A bill co-sponsored by each party in Iceland would extend greater rights to the transgendered.
The bill in question, led by Leftist-Green MP Guðfríður Lilja Grétarsdóttir, has been co-sponsored by MPs from every other party. The other MPs are fellow Leftist-Green Ögmundur Jónasson, Social Democrats Björgvin G. Sigurðsson and Sigríður Ingibjörg Ingadóttir, Progressives Eygló Harðardóttir and Siv Friðleifsdóttir, Conservative Tryggvi Þór Herbertsson, and Movement MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir. Complete multi-partisan support usually indicates a cakewalk for a bill to become law.
The bill in question points out that the rights of transgendered people are, at the moment, very unclear, where it exists in writing at all. “There is much that’s unclear when it comes to how transgendered people are treated in the health care system,” the bill reads in part, “and with regards to changing name and gender in the National Registry. Individuals who have adopted a new sex role cannot, as it stands, change their names unless they have surgically changed their gender, despite the fact that only a portion of transgendered people undergo such a procedure.”
The bill recommends that laws regarding transgendered people be fully updated, and to look to other Scandinavian countries, and Holland, as examples to follow in drafting the final law.