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Transgender Norwegian politician Karina Ødegård (left); Donald Trump
"I believe it should provide grounds for asylum,” Karina Ødegård says of Trump's executive orders targeting the transgender community.
The Green Party candidate and district spokesperson vying to become first out trans member of Norway’s parliament said they would like to extend asylum to transgender folks in the U.S. fleeing the anti-transgender policies of the Trump administration. Karina Ødegård made the comments during a recent interview with Aftenposten.
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“One thing is that you see the development of an illiberal democracy. I find that extremely problematic,” Ødegård told the Norwegian outlet. “Then it gets even worse because the Trump administration has singled out transgender people as scapegoats to be hanged and removed.”
Ødegård said she empathizes with the transgender community in the U.S., saying public affirmation and “recognition” is key to living a full and happy life as a trans person. So when she witnessed the policies of the Trump administration targeting trans folks, she felt she needed to respond.
“When we see developments in the United States, where rights are being withdrawn through pure legal and political persecution, I believe it should provide grounds for asylum,” Ødegård said.
One of the first actions taken by President Donald Trump in January after he was sworn into his second term was to declare that the federal government would no longer recognize transgender people. The directive, entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” defines sex as binary and based on the “immutable biological reality of sex” characteristics at birth.
Related: Donald Trump’s government declares that transgender and nonbinary people don’t exist
More recently, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education announced a Title IX Special Investigations Team to investigate what they call “the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.”
The administration claimed it created the special task force because it had received a “staggering volume” of complaints about the participation of transgender student-athletes playing in sports and using changing, bathing, and sleeping facilities aligned with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
“Protecting women and women’s sports is a key priority for this Department of Justice,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a press release from April 4. “This collaborative effort with the Department of Education will enable our attorneys to take comprehensive action when women’s sports or spaces are threatened and use the full power of the law to remedy any violation of women’s civil rights.”
Ødegård also said she wants to open a dialogue about how the public affirms and makes accommodations for transgender folks.
“I have no problem acknowledging that in terms of reproduction, there are only two sexes,” Ødegårdsaid in her advocacy for a third gender category. “But it is also about law and social interaction.”
