How European Countries Encourage Young People to Legally Change Their Sexual Identity

After long debate and fears that the vote would be delayed, the Swedish Parliament last month passed a gender identity law, making it easier for a person to change their legal gender.

While the Nordic country was the first to legally introduce gender reassignment in 1972, the new law, which aims to allow gender identity changes and simplify procedures, has sparked intense debate in the country.

Denmark became the first European country to adopt such laws in 2014. Now that Sweden has passed the new law, there are 13 European countries that allow trans people to change gender legally.

In recent years, transgender identity laws have become increasingly hotly debated around the world.

LGBTQ+ groups that support transgender identity laws say they dramatically improve the lives of transgender people, while opponents fear they endanger women and girls.

Sweden

On April 17, the Swedish Parliament voted on a law that lowers the age required for people to legally change their gender from 18 to 16 years (provided the parent's approval), and does not require a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to change gender.

Six of the Parliament's parties voted in favor of the law (234 deputies), while two other parties, the Christian Democrats (KD) and the Sweden Democrats (SD), voted against the law (94 deputies), with 21 deputies absent.

For a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, permission from the National Board of Health and Welfare is no longer required to perform the procedure, but rather a certificate from a doctor or psychologist that the individual's legal sex does not match his or her perceived gender identity is sufficient.

The law had sparked great controversy within the ruling right-wing coalition, and also caused a division within the Social Democratic Party (SAP), the largest opposition party in the Swedish Parliament, which prompted the Parliament's Social Affairs Committee to submit the law on April 4 to the Parliament instead of the government.

It is noteworthy that the SAP proposed in 2014 that people be allowed to change their legal gender from the age of 12.

Supporters of the new law argue that it represents an important reform to improve living conditions and promote freedom for transgender people, noting that several other Nordic countries have already lowered the minimum age for changing gender identity.

Changing one's gender identity legally is not a simple decision. By facilitating this process, there is a risk of opening the door to abuse, according to opponents of the new law.

Reports have also revealed that there is significant opposition within the Moderate Party to the law itself, which is strongly supported by party leader and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

This law was also opposed by the SD, a populist party that supports the government in Parliament, but is not part of the government.

"It is unfortunate that a proposal that clearly lacks the support of the population has been voted on so lightly," SD leader Jimmi Akesson told reporters.

A poll published last month suggested almost 60% of Swedes oppose the proposal, while only 22% back it.

In 2015, the Swedish health authority had stated that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were safe. 

These treatments are designed to help people with gender dysphoria transition from their biological sex to the gender they personally identify with.

However, Sweden, like many other Western countries, has in recent years seen a sharp rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria. 

According to the Swedish health authority, the trend is particularly visible among 13- to 17-year-olds assigned female at birth, with an increase of 1,500% between 2008 and 2018.

Experts say the reasons for this increase remain largely a mystery.

In 2019, there were at least 13 minors who suffered from serious side effects, according to Swedish reports.

One of them had developed osteoporosis — a health condition that weakens bones — after taking puberty blockers. Others have suffered from liver damage, significant weight gain, and depressive symptoms.

Germany

Similar to Sweden, the German Parliament passed last April 12 a new law that grants citizens the right to change their gender self-identification according to legal documents once a year, and without undergoing surgery or hormonal treatment.

The law on self-determination on gender was supported by 374 deputies, most of them from the ruling coalition (the Socialists, the Liberals, and the Greens), while 251 other deputies opposed it, and 11 deputies abstained from voting.

The law, which will come into effect next November, stipulates that a verbal request is sufficient to change gender self-ID, eliminating the need for expert evaluation that was previously mandatory.

Transgender advocates claim that the conditions under Germany's current transgender law are humiliating, pointing out that it forces those seeking to change their name and gender to undergo psychological evaluation and interrogation related to intimate matters before the final decision is issued by the district court.

Under the new law, parents will be allowed to submit a request to change the gender self-ID of a child as young as 5 years old, with the consent of the child present.

Minors over the age of 14 will be able to change their first name and gender self-ID on their own, as long as they obtain the consent of their parents or legal representatives.

German citizens also have the right to replace the words "mother" and "father" in the family registry with the neutral term "parent."

A fine of up to €10,000 can be imposed on anyone who attempts to reveal an individual's previous gender identity.

The law had faced heated debate in the German Parliament, while the government's commissioner for LGBTQ+ issues, Sven Lehmann, praised it as historic and putting an end to human rights violations.

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on his account on X (formerly Twitter): "We show respect for transgender, intersex and non-binary people without taking anything from others. In this way, we continue to push forward the modernization of our country. This includes recognizing the facts of life and making them legally possible."

However, opposition parties were largely unconvinced, and conservative lawmakers have expressed concerns that the reform would allow people to randomly change their officially registered gender in the future.

The deputy chair of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, Andrea Lindholz, noted that the new law could be abused for criminal purposes, as it no longer required those changing their names and genders to register them with police. 

Left-wing German politician Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance-Reason and Fairness, also warned that with males now allowed to declare themselves as female, women's protection rights are becoming a thing of the past.

Failed Agendas

It is noteworthy that Germany and Sweden are not the first European countries to make gender self-ID change procedures easy, as they were preceded by Finland, Spain, Scotland, Switzerland, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Norway, and Denmark.

Last year, Spain gave its final approval to a law allowing people over 16 to legally change their gender without medical evaluation.

In the UK, the Scottish Parliament in 2022 passed a bill allowing people aged 16 or older to change their gender designation on identity documents by self-declaration. 

It was blocked by the British government, a decision that Scotland's highest civil court upheld in December.

The legislation set Scotland apart from the rest of the UK, where the minimum age is 18 and a medical diagnosis is required.

In January 2022, the Swiss authorities allowed citizens to officially change their gender and name without resorting to hormonal treatment, by reviewing the civil registries only.

According to the new rules, any person aged 16 years or older can change his gender and name by submitting a request to his civil registry, while younger people will need the approval of their parents.

In 2014, Denmark became the first country in Europe to grant the right to determine gender self-ID.

In recent years, sex reassignment surgery has become a profitable business in the West. In 2022 only, the size of this market reached about $2.1 billion in the United States, amid expectations that this market will grow several times in the EU, the U.S., and the UK.

In turn, psychological counselor Sarah Fathi said in a statement to Al-Estiklal that "what is happening in Europe is a disaster and a real human tragedy that most often leads to the emergence of psychological problems among the most important group in society, which is the youth.

"More than half of the European people do not support such controversial laws, and consider them to be a complete failure, but the agendas of European governments are those that are trying to bring about a fundamental change in the structure of European society under false pretexts," she added.