Swedes can now change their legal gender starting at age 16, according to a law passed by the Swedish Parliament on Wednesday that aims to make gender reassignment more accessible.
Teens age 16-17 still need approval from their guardians, doctor, and the National Board of Health and Welfare to seek gender change. A provision in the new bill also makes it so that gender reassignment surgeries no longer need the Board of Health and Welfare’s sign-off.
Although Sweden was the first country to legalize gender reassignment in 1972, the Board of Health and Welfare has raised alarms recently over the sharp rise of gender dysphoria in the country. In 2022, after a 1500 percent increase in gender-transition cases, Sweden disallowed minor hormone therapy barring rare cases and the Board recommended that mastectomies for girls who wanted to become boys should be performed only in a research setting.
“The uncertain state of knowledge calls for caution,” the Bard’s Thomas Linden said in 2022.
Per the recently-passed proposal, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is no longer required in Sweden for an individual to undergo gender change.
Parliament voted 234 to 94 in favor of the new bill, with 21 members absent. The country’s politicians are divided on the topic; although Sweden’s conservative prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, called the bill “balanced and responsible,” he has also admitted to caving to party politics to appease Moderates and Liberals who sought to lower the gender-change age to 16.
“Compared to recent decisions that have mobilised the party unanimously, such as the decision to join NATO, this gender identity bill is one of the biggest sources of resistance within the Moderate Party in recent years,” a source familiar with the Swedish Liberals told Euractiv.
Head of the women’s party off the Social Democrats, Annika Strandhall, told Swedish news outlet TT that “there is a clear correlation with different types of psychiatric conditions or diagnoses, such as autism,” and encouraged Parliament to “wait until there is further research that can explain this increase” in gender dysphoria. President of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights, Peter Sidlund Ponkala, said that he disagrees, and would like to see immediate protections for “vulnerable” transgender people.