The fact that so many people, when learning the Swedish state is effectively moving to completely end transition healthcare for trans youth, react with "what?? I thought Sweden was better than this!" is proof enough that however much I think I spam about the reality here...

It's clearly not enough.

Sweden is not better than this.
Sweden only removed forced sterilization (complete with destruction of previously saved reproductive cells) in exchange for legal recognition and access to surgical treatments in 2013.
That's only 8 years ago now.

This is the Sweden that people 'thought better' off?
You're believing in an image of Sweden the tourist PR bureaus painted 45 years ago of a 'humanitarian superpower welfare state'.
To be fair, the same goes for most of the general populace.

Our social insurances look generous on paper, but are applied arbitrarily and inhumanely. Our public welfare systems are being cannibalized by for instance private education institutions with no limits on how much tax money they can convert into profits. https://twitter.com/psykeln/status/1131859761119543296?s=19

Our version of the CDC has done nothing this entire pandemic but hoped for herd immunity, and when people started dying in droves without any signs of slower infection rates, with hospitals severely overcrowded, only made 'recommendations' and publically doubted mask efficiency.

The social democrats are in a center-right coalition gov and bragged on Twitter only days ago that we've "managed to reduce asylum seeking by 90%". The country is ruled by market-loving cons and neolibs lining their and their friends' pockets full of taxpayer money with impunity.

This is the Sweden you "thought better of"?
You don't know Sweden.

Trans healthcare here has never operated on informed consent. Recognition and treatment only comes at the end of a grueling psychiatric and psychological investigation, in places spanning years.

Wait times are through the roof, and it's worse outside of Stockholm by several orders of magnitude with waiting lists spanning years. Clinics other than Stockholm are known to actively sabotage and 'misplace' majorities of referrals, and has recently started to refuse>

Trans people stuck in their queues referrals to ANOVA, the slightly more well-funded GIC in Stockholm, completely disregarding patient rights and healthcare laws without reprimand.
In northern Sweden the psychiatry conducts their own little vanity transvestigations before even>

sending any referral to a GIC in the first place, effectively forcing people north of the middle of the country through 2 psychiatric cross-examinations instead of 1.

And now, citing the Bell v Tavistock ruling that's been mostly dissuaded already, a board room decision at>

Sweden's largest children's hospital has effectively eliminated transitional healthcare for trans youth, to the dismay of the actual practicioners working with trans youth patients there.

https://twitter.com/ButNotTheCity/status/1389643030722924546?s=19

Who's to say the other 2 clinics in the country won't follow suit?

All the while Sweden is gearing up to close down most of the GIC's in the country, designating trans healthcare as "highly specialized" which means further centralization from 6 to 3 clinics in total, for adults and youth, across the entire nation.

Swedish trans healthcare will be relegated to what is most likely the most densely populated areas, which is Stockholm+Gothenburg+Malmö, leaving the entire northern half of the country without any GIC's whatsoever.

This centralization is done primarily to facilitate further research on trans people, even long after the medical investigation and surgeries are over and done with.

What this does is effectively transforming patients into life-long research subjects to find out, among other things, "background factors as to what makes someone trans".
All with trans healthcare held hostage based on your participation in this cross-examination.

Again, private alternatives are strictly forbidden and importing prescription medication is highly illegal. There is no alternative, you either submit to the years long (soon life-long) state invasion of your very being or you're not getting any treatment or legal recognition.

How did Sweden ever develop a reputation of being a good place for trans people?
Truth is, it has never been good. And with lower funding, elimimated treatment options and drastically increased pathologization looming on the horizon, it's about to get a lot worse.
This is Sweden.

This thread really took off and I am glad I'm finally able to reach out and talk a bit about what it's like here.

If you're a trans person in Sweden currently struggling with the bureaucracy, I am fluent in english apart from my native Swedish and my DMs are open for you!

To the rest of you whose curiosity of the reality in this country is piqued, I urge you to read up on the indigenous Sámi people in northern Sweden whose lands are under constant threat of Swedish state lumber and mining companies.