Sweden to compensate forcibly sterilised trans people

THE Swedish government is set to pay compensation to trans people who were legally forced to be sterilised in order to transition.

Swedish law forced trans people between 1972 and 2013 to be sterilised to have their gender recognised by the government.

The courts ruled that this practice violated European Human Rights, after an estimated 800 people were affected.

Health Minister Gabriel Wilkström said the government will introduce a bill to award $26,000 to each person.

“The demand for sterilisation that existed previously laid out a vision from which today’s society wishes to distance itself, and the government believes it was wrong to demand it,” Wilkström said.

The planned compensation has been celebrated, but Swedish activists say they will push for more.

“The sum should be at a level that constitutes a real recognition of the excesses of the state,” said Frida Sandegard, president of LGBTI group RFSL.

“Monetary reparations cannot completely compensate for the violations of forced sterilisation,” said Kerstin Burman of RFSL. “But financial redress initiated by the government is an official acknowledgement that these actions were wrong and that the state should not have treated its citizens this way.”

In Australia, trans people changing the sex on their birth certificates are still required to have been surgically sterilised in almost all states and territories, except for SA and the ACT, where any “clinical treatment” for transition is sufficient.