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 It was a secret the Norwegian naval officer, then in his late
twenties and on duty in the Barents Sea at the height of the Cold
War, dared not reveal over a military line.
That night Remø wrote to his wife, and shared the burden he had kept
to himself for as long as he could remember.
"I knew at the age of four that I was a girl, not the boy that I was
born as," Remø said. "But I had to be tough, fight and act like a
boy. I didn't like it, yet I had a role to play."
It was an act that Remø kept up until five years ago, when having
just turned 60, the former captain decided to start living openly as
a woman and be recognized as transgender.
Amnesty International estimates as many as 1.5 million people across
Europe are transgender, a term used to describe men and women who
feel they have been born into the wrong body.
While many European countries are becoming more accepting of
transgender people, there is still a long way to go before they are
granted equal legal rights, campaigners say.
Norway is often ranked as one of the world's most progressive
nations when it comes to human rights.
Yet it is one of 19 European countries, including France, Belgium
and Italy, that require transgender people to undergo genital
removal surgery and sterilization before they can legally change
gender, according to human rights organization Transgender Europe (TGEU).
Sitting in her apartment in Oslo, Remø, who goes by the name John
Jeanette to highlight the legal plight of transgender people in
Norway, is adamant that changing one's legal gender should not be
dependent upon medical intervention.
"I refuse to be operated on to be recognized as who I am," she told
the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
STIGMATIZATION AND VIOLENCE
In many European countries like Norway, the requirement of
sterilization, known in the Nordic nation as a 'real sex
conversion', is based on an administrative practice from the 1970s,
and has no legal basis.
"Some insist that sterilization is necessary because it proves that
people are serious about changing gender," said Richard Köhler,
senior policy officer at TGEU.
"There is also the belief that if someone, who is legally a man,
became pregnant and gave birth to a child, this could be a threat to
social order and shake up basic perceptions of gender," he told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Not all countries in Europe require sterilization or surgery in
order to legally change gender.
However, the majority, including Germany, Spain and Britain, demand
a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria or transsexualism, which
is classified as a mental illness by the World Health Organization
(WHO).
The WHO plans to declassify transsexualism - defined as discomfort
with the body a person is born with and a desire to live as the
opposite sex - as a mental illness, which activists say results in
stigmatization of transgender people worldwide.
Transgender people also tend to face greater levels of
discrimination and violence than lesbian, gay, and bisexual
communities because gender identity is often poorly understood
compared to sexual orientation, campaigners say.
In Europe, transgender people are twice as likely as gay people to
be attacked, threatened or insulted, according to a European Union
report published in December 2014.
PUBLIC HUMILIATION
From going to the library and visiting the doctor to picking up a
parcel or boarding a plane or train, everyday tasks can prove
publicly humiliating for transgender people when their documents do
not match their gender identity.
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The medical process for transgender people seeking state-funded
treatment to change legal gender can take up to a decade in Norway,
according to transgender activist Luca Dalen Espseth.
Yet the majority of those who want to take hormones or have surgery
are denied the required diagnosis of transsexualism from healthcare
professionals, who often treat transgender people with hostility and
suspicion, he said.
At the Oslo office of LGBT organization LLH, Espseth recalls his
visits to the Oslo University Hospital, the only facility in Norway
where transgender people can receive medical treatment.
"The doctors addressed me as female, doubted my history and
identity, and asked very intrusive questions about my sex life,"
Espseth, 28, who was born female and transitioned to a man in his
early twenties, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Espseth went through eight appointments in one year at the hospital
before he received the diagnosis of transsexualism that allowed him
to receive the hormone treatment he desired, although like Remø, he
refuses to be sterilized.
"I feel like I'm deprived of my right to legal gender recognition
just because I choose to exercise my right to refuse medical
treatments," he said.
"Why should someone else determine our identity?"
"RULE OF LAW IS VITAL"
Despite the struggle to change legal gender in Europe, campaigners
say transgender rights are gaining more attention.
"Five years ago we had to explain to most policy makers what being
transgender meant, now it is about how to enact change and improve
trans rights," said Evelyne Paradis, executive director of ILGA-Europe,
a network of European LGBT groups.
Malta last week became only the second European nation, after
Denmark, to allow transgender people to change legal gender without
medical intervention, and Köhler from TGEU hopes this will influence
other countries to follow suit.
"Rule of law is vital, it sends a message to trans people as to
whether they're seen as equal citizens or seen as backward and
needing to be protected from themselves," he said. "But laws can
only go so far, to change mentalities takes time."
In Norway, expert groups have been set up to assess whether the
requirement of sterilization should be removed and consider what
criteria should apply to change legal gender status. They will
deliver their findings to the government this month.
Having waited her whole life to be recognised as a woman, Remø is
hopeful a new law will be passed this year, allowing transgender
people to determine their own identity.
"It would give so many transgender people, who are still in the
closet, the confidence to come out and be themselves," she said.
To watch the video of John Jeanette's story please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5zgoOdhrJY
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert; Editing by Katie Nguyen)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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