| Formation | 1997 |
|---|---|
| Type | Political advocacy |
President | Susannah Sjöberg |
| Affiliations | European Women's Lobby |
| Website | sverigeskvinnolobby |
The Swedish Women's Lobby (Swedish : Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer; formerly Sveriges Kvinnolobby) is a Swedish gender critical organization that advocates for sex-based rights. It has 40 member organizations.
Since around 2018 the group has faced criticism from feminists and LGBT rights advocates for increasingly campaigning against transgender rights and promoting gender critical and anti-gender ideas. [1] [2] [3] [4] In the debate over transgender rights, the group opposes the trans-inclusive position held by all left-wing and centrist parties. [5] In 2019, the National Council of Swedish Children and Youth Organisations published an open letter criticizing the Swedish Women's Lobby for promoting transphobia. [2] As of 2024, the group includes groups such as the Women's Declaration International (WDI), which is considered a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center. [6] [7] In 2024, it accused progressive parties and movements of working against women. [8]
In 2025, the Swedish Women's Lobby launched an international umbrella organization, the Women's Platform for Action International (WoPAI), which states that it promotes "sex-based rights" and opposes what it calls a "pro-gender movement" in academia and NGOs and "queer, postmodern, or neoliberal agendas of liberal and leftist origin" as well as "non-legal and not agreed upon by the international community concepts of 'gender identity'". [9] It brings together other gender-critical groups including Women's Declaration International. [10]
It was founded in 1997, originally named Samverkansforum för Kvinnor i Sverige (SAMS), as an umbrella organization for various Swedish organizations. It is also a member of the European Women's Lobby. Its president is Susannah Sjöberg. From 1997 to 2018, the organization did not focus specifically on transgender issues, and was not perceived as trans-exclusionary. From the onset, the goal of the organization was "to integrate women's perspectives into all political, economical, and social processes, locally as well as internationally", based on the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Beijing Platform for Action. [11] [12]
Since 2018 the organization has extensively campaigned against transgender rights in Sweden and been criticized for transphobia. [4] According to scholars Alm and Engebretsen the Swedish Women's Lobby has promoted gender-critical (or TERF) ideas. [1] Its current member organizations include XXantippas Vrede, the Swedish branch of the far-right anti-trans group Women's Declaration International (WDI). [13] WDI is considered a hate group and described as part of an "anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network" by Southern Poverty Law Center. [6] [7]
In 2019 Signe Krantz, a 20-year old transgender woman who was a candidate for the board of the Swedish Women's Lobby and who represented one of its member organizations, Maktsalongen, was denied the opportunity to be a candidate due to being transgender, with representatives of the Swedish Women's Lobby making inquiries about her legal gender without her knowledge. Maktsalongen subsequently left the Swedish Women's Lobby over the group's anti-trans stance. [3] This led to strong criticism of the Swedish Women's Lobby in Swedish media and civil society. [4] The National Council of Swedish Children and Youth Organisations published an open letter criticizing the Swedish Women's Lobby for transphobia, noting that "it is offensive that the nominating committee, without Signe Krantz's knowledge, investigated her legal gender. Suggesting that this would make a woman ineligible for election is directly transphobic. A person's legal gender says nothing about their identity. The legal gender is determined by the National Board of Health and Welfare's Legal Council after a prolonged process, which is a remnant of the forced sterilizations that ended in 2013." [2] [14]
In 2021, gender-critical group Women's Rights Watch, an organization that advocates for "sex-based rights", joined as a member. [15] In 2023 the Swedish Women's Lobby and anti-trans group Women's Rights Watch organized a seminar on gender self-identification that featured prominent figures in the anti-trans movement including Reem Alsalem, a prominent supporter of WDI. [16] According to legal scholar Jens Theilen Alsalem "is using women's rights as a tool to undermine trans rights" [17] and she has been widely criticized for anti-trans views; notably, 550 women's rights organizations condemned her for using her office to promote anti-trans agendas. [18]
In 2024 the Swedish Women's Lobby joined the far-right Sweden Democrats to oppose the Gender Recognition Act that was proposed by the Moderate Party and supported by all parties except the far right and Christian right. [5] The organization has argued that legal gender recognition for transgender people threatens gender equality, and has promoted the ideas of the anti-trans movement about transgender people as a threat to women in toilets (see bathroom bill), locker rooms and sports. [19] UN Women has described false claims that trans women "pose a threat to the rights, spaces, and safety of cisgender women" as hate propaganda and disinformation linked to extreme anti-rights movements such as the anti-gender, gender-critical and men's rights movements. [20] These claims have also been described as baseless, transphobic and linked to the far-right by many feminist organizations. [21] [22] [23] Scholars have described such arguments as a "TERF approach" [24] and as narratives of "organised transphobic discourse" that can accurately be described as far right or reactionary, and linked to anti-gender movements. [25]
While the organization did not focus as much on transgender people before 2018, it received criticism for platforming racist and transphobic speakers in connection with its Nordic Forum event in 2014, and several prominent Swedish feminists and representatives of the Feminist Initiative party published an open letter criticizing the event for racism and transphobia. [26]
In response to criticism, the Swedish Women's Lobby has stated that it works for the "rights of all women and girls, including trans women." [27] In 2024, it accused "progressive parties and movements" of working against women. [8]
In 2025, the Swedish Women's Lobby launched the Women's Platform for Action International (WoPAI), [28] which shares its address and leadership with the Swedish Women's Lobby. The organization states that it promotes sex-based rights and opposes what it calls a "pro-gender movement" in academia and NGOs and "queer, postmodern, or neoliberal agendas of liberal and leftist origin". It opposes "large civil society organizations that claim to be feminist" and "non-legal and not agreed upon by the international community concepts of “gender identity". [9] The member organizations include Women's Declaration International, FiLiA, European Network of Migrant Women, For Women Scotland, and other gender-critical groups. [10]
Detta ledde till stark kritik mot organisationen och till en diskussion i medier och sociala medier om transfobi
Table 5.2: Networked Groups by Typology [...] Narrative Manipulation: [...] Women's Declaration International
In recent years, a form of feminism known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) has contained similar cisnormative arguments to those of social conservatives, promoting vilification of people with a trans lived experience in the guise of so-called gender-critical feminism. This TERF approach has been used to promote exclusionary and discriminatory legislation, such as prohibiting equal access to public toilets and the right to be treated in accordance with one's gender in workplaces, accommodations, and public venues.
