All Out Organizes Protest Against Sweden's Transgender Sterilization Laws
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- Category: LGBT Issues
- Published on Friday, 20 January 2012 15:15
- Written by Lara Landis
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Sweden's law requires a transgender person to undergo gender reassignment surgery before Swedish citizens can have their gender changed on official documents. Gender reassignment surgery has the effect of sterilizing the patient. Many U.S. States have similar laws requiring people to go through surgery that forces sterilization before the state will change official legal documents. Texas has stricter requirements than many other US states.
The law, which originated in the 1970s, requires that transgender people prove that their sex change is irreversible, before they will be recognized as the gender they identify as, by the government. Other European nations, including France and the Netherlands, have similar laws. Tthe Netherlands is in the process of removing the legislation.
Sweden's law might have been removed quietly if a small but vocal part of parliament did not voice objection to letting the law lapse. Activist group All Out has organized protests through-out the country to show opposition to the old law. Austria, Germany and Portugal have removed the requirement for transgender people to go through SRS to have their gender changed on official government documents.
Sources:
Sweden Keeps Sterilization Rule for Trans Recognition
All Out Organizes Protest Against Sterilization Rule
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Having laws to have transgenders be sterilized is understandable. The effects on any children they have aren't certain and probably won't be pretty. Nothing against transgenders, but a lot of research needs to be done into this first before transgenders start having kids. A lot of unnatural things like this (like changing from natural gender, I mean) were assumed to be safe too early and ended up causing the children to end up with some kind of horrible disease. Women used to take drugs to stop morning sickness during pregnancy and for many years people assumed it was safe, but thousands of children ended up being born with flippers instead of hands and feet. Unfortunately, I have a feeling a lot of this could be out of transphobia. This shouldn't be about hatred but about worry over what kind of effect these surgeries could have on their children. But people should also keep an open mind rather than blindly calling every little thing prejudice.
Quote : Having laws to have transgenders be sterilized is understandable. The effects on any children they have aren't certain and probably won't be pretty.
What, what, WHAT? I cannot believe that no one has replied to this as yet. My hope is that you're a troll or something, otherwise there's something extremely wrong with the world. Not because you're displaying ignorance, but that no one has said anything about it.
Just because someone is transgender doesn't mean they're going to have like mutant babies or something ala Dawn of the Dead. It just means that they're people and they want to have children before they complete their metamorphosis and the option is lost.
I would think that at some point people would grasp the fact that the physical body is just a container for the being inside. I don't condone waffling where it comes to messing around with government docs. But you should still have the choice to be who you are, never mind what your external sex is.
Read the rest of my post, not just the first w words because you assume they're tansphobic. I have absolutely nothing at all whatsoever against transgenders and I made that very clear. The problem is this is a medical procedure done by humans, not done naturally and humans can make mistakes. Many changes to the human body were in the past thought to be safe for any children the person had, but was proven to be unsafe and still not enoughh research has been done on a transgender parent having children. Figures someone would point at my post and blindly call it transphobic before actually reading the entire thing.
Julie, are you suggesting that transsexuals need to be sterilized after they've had bottom surgery to make them physicly the sex other than their birth sex, or before?Because, manifestly, after SRS, the transsexual will no longer have the reproductive tract with which they were born. No transsexual, to the best of my knowledge, has ever sexually reproduced after having had SRS, at least, not in the traditional sense. IVF, surrogates notwithstanding .
That can only mean you are referring to before they have SRS. Okay. How long before SRS? Should they be sterilized before or after they come out? Before or after they begin transition? Before or after they admit to themselves that they are transsexual?
Help me out here. I'm trying to understand you.
Isn’t it lovely in our modern day the state still can have the power to define for us who our identity is and if we are to cohabitate with others in society the state has deemed the right to cut you to size. Literally….http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/01/swedish-law-demands-that-transgender-people-undergo-sterilization-if-they-seek-to-legally-update-their-gender/