A majority of Norway’s parliament wants to wait for the results of an investigation before considering a push to create a third legal gender.

The Liberal Party had presented a proposal that would enable people to change their legal gender to something other than male or female.

However, there is a government investigation ongoing into the matter and the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Centre Party, the Progress Party, the Christian People’s Party and Patient Focus prefer to wait for its conclusion before making a decision on the issue.

The Christian Democrats are the only party that will say no to a third gender, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.

“I think it is logical to assign gender categories according to biology. We should not undermine the fact that there are people who do not recognise themselves in those categories. Still, we have to find solutions within the current structures”, Christian Democrat leader Hadle Rasmus Bjuland says.

In December 2022, the Swiss government rejected a proposal to introduce a third gender, saying that “the binary gender model is still strongly anchored in Swiss society.”

The government said a national ethics commission found in a 2020 report that the time wasn’t yet right for a change to the system.