On the 1. of January 2009, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare will remove a range of ‘sexual behaviours’ from the official disease registry. 30 years ago the board removed homosexuality from list, which is primarily used to gather statistics on healthcare but is also viewed as an official list of diseases.
Some felt that the inclusion of transvestism, sadomasochism, fetishism, fetishistic transvestism, sexual preference disorders and gender identity disorder in young people led to social stigma.
“We don’t want to contribute to certain sexual behaviors being thought of as diseases,” Lars-Erik Holm, head of the national board, told Dagens Nyheter newspaper. “These individuals’ sexual preferences have nothing to do with society.”
It was about time Sweden came out of the Dark Ages. The Swedish fetish people and other sexual minorities has fought for this in a long time and it’s because of them it’s finally happening.
Are your still considered sick in your country? There are still many countries where fetishism is still seen as a disease, where consent sadomasochistic play is seen as a criminal act and even some where homosexuality comes with a death penalty. Leave a comment!
About last sentence… Did you mean Poland…?
Best regards from Poland:)
Thank god for Sweden, my own country, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, will also collaborate with WHO to influence other countries to make the same changes in their legislation. Yahoo! that’s great news I think!
Full article in DN: http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=852616 (In Swedish though)
Hey, I recognize those 2 Swedish deviants! ;-)
Yeah they seem strangley familiar somehow :P
Anyhow… HIPP HURRA for us :D
Hope more countries that still have stupid laws like this follows and get with the program :D