The meeting of the Norwegian Editors’ Association is under way as I walk up into the woods. But today this is about far more than Hans Rustad and Document: It is about who gets to define the truth – and what it should be permissible to say in Norway. We see this not least in the case of Anne Kalvig.
Who will defend the women?
Elin Floberghagen, Secretary General of the Norwegian Press Association (Norsk Presseforbund), flew into a rage when we republished Anne Kalvig’s text for which Rogalands Avis was found in breach by the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission (PFU).
We published it with our eyes open.
Kalvig is one of the women who have dared to speak out about the consequences of trans ideology. She insists on something that until quite recently was self-evident: Women are women. They have a right to their own spaces, their own sports and a description of reality that takes biological sex as its starting point.
For this, she has been marginalised. That is why her text is important. I see Anne Kalvig as a kind of modern Camilla Collett. She stands up for women at a time when doing so actually requires courage. Who will allow women to have their say if people such as Kalvig are excluded?
Then someone must take on the task. We thought Norwegian society was about protecting the weak. But now we see an ideology that demands that women surrender both their spaces and their power to define. Those who protest risk being branded and excluded. This is not an abstract discussion.
I have lesbians in my own family who say that trans-identified men turn up at social evenings and demand to be treated as women in intimate contexts as well. Where is the line? And why has it become so difficult to ask the question?
PFU sets the boundaries
The most serious aspect is that it is not only activists who react. The institutions do the same. The PFU has found Rogalands Avis in breach over Kalvig’s text. When Document republished it, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Press Association reacted strongly.
Thus the case suddenly becomes about something far greater. What should it be permissible to believe and still be allowed to remain part of respectable society?
Document is now encountering this question in the Norwegian Editors’ Association as well. During Debatten on NRK, it was said that Document is not truth-seeking. It was a revealing formulation. For who decides who is truth-seeking?
What we have seen surrounding Document’s membership of the Norwegian Editors’ Association is an arrogance and hubris I have never before seen so distilled in the Norwegian press.
It seems as though some editors believe that their view of the world is not merely one view among several. It is truth itself. Disagreement thereby becomes something other than disagreement. It becomes a moral deviation.
‘Recant’
Document has closely covered developments in the United States for ten years. We have seen how the public sphere there became divided between two perceptions of reality. Now the conflict has come here. The reactions to Skogpodden demonstrate that.
The message to us seems to be: Repent. Take back your words. Admit that you were wrong. ‘Recant’, as they say in English. But we are not going to fall to our knees.
If the consequence is that the Norwegian Editors’ Association no longer wants us as a member, that is their choice. We ask only one thing: It must be permissible to hold two opinions.
They would not listen
This is nothing new. We recently published a reader’s contribution from a man who, when young, had taken part in demonstrations against Carl I. Hagen. He was going to join in throwing eggs. But something happened. He discovered that those who refused to allow others to have their say were on his own side. They did not want to hear what Hagen had to say. They wanted to drown him out and pelt him with rotten eggs. That changed his view of the matter.
There is a thread here.
When people no longer want to meet opinions with arguments, but instead want to exclude the people who express them, they have abandoned open debate. That is precisely why the Kalvig case is so important. One does not have to agree with Anne Kalvig. The point is that she must be allowed to say it. And readers must be allowed to read it and form their own opinion.
The old gatekeepers
In the 1970s, the radical writers broke in and changed Norwegian public discourse. The Profil circle left deep traces. Later came generations of academics trained in postmodern theory.
They learnt that language is power. In time, they themselves gained power over language. But something has changed.
The old media no longer control the public sphere. People can publish for themselves. Podcasts, alternative media and social media have burst open the gates. More and more people are finding their own channels. That is good. It means greater diversity.
Nevertheless, the press organisations retain the notion that they can determine the boundaries of what it is legitimate to say. That is no longer possible.
The truth can be uncomfortable
Reality does not disappear because one refuses to speak about it. That applies to sex. It applies to immigration. It applies to Islam. It applies to the child welfare service. And it applies to the press itself.
The truth can be uncomfortable. It can offend. It can make people furious.
But the alternative is worse.
A society in which institutions determine which truths may be uttered is moving in a dangerous direction. I come from the generation of ’68. It is interesting to discover, so many years later, that what provides firm ground beneath one’s feet when institutions fail is something far older. We learnt at school: You shall fear God more than men.
If society ceases to do so and instead elevates itself to the highest authority, it opens the door to tyranny.
That is why I am ending differently today. Not with ‘God’s peace’, but with the words:
Sanctify us in truth. Your word is truth.
It is the truth we must strive for. And live by.
Thank you for all your support. You are outstanding.
This is an edited text based on a transcription of the Editor’s podcast “Skogpod” dated 25 September 2026, and as such is typical of its style and pattern of thought.
