Posts tagged sterilization

Ask Prime Minister Reinfeldt to finally end forced sterilization in Sweden:

Dear friend, 

If you are a transgender person in Sweden wanting to change your legal gender, you are forced to undergo surgery that will render you permanently infertile and unable to have children in the future. That’s right: in 2012, Swedish law still mandates forced sterilization in order to do something as simple as changing the gender on your driver’s license.

Despite a massive push to repeal the law, including support from 90% of Swedish MPs, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has stayed silent on the issue: allowing one small conservative party to block the change.

Right now a reform of the law is being debated in Sweden. We need a massive show of support across Sweden and Europe that finally convinces PM Reinfeldt to speak out and break the deadlock. Will you take one minute to sign our urgent letter? RFSL, the Swedish federation for LGBT rights, will publicly deliver our signatures directly to the Prime Minister and demand that he intervene right now:

www.allout.org/stop_forced_sterilization

Forced sterilization has a long and frightening history in Sweden. Beginning with programs in the 1930s that tried to eliminate certain “undesirable” traits in society by forcing individuals to be sterilized, Sweden has long grappled with the painful history of stripping from citizens what we now consider to be a basic human right. Even Prime Minister Reinfeldt has publicly called sterilization law a “dark chapter in Swedish history”.

Now he has a chance to close that chapter for good. A reform of the law is ready to be presented directly to the Parliament - where 90% of MPs are in favor of banning forced sterilization - but without a push from the Prime Minister, the conservative KRISTDEMOKRATERNA party will use its seat in the government to block the change.

We know he is on our side: whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, bi or trans, will you take a moment to raise your voice and ask Prime Minister Reinfeldt to take a stand for human rights?

Our friends at RFSL, the Swedish LGBT Federation, will deliver your signatures directly to the Prime Minister’s office.

www.allout.org/stop_forced_sterilization

Thank you for going All Out.

Best,
Andre, Emmy, Erika, Flavia, Guillaume, Jeremy, Joseph, Oli, Tile, Wesley and the rest of the team at All Out

Sources:

Sweden: Transgender actress mourns her “forcible sterilization” - Many countries typically seen as progressive on LGBT rights continue to mandate the practice.
www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/111101/sweden-transgender-LGBT-gay-lesbian-bisexual-sterilization

Sweden keeps sex-change sterilization law
www.thelocal.se/38466/20120112/

Human Rights Watch’s Letter to the Swedish Prime Minister
www.hrw.org/node/104368