The Swedish government has announced plans to look into introducing a third gender option for official government documentation which would allow Swedes to describe themselves as neither male nor female.
A majority of members of the Swedish parliament voted last week to investigate implementing a third neutral gender for government documents. The plan was backed by the Centre Party, Sveriges Radio reports.
“We know that there are people who do not have a certain belonging to a male or female gender, and it is important that we take their situation seriously and that this issue is being investigated,” said Centre Party spokesman Ola Johansson.
The proposal is supported by the Social Democrats and the far-left Left Party whose spokesman Karin Rågsjö said: “We have been fighting for quite some time now. Looking around Europe, Germany has introduced this already, and it is sad that we are quite far behind.”
“For the people it concerns, it’s a huge question. For transsexuals, for example, there’s an incredibly high proportion of mental ill health, and if you can minimise it, it’s great,” Rågsjö added.
The populist Sweden Democrats (SD) commented saying that the investigation should focus on defining gender. “Above all, an investigation of how to define gender in general, if you should at all have a legal gender, or if you only have biological sex,” SD spokesman Mikael Eskilandersson said.
Sweden to Include ‘Gender Identity’ in Hate Crime Law https://t.co/akVSjllmgV
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 25, 2017
The idea of a neutral gender is not new in Sweden with a report from last year showing the Swedish government funding gender-neutral kindergartens.
The number of Swedish children identifying as transgender has grown over the last few years with Louise Frisén, a child psychiatrist at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, claiming that the number increases by 100 per cent each year.
Late last year, Breitbart London reported that Swedish children’s literature was also promoting transgenderism with the book Hästen & Husse which is directed at toddlers.
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