Swedish transgendereds battle for forced sterilization payouts

With transsexuals in Sweden now able to change gender legally without being sterilized, those who were forced to accept the procedure prior to a recent law change continue their fight for compensation from the state.

• Sweden to stop sex change sterilization (11 Jan 13)
• Group demands payout for forced sterilizations (7 Nov 12)
• Court slams sex change forced sterilization clause (14 Mar 12)

Sweden is often hailed as a forward-thinking society promoting equality for all, but transsexuals who had to accept to be sterilized to complete their sex changes on paper are pushing for compensation after a change in the law.

Nova Colliander, 31, who completed her transformation from man to woman in 2010, says she suffered discrimination when she was irreversibly sterilized as part of the sex change process.

"Beautiful Sweden, with its pretty red wooden cabins... But (the reality is that) forced sterilizations of transsexuals existed until 2013," she says.

"A lot of people want children, and it's crazy to think that we are different than anyone else in this regard. We want children just as much as anyone else."

Until last year, the operation was obligatory for transsexuals who wanted their sex change to be officially recognized by authorities, with their personal identity documents reflecting their new gender.

But in December, a Swedish court ruled that the practice of forced sterilizations, which dated back to a 1972 law on sexual identity, was unconstitutional and violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ruling was not appealed, and a ban therefore entered into force on January 10th.

"We didn't have the right to become parents, we didn't have the right to freeze our eggs or our sperm," explains Love Elfvelin, a 22-year-old who recently had a double mastectomy to become a man, and who will not have to undergo sterilization to complete the sex change.

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) is now preparing to help transgendereds who were sterilized under the old law to obtain damages.

So far, the government has refused to pay.

"Reading between the lines, they're saying they didn't do anything wrong," says Colliander.

"And by doing so, they're legitimizing the kind of violation we face."

Kerstin Burman, the lawyer who represents the 135 transsexuals who plan to file a complaint against the state in a few months' time, explains that "since lawmakers are not taking the initiative, we are building a legal case".

With the law now scrapped by the courts, "we have the state up against a wall", says Colliander.

"I'm disappointed, sad, and a little angry, I had expected more of my elected officials," she says.

"Sterilization was an unnecessary price to pay but if you indicated that you weren't willing to do it, that could have put an end to the (sex change) procedure, which was a matter of survival," she recalls matter-of-factly.

She says the government's refusal to pay damages is disappointing, given the fact that Sweden previously paid compensation to 230,000 victims of forced sterilizations under a eugenics programme from 1935 until 1996.

In 1999, the parliament adopted a law granting damages of 175,000 kronor ($27,000) to those victims.

At the RFSL offices in central Stockholm, Colliander and Elfvelin speak freely about their sex changes.

Colliander, a woman of a strong build and long sandy hair, wearing little make-up, is clad in black jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, a woolly cap on her head. Outgoing and friendly, her voice is that of a woman but she admits she is often "mistaken for a man".

Elfvelin, sitting with his legs comfortably spread apart, is slender with short brown hair and a few days' stubble, dressed casually in jeans and a plaid shirt.

There is little to indicate that he was born a woman except perhaps that he is not quite as tall as most Swedish men.

Both become more reserved when the subject turns to what the future holds for them.

Colliander, who got married on December 1st to someone whose gender she refuses to disclose, does not plan to have children.

But things are different for Elfvelin, who is in the process of officially changing his identity documents to show that he is now a man. He is one of the first transsexuals in Sweden who does not need to be sterilized to do so.

And he is ready to take another pioneering step, though he is not sure he will succeed.

"I think I'll be able to have my own biological children, but at the same time I'm very aware that that is something I really have to believe in in order to have the strength to fight that battle," he says.

Contrary to his idol, American "pregnant man" Thomas Beatie who retained his female reproductive organs to give birth to three children, Elfvelin does no plan to bear his own.

The first step will be to retrieve some of his eggs.

"But first I'll have to stop taking my testosterone. Nobody knows how long I would have to stop for, and if my eggs are fertile" after taking testosterone for three years, he says.

"We don't know if it's going to work."

"I'm heterosexual but my partner isn't a woman," Elfvelin says, using the gender neutral pronoun "zie" to refer to his partner who he explains "doesn't want to be (gender) defined".

However, "zie will probably carry our child," he says.

For that to happen the couple would need a sperm donor, and then the embryo would be inseminated into Elfvelin's partner.

But since the egg is not his partner's and the sperm is not his, the insemination would be considered an embryo donation, which is banned in Sweden.

"With activism and politics we plan to try to get the law on embryo donation changed," Elfvelin says.

The next battle.

Camille Bas-Wohlert/AFP/The Local/dl
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