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ILGA - EUROPE (22 Mart 2018)

Their initial fight was against the requirement that trans people must be sterilised in order to get their gender legally recognised. 

This major human rights violation stopped in Sweden in 2013 - but the work of activists did not end there! 160 individuals who had been forcibly sterilised submitted a claim for compensation and in April 2016, the Swedish Government announced such a measure would be put forward.

It is estimated that 600-700 people will be eligible for this compensation of 22,500 euros. 

As Emelie Mire Åsell, the trans and intersex spokesperson of RFSL says, “money can’t undo the harm of unwillingly losing your reproductive abilities, but the monetary compensation is an important step for the state to make amends to all those subjected to this treatment”. Now, RFSL hopes that the government will also officially apologise to the whole trans community for the harm done.

ILGA-Europe calls on the 27 European governments that have not yet outlawed the forced sterilisation of trans people to urgently put an end to this extremely harmful practice.   

RFSL's statement on the Swedish Parliament's decision can be found here.
Sweden currently sits at 12th in the Rainbow Europe ranking on law and policy.