The Swedish government is to amend a law to replace the term ‘pregnant woman’ with ‘pregnant person’ as a concession to 
transsexuals.
It will mean a pregnant person will no longer be automatically considered to be a woman.
The proposal means laws requiring those undergoing sex change operations to be sterilised will be scrapped.
A recent ruling by the Stockholm administrative court said the requirement, which dates back to a 1972 law on sexual identity, was unconstitutional and in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In its December 19th decision, the court said the law did not respect civil liberties as guaranteed by the constitution, and was discriminatory since it solely targeted transgender people.
The law stated that a person who wanted to change sex legally must be infertile. In practice, this led to transgendered patients being sterilised, as they had to go through with the entire process including gender reassignment surgery in order to have their identity documents changed.
The law in question is the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act.
The logic was that a woman who wished to be a man would not want to become pregnant.
Last month, the Swedish Christian Democrat Party, which is part of the ruling coalition, expressed unease about plans to change the law. However, last week they signalled that they were prepared to accept the law change.
The administrative court’s ruling came after an unidentified plaintiff who wanted to undergo a sex change but refused to be sterilised took his case to the Swedish board of health which then took it to the court on his behalf.
The Swedish parliament had actually adopted a law last autumn banning the forced sterilisation of transgender people that was to enter into force on July 1, but the administrative court’s decision entered into force first.
Between 1972 and 2011, 865 people officially requested a sex change, according to statistics. Some 500 went through with the operation.