Norwegians change gender with mouse click
HAUGESUND, Norway — Ten-year-old Anna Thulin-Myge’s passport shows what looks like an ordinary Norwegian girl wearing her long, blond hair fastened with a clip. It lists her first name as Anna, but under sex it says “M.”
“That means male,” Anna says, running her finger across the document. “In some weeks I’m going to have a new passport, and then it’s going to say ‘F.”’
Norway, a wealthy, progressive nation of 5 million people, recently became the fifth country in the world to allow adults to legally change genders without a doctor’s agreement or intervention.
Argentina, Ireland and Denmark have similar laws. But only Malta and Norway have extended the liberalized rules to children.
Provided they have parental consent, Norwegian children as young as 6 can now self-identify as male or female, effectively overruling the gender assigned to them at birth. Anna is one of nine minors in the country to have taken advantage since the new rules were adopted in June.
With no requirement for surgery or counselling, the process is as easy as filing a tax return. So far, Norway has not refused a single application. Soon, Anna will receive the official letter confirming the government recognizes her as the girl she always knew herself to be.
“When I was little I liked to dress up in dresses,” she says. “And play with dolls, and so I actually think that I was a girl the whole time.”
Anna’s mother, Siri Oline Myge, agrees. Her daughter endured several years of confusion and rejection when she was forced to be a boy named Adrian at school, and the legal recognition means Anna can look forward to a future without suspicion and constant misunderstandings, she says.
“Anna had two separate identities,” Oline Myge says. “It took a long time for her to get her confidence back.”
Though Norwegian lawmakers concede that some of the questions surrounding transgender children remain unsettled, the law generated little controversy when it was introduced. Parliament members from left to right approved the legislation in June on a 79-13 vote.