new position.
One rainy afternoon in late October, I arrive at the Copenhagen Pride office in central Copenhagen. I don’t have my own office key, so I wait for Charlotte outside. Although the lights are on inside, there is, quite out of the ordinary, nobody to be seen. The usual bustle of activity and people moving about among desks, parcels and brightly coloured coffee cups has today been replaced by uncharacteristic silence. As we draw close to our agreed meeting time, I decide to text her, but just as I’m getting out my phone, I hear a small noise from the door behind me: Charlotte appears and lets me in. She was on the mark 15 minutes early but sat hidden by an enormous trolley with stuff in all the colours of the rainbow, keeping so quiet I simply didn’t notice her. But she doesn’t need to attract attention, and she knows. She will make herself noticed all the same.
From Mors to Copenhagen
Charlotte Mygdam Toft, as is her name, was born in Vejle in 1971. She grew up with her mother in Nykøbing Mors, first in a closed-down garden centre just outside town, then in a 19th-century fisherman’s cottage close to the harbour. As a child, she had a lot of freedom and room to experiment. This showed in her childhood room, which she describes as a bit of a biology teacher’s dream, with fish tanks holding fish as well as things she found in nature, and a desk which, instead of writing tools, she filled with sand from the nearby beach so she could build things. For a while she kept pigeons, and, as far as she knows, she was among the first on the island of Mors to get a personal computer – a VIC-20, the predecessor of the iconic Commodore 64. Like a proper Gyro Gearloose, she once fixed its joystick when it broke, because what do you do when you can’t afford spare parts? “Well, you of course grab a tin can and cut the spare part from that,” she says confidently.
From a young age she was not afraid of hard work. Before turning twelve, she had an after-school job at a vet clinic, and after that, the local museum beckoned. Among other things, she took part in a mediaeval excavation, where apart from trying her hand at archaeology, she practised her German and English-speaking skills as she was tasked with communicating the project to onlooking tourists. She also had a job at a florist’s. And an auto repair shop. And work practice at a furniture store. All before turning seventeen.
When she was very young, before starting school, she explored the just-under-two hectares of protected fallow fields close to the Nykøbing waterworks and the forest close to her home. She visited the neighbourhood horses, explored the local power station, and at age 5-6 caught her first fish on a bent nail in the nearby stream. When she learned to read, she inquisitively sought knowledge from her mother’s old encyclopaedias whenever there was something she needed to know, and most of her pocket money was spent at the local second-hand shop, which supplied comic books. Charlotte does not gripe about her, in many ways quite modest, childhood – quite the opposite, in fact: “Although we didn’t have that much money, we never wanted for anything. We could afford everything I needed. Maybe I haven’t gone on fancy holidays and all that. But I didn’t need to. I had adventure right outside my door.”
One very special adventure proved formative for her. As opposed to her small childhood expeditions, this one took place not on land but on water. The father of a childhood friend taught Charlotte that it was fun to sail. He was a boat builder, she says, and at this point in the interview, something happens to her. She has told openly and in detail about her childhood and adolescence, but now, her voice takes on a different intensity, and her body language becomes more insistent. With deep immersion and fond nostalgia, she tells of a summer holiday trip on a sailing boat through the Limfjord from Nykøbing to Aalborg: “That was one of the first great ocean experiences I ever had. And it’s probably still the greatest. A night with completely calm weather. Nice and quiet under sail, right at dusk. And then, coming into Aalborg harbour and just seeing all the street lights twinkling up through Aalborg. I was sold.” So, once she got old enough to drive a moped, the most natural thing in the world was to get a boat, and finally, aged seventeen, she started a career in the Danish navy, which has brought her far and wide, not least to Copenhagen, which she hasn’t left since.
Charlotte’s pride
When viewed from the outside, Charlotte’s way into Copenhagen Pride seems in many ways an obvious extension of her personal journey towards becoming herself – a journey which took off in 2014, culminated in 2021, and a journey which she is still on. But it is also a near-inevitable consequence of her stubborn tendency to take up challenges with a certain desire and a fundamental belief that she will find a way, even though she does not know it in advance.
Charlotte’s first encounter with the Culture Group happens just after a long-expected gender-affirming surgery so she is not really supposed to be lifting anything. Yet she has still signed up as a volunteer for the Winter Pride Week: Nothing will keep her from exploring what else life has to offer – not anymore – and she “can always sit minding a door or something,” she thinks. However, she ends up making an impression by repairing the cell phone of the then-Head of Culture, which has suddenly broken. With a brief, but focused effort and surprising calm, which contrasted sharply with the chaos caused by an urgent problem during a running event, Charlotte convinced the group of her merits. Soon after this night in February 2022, she got a message with an invitation to become a fixed member of the Culture Group, and as is known, she said yes. Even though she “had no clue whatsoever as to what was going to happen.” Faced with a situation like this, many people would have probably kept a low profile for a while, quietly getting the feel of this new unknown. Charlotte, however, did the complete opposite. She plunged into the tasks with enthusiasm, quickly taking on so much responsibility that before long she found herself in an assistant position, cooperating closely with management. This has provided her with more in-depth knowledge of not only the people who are part of the decision-making authority at Copenhagen Pride but also of some of the prejudiced notions about the organisation which apparently exist out there: “I’ve learned that there exists a different viewpoint of what we’re doing from the one I came in with. I always thought Pride was awesome. But some people do think it’s not. I have the impression that some people regard us as a bit of an exclusive club. Even though we go around claiming to be inclusive, it has sometimes become apparent that maybe we haven’t been that inclusive after all. Or, people haven’t seen us as inclusive, at least. Quite the opposite; people have felt that you have to be ’properly’ queer or be queer in the ’right’ way to be part of it. So, a lot of people have felt excluded, even though we work really hard not to exclude anyone.”
She is saddened by the fact that some people are left with this experience for several reasons. Firstly, because she can closely relate to the importance of feeling at home somewhere: “I’m only human. With the same insecurities and vulnerabilities as everyone else, the same needs and challenges. Like everybody else, I need a place to be. A place to belong.” Secondly, the impression of Copenhagen Pride as ’the exclusive club’ does not at all correspond to the image of the organisation which she herself has gotten from the inside. As she says, “I wish people knew how good we really are at trying to see past our own preconceptions and limitations to try and help people in various places. And that we’re not defined by old white people but that we’re so much more. We’re more than just a parade; we’re a Culture Group, a cultural institution. We’re a human rights organisation, and we’re present all year. We’re out there in the corners, supporting those who do activism in doing so, and then we put a face to it. I’d like for more people to know about that.”
The road ahead
But you don’t get far just being upset about something. Action will get you much further, and here, Charlotte leads the way, first and foremost by having made the jump and joined in, then by lending a hand, and by continuing to push ahead. This dynamic nature also permeates her visions for the Culture Group and the area of culture at Copenhagen Pride – naturally so, one might say, when recalling young Charlotte and her many jobs: “It is my dream that besides being a protest organisation, we put Copenhagen Pride on the map as an equal player in the field of arts and culture, along with many of the other large actors mainly in Copenhagen, but ultimately also on the national level. And I hope we will become a group that will kick down doors and pave the way not only for ourselves in the Culture Group, but the whole of Copenhagen Pride, so that we become a more coherent unit where each work group offers their own point of view. Through arts and culture, we can show some of the things that are often not shown because they are not activism in the traditional sense, but a different sort of activism showing more images and nuances of a community which is really not that well known. And we can do this without pointing the finger at anyone just by telling a good story through great music, amazing theatre performances, and so on. That is another way to bring the important stories across. And I’m also looking forward to providing a stage to stand on to other groups which are not usually heard.” No one can blame her for lacking ambition or motivation. And with Charlotte’s inquisitive openness and perseverance as the driving force, the potential seems near limitless.
Charlotte appears to be living by the motto that “where there is curiosity, dedication, and perseverance, there is a way,” and herein lies the key to her success in Copenhagen Pride – not in her prior knowledge of or contacts within the organisation, nor in a large network within the queer community, or plenty of industry-specific expertise or good intentions. You don’t have to be or act in any particular way to make a difference, and that goes for an established institution like Copenhagen Pride as well. You can just be an inspiration – like Charlotte.
About Charlotte
Name: Charlotte Mygdam Toft (she/her)
Born: March 26th, 1971, in Vejle (age 52)
Position with Copenhagen Pride: Head of Culture
Residence: Herlev
Education: Naval constable specialising in battle information, AP Graduate in computer science, and “dozens and dozens of other fun courses” from, for example, the IT University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark.
Jobs (a small selection): Naval constable with the Royal Danish Navy, IT technician, team leader and head of services at Zitech Computer ApS, as well as a software developer for, among others, the Danish Armed Forces, a space travel company, and – since 2022 – a company which develops payroll systems.
Other involvements with the LGBTI+ community (another small selection!): Formerly active member of the LGBT+ Denmark groups “Transgruppen” and “Bigruppen” (Now “Bi+ gruppen), part of the campaign ‘About Time’ in connection with Copenhagen and Malmö WorldPride 2021, a model at the May 2023 Charity Ball for Checkpoint, and part of the art project ’HOME QUEER HOME: Generations’ at ARoS art museum in June 2023
