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HEALTH

Sweden votes ‘yes’ to lowering age for legal gender change

Sweden's parliament on Wednesday passed a controversial law lowering the minimum age to legally change gender from 18 to 16 and making it easier to get access to surgical interventions.

Published: 17 April 2024 22:29 CEST
Sweden votes 'yes' to lowering age for legal gender change
Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson during the debate on the new law to make it easier to change legal gender. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The law passed with 234 votes in favour and 94 against in Sweden’s 349-seat parliament.

While the Nordic country was the first to introduce legal gender reassignment in 1972, the proposal, aimed at allowing so-called “self-identification” and simplifying the procedure, sparked an intense debate in the country.

The debate has also weakened conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s standing, after he admitted to caving into pressure from party members on the issue.

“The great majority of Swedes will never notice that the law has changed, but for a number of transgender people the new law makes a large and important difference,” Johan Hultberg, an MP representing the ruling conservative Moderate Party, told parliament.

Beyond lowering the age, the new legislation is aimed at making it simpler for a person to change their legal gender.

“The process today is very long, it can take up to seven years to change your legal gender in Sweden,” Peter Sidlund Ponkala, president of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL), told AFP.

Two new laws will go into force on July 1, 2025: one regulating surgical procedures to change gender, and one regulating the administrative procedure to change legal gender in the official register.

No diagnosis needed

People will be able to change their legal gender as of age 16, though those under 18 will need the approval of their parents, a doctor, and the National Board of Health and Welfare.

A diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” — where a person may experience distress as a result of a mismatch between their biological sex and the gender they identify as — will no longer be required.

Surgical procedures to transition would, like now, be allowed from the age of 18, but would no longer require the Board of Health and Welfare’s approval.

The removal of ovaries or testes will however only be allowed from the age of 23, unchanged from today.

A number of European countries have already passed laws making it easier for people to change their legal gender.

Citing a need for caution, Swedish authorities decided in 2022 to halt hormone therapy for minors except in very rare cases, and ruled that mastectomies for teenage girls wanting to transition should be limited to a research setting.

Sweden has seen a sharp rise in gender dysphoria cases.

The trend is particularly visible among 13- to 17-year-olds born female, with an increase of 1,500 percent since 2008, according to the Board of Health and Welfare.

While tolerance for gender transitions has long been high in the progressive and liberal country, political parties across the board have been torn by internal divisions over the new proposal, and academics, health care professionals and commentators have come down on both sides of the issue.

‘Deplorable’

A poll published this week suggested almost 60 percent of Swedes oppose the proposal, while only 22 percent back it.

Far-right Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson lamented the result of Wednesday’s vote.

“I think it’s deplorable that a proposal that obviously lacks support among the population is so casually voted through,” Akesson told reporters.

Some critics had expressed concerns about biological males in women’s locker rooms and prisons, and fear the simplified procedure to change legal gender will encourage confused youths to embark down the path toward surgical transitions.

Others had insisted that more study was needed given the lack of explanation for the sharp rise in gender dysphoria.

In a sign of the strong feelings it stirred, members of parliament spent six hours debating the proposal.

“There is a clear correlation with different types of psychiatric conditions or diagnoses, such as autism,” Annika Strandhall, head of the women’s wing of the Social Democrats (S-kvinnor), told Swedish news agency TT ahead of the vote.

“We want to pause this (age change) and wait until there is further research that can explain this increase” in gender dysphoria cases.

Kristersson, the prime minister, had defended the proposal as “balanced and responsible”.

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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