David Josefsson explains the proposal
He is for the moderate party. I used
deepL to speed up the translation:
Regarding the modernization of the Gender Equality Act. Long post but I hope many take the time to actually read.
Today, the parliamentary social committee decided on a modernization of the Gender Identity Act. Gender identity is a difficult and complex issue with many roots and I have full respect for the fact that people have different opinions on the issue. But there are also many misconceptions or outright inaccuracies both about what the proposal to be discussed in the plenary in a few weeks means and what the legal situation is today. There are also a number of claims about the Moderate parliamentary group that are biased or downright wrong.
To begin with the actual issue.
There is already a gender reassignment law in Sweden that enables legal gender reassignment; it was introduced in 1972. The question now is how this legislation should be modernized.
Under current legislation, legal gender reassignment is only possible after a medical examination and diagnosis. The same investigations are required for surgical gender reassignment. The major change in the new bill is to separate the legislation on legal gender reassignment and surgical gender reassignment - it is simply not reasonable that the same legislation and the same requirements apply to irreversible procedures and legal gender reassignment. Today, such an investigation can take 7-8 years, which puts pressure on both the individual and the healthcare system.
It will still not be a free-for-all for anyone to change their legal gender; a medical examination and assessment will still be required. Among other things, the investigation must determine whether the person's gender identity can be considered permanent. The National Board of Health and Welfare will then decide whether to approve the change of legal gender. But the investigation will not be as extensive as for surgical procedures.Regarding the modernization of the Gender Identity Act. Long post but I hope many will take the time to actually read it.
The proposed legislative amendments do not affect the requirements for diagnosis and extensive investigation within the health service for surgical procedures, nor the age limits for these. It is also worth mentioning, even though it is outside the scope of the legislation, that since the turn of the year, large parts of the so-called gender dysphoria care are conducted as national highly specialized care.
The bill also includes amendments to the Prison and Custody Act. Current legislation states that inmates may only be placed with inmates of the same sex, which is the reason why problematic situations have arisen. We are now changing this by giving the Prison and Probation Service clear legal support to make individual assessments.
This is also not legislation that has been rushed through. A referral to the Legislative Council was submitted in 2018, but was criticized by the Legislative Council and others. The previous Social Democratic government also presented a heavily criticized bill that they had to back down from, where they wanted to lower the age limit to 12 years and where no form of assessment was required. The current proposal is much more elaborate and balanced.
There is a broad debate on both gender identity and gender dysphoria care that is important and good to address, partly because there have clearly been major shortcomings in the care. But it is also important to remember that there are many people who feel extremely bad because they identify with a gender other than the one they were physically born into. These changes will mean clear improvements for these people, while at the same time addressing the concerns previously raised by the Law Council and others. It would be an unreasonable situation if the current legislation continued to apply.
And then a few short lines about the Moderate parliamentary group.
I don't actually recognize the image of a culture of silence around this issue as claimed in the media, on the contrary, it is probably one of the most discussed issues in the group this year. And as always in issues that are discussed, there are different opinions. But the fact that we want to modernize the Gender Identity Act is not a new position the party takes, it is a position we have both a party meeting decision and went to the election on and in my opinion we have landed in a well-balanced legislative product.
However, there are two things that apply not only to this issue but to all issues, and which are the basis for the functioning of our parliamentary system: one is that party group meetings are closed - this means that Members should be able to speak there without anyone else quoting or leaking what has been said. This is not a culture of silence, it is professionalism.
The second is that in a proportional electoral system where voters mainly vote for a party and not a person, the natural order of business is to discuss issues internally and once a decision has been made, all members vote according to the established party line. This also applies to all decisions in the parliament. A different system would have completely disrupted the parliamentary way of working in the Riksdag.
Finally, a common claim is that so few moderates have dared to stand up for the issue in the media. Let me just tell you this anecdotally: Two weeks ago, I was talking to a journalist on a completely different topic, but of course the conversation turned to the Gender Identity Act. I explained almost verbatim my position as described above, put out the text about the problems with current legislation and how we are now solving them, but also about how parliamentary work works. Of course, that did not become an article. However, if I had said that I was deeply critical of the party leadership, that the proposal was wrong and that I was now going to vote against it, I would almost certainly have received a full spread, been quoted in more media and received a lot of attention.
An MP following the party line is as much news as a dog biting a man.
