Sweden lowers gender reassignment age in controversial new law

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

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.

The debate has also weakened the prime minister’s standing, after he admitted to caving in to pressure from party members on the issue.

Johan Hultberg, an MP representing the ruling conservative Moderate Party, told parliament: “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.”

Currently, the process of changing a person’s legal gender can take up to seven years.

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.

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 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.

Rise in gender dysphoria

Sweden has seen a sharp rise in gender dysphoria cases which is most visible among 13 to 17-year-olds born female, with an increase of 1,500 per cent 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 proposal, and academics, health care professionals and commentators have come down on both sides of the issue.

A recent poll suggested almost 60 per cent of Swedes oppose the proposal, while only 22 per cent back it.

Jimmie Akesson, the far-Right Sweden Democrats leader, 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,” Mr 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 is needed given the lack of explanation for the sharp rise in gender dysphoria.

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

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

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