17 European Countries Force Transgender Sterilization (Map)

[SandraJane]

Mother Jones


17 European Countries Force Transgender Sterilization (Map)

—By Nicole Pasulka | Thu Feb. 16, 2012 3:00 AM PST

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/most-european-countries-force-sterilization-transgender-people-map

People rightly flipped out across the internet last month over news that the Swedish parliament would not be repealing a barbaric law that forces sterilization on trans people seeking to change their gender on legal documents. While it's despicable that Swedish politicians are opposing the law change, much of the outrage, no doubt, occurred because people previously didn't realize that a forced sterilization law existed in Sweden.

Considering how shocking people find Sweden's law, it's worth pointing out the country is 1 of 17 in Europe (shown in red below) that require trans people to have a surgical procedure that results in sterilization before legal gender change is made to their identification ID. The law is currently under review in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and in Ireland a name change (which acknowledged gender change) was granted for one woman after a legal challenge that went to the high courts, but no laws exist on the matter.

[spacial]

This notion has been doing the rounds for a while now, though generally focused on Sweden until now.

One the face of it it's shocking, but reading carefully, it's really just a load of baloney spiced up with sensational rhetoric.

While not all countries explicitly require sterilization, many nations (and quite a few US states) demand proof of major medical procedures like sex reassignment surgery; hormone therapy; a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a psychiatric condition defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "a marked incongruence between one's experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, of at least 6 months duration"; or permission by the courts.

Which also results in sterilisation.

But since all of these areas allow, even encourage, the storage of sperm or ovum, it's hardly the same thing.

[BlonT]

The all should force sterilize politicians  ,Good step to a better world