User:LL91/sandbox

= Jeanette Solstad RemØ =

Personal life
Jeanette Solstad RemØ was born and grew up in the conservative 1950s. She was not free to express her gender growing up. RemØ left home aged 17 and got married in her early twenties, she and her wife had a son. RemØ later enrolled in the army and became a Navy Captain at 27.

Activism
RemØ joined the Norwegian Association for Transgender people (FTP-N) in 1986, and officially came out as a transgender woman in 2010. At the time, she was able to change her legal name but not her legal gender. Until 2015, transgender people in Norway we able to obtain legal recognition of their gender on the basis of a practice established in the 1970s, which required compulsory treatments including gender reassignment surgeries and removal of reproductive organs, resulting in irreversible sterilization. Trans people seeking legal gender recognition were also required to obtain a psychiatric diagnosis stating that they suffer from a mental disorder. RemØ refused to put herself through any of this. As a result, she could not obtain identity papers that reflected her identity as a woman.

As an activist, RemØ used the name "John Jeanette" to highlight the discrimination she and other transgender people in Norway faced in accessing legal gender recognition. She actively campaigned for an end to discriminatory and degrading processes required for transgender people to obtain legal gender recognition. In 2014, her personal story was included in Amnesty's "Write for Rights" campaign, and she was supported by thousands worldwide.

RemØ's as well many other trans and women human rights defenders' activism eventually paid off. On 10 April 2015, the Norwegian Ministry of Health’s Expert Committee on legal gender recognition presented its recommendations in a press conference, and concluded that transgender people should no longer be forced to trade invasive treatment for having their gender legally recognized. On 6 June 2016, the Norwegian Parliament approved a new law regulating gender recognition based on self-determination, which came into force on 1 July 2016. The law removed all requirements for psychiatric diagnosis, medical interventions including surgeries and sterilization; such process is accessible to all above the age of 16 and with consent from at least one parent from for people aged 6 to 15.