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Iceland, birthplace of the literary tradition of the saga, is a nation of just 390,000 people. It is renowned for its progressive values: peace, wellbeing and human rights. At present, however, this small island is home to a monumental division.
After a chequered history with lesbian and gay rights, things looked positive when the country legalised same-sex marriage in 2010. But having achieved its aims, the gay rights movement turned to genderism. And this is now having serious consequences for anyone who refuses to believe that it is safe (or indeed possible) to change sex.
I arrive in the capital city of Reykjavik on a freezing February morning, and meet with Eldur Smári Kristinsson at the end of an hour’s drive through lava fields. As the international liaison for LGB Alliance Iceland – a group of about 10 women and men keen to prioritise same-sex rights over gender identity – he is keen to discuss the ideological capture of the nation he refers to as “Gender Gilead” [a reference to the dystopian regime in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale].
Kristinsson is tall, smartly turned out, and would not look out of place in a university lecture theatre. Proudly gay, he travels far and wide, speaking at conferences on the harms of transitioning gender-nonconforming children. “Who knows if these kids would end up being lesbian or gay? But even if they don’t, we should allow children to play with the toys they wish to, and not tie them to sex stereotypes,” he says.
He is currently under police investigation for alleged hate speech in three posts on X, one of which criticises men taking the medication domperidone to induce lactation and “breastfeed” infants. “I am facing two years in prison,” he tells me, “for speaking out about child safeguarding.” It was the LGBT organisation Samtökin ’78 (originally the Lesbian and Gay Association of Iceland) that reported him to police.
My mission is to establish whether Iceland has, as Kristinsson claims, signed up to the most extreme version of transgender ideology on the planet, and whether or not it could come to pass in Britain, bearing in mind the level of pushback from feminists here, which resulted in the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 that references to “sex”, “man” and “woman” refer to biological sex only.
At my hotel in central Reykjavik, I meet a number of Kristinsson’s allies – all of whom have encountered hostility and social exclusion for speaking out. Anna*, a 40-year-old lesbian who teaches at a primary school in northern Iceland, tells me: “Iceland is, without a doubt, the most captured country in terms of trans madness.”
Like Kristinsson, Anna is a member of LGB Alliance Iceland. As things stand, she says, schools tell young children they can change sex, which confuses and distresses them.
The 2010 marriage equality law plunged the Lesbian and Gay Association of Iceland into an existential crisis which culminated with its rebranding – as the National Queer Organisation of Iceland (Samtökin ’78) – and expanded its agenda to include the “trans child”.
A further controversial decision came in 2015, when Samtökin ’78 classified BDSM (bondage, discipline and sadomasochism) as a sexual orientation. It also partnered with Reykjavik city council to produce sex education posters for schools which promoted both BDSM and multiple-partner relationships to children as young as five.
Four years later, following lobbying by Samtökin ’78 and others, the Gender Autonomy Act was introduced, making it possible for anyone over the age of 15 to self-identify as the opposite sex, without requiring medical, psychiatric or judicial approval. This extends to name changes on all legal documents, including birth certificates.
Freyja* is a legal scholar, based in neighbouring Norway, who attempted to meet with Icelandic lawyers to advise on how the law might be halted on the grounds that it flouted international human rights treaties. She says the laws were introduced “almost secretly – there was barely any consultation with the general public, and it appeared to be a stitch-up between Samtökin ’78 and the government”.
Kristinsson tells me that this change in the law led to an exponential surge in numbers of “trans children”, most of whom were young girls from upper-class backgrounds, many of them under the “neurodivergence” umbrella. The statistics bear him out; by 2025, 0.5 per cent of Icelandic children had changed their sex markers with the National Registry – approximately 13 times the per-capita rate of neighbouring Denmark.
As the only country in the World Economic Forum to have eliminated more than 90 per cent of wage and opportunity inequality, Iceland is proud of its record on gender equality. Women now hold 48 per cent of seats in Iceland’s parliament, and comprise 60 per cent of its law students.
Iceland is often classed as the best country in the world in which to be a woman, yet those hard-won rights are being given away in the name of trans inclusion; Icelandic feminists have caved in to bullying and gaslighting.
This former beacon of gender equality has become a totalitarian regime, and the top-down ideological capture is affecting children, institutions and society at large – with chilling implications.
The children’s ombudsman, Salvör Nordal, grants me an interview. When I ask whether she has come across the issue of children wishing to identify as the opposite sex, she tells me that, post-Covid, her office has seen a significant decrease in interest and lobbying relating to gender identity and the trans issue.
Citing a national Icelandic medical survey, she says: “There was a group of children that were one third maybe with autism, one third truly trans, and one third with some other complication or other.
“It has been two or three years since this issue was on my desk,” she adds. Back then, she says, there were parents of three- and four-year-olds who were claiming to have a trans child. “And they had changed their names. So, we were concerned about that.”
Nordal’s comment about survey data showing that some children are “truly trans” leads me to ask whether, in her opinion, trans children exist, in that they are trapped in the wrong body? “It’s not my role to decide,” she says, explaining that her job is to think about children’s rights, rather than to have opinions about medical or psychological issues. “We have other professionals to do that. I focus on what is important for my job. We need to listen to children. This is a very difficult track to take.”
Icelandic law also recognises the sex changes of foreign visitors. In 2025, a trans “refugee” from the United States turned up in Iceland, attempting to claim asylum. “Alexandra” (a “stay-at-home mother”) claimed to be fleeing anti-trans persecution in Minnesota. His claim was not upheld. After Alexandra was told by police to go to the US Embassy in Iceland for help, his appointed spokesman said it was like “deporting Afghan women to the Taliban”.
My earlier trips to Iceland were to speak at conferences on male violence, organised by Stígamót, a well-known women’s organisation. But when I attempted to make contact with old friends in the feminist world, I was either ghosted or subjected to lecturing about “inclusivity” and “trans rights”. Even the hard-line feminists have capitulated – including those previously brave enough to take on pimps and pornographers.
In 2020, lesbian singer-songwriter Iva Marín Adrichem sang in the national final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Born blind, she had been included – as a high-profile Icelander – in an Icelandic tourist board film to encourage more disabled visitors to the country.
“I was cut out of the film because someone made a fuss about my views on gender,” she tells me when we have lunch together in Reykjavik, “ironically, in the name of diversity and inclusion.”
The trans trend spreads from the elite: both the bishop of Iceland and the rector of the Iceland Academy of the Arts have spoken proudly of being mothers to “trans children”.
The head of transgender medicine at Iceland’s state hospital is Asa Radix, a Canadian living in Iceland, who was appointed in 2025. Radix is also the president of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. WPATH was exposed by investigative journalists as a group of trans rights activists whose practice raises significant questions about the nature of gender-affirming care and the evidence base for WPATH’s widely followed guidelines.
Iceland’s reputation in transgender healthcare is seen by other countries with self-ID laws, and those looking to establish them, as a gold standard model. In 2025, Mary Butler, junior health minister for mental health in Ireland, travelled to Iceland to take part in a “knowledge exchange” project organised by the Icelandic ministry for health. The Irish delegation met with gender clinicians and people with “lived experience” of gender medicine. The official purpose of that visit was to inform the development of the new model for gender healthcare in Ireland.
Iceland’s national flag is fast being replaced by the “Progress flag” – on churches, schools, government buildings and police stations. And the fact that rainbows painted on road surfaces are commonplace, even in tiny villages with fewer than 200 residents, signals a quasi-religious reformation: the teachings of postmodernist theorists Michel Foucault and Judith Butler have supplanted those of Jesus Christ.
The headquarters of the bishop of Iceland is in a purpose-built building in Reykjavik’s centre. I cold-call, hoping to catch Gudrún Karls Helgudóttir, who has been outspoken in support of her own trans-identified child and her commitment to the LGBT community. The church once ran an advertisement campaign featuring a trans Jesus Christ, complete with breasts, on Reykjavik’s buses.
Helgudóttir is unavailable, but her secretary, Eva Björk Valdimarsdóttir, invites me into a space generously adorned with pride, progress and trans flags, as well as an ornament of the drag act RuPaul. Valdimarsdóttir is a “big fan” of Drag Race.
When I ask how the Icelandic church became so focused on the inclusion of LGBT people, she explains that both the former bishop and the church had poor reputations as a result of having denied equal marriage rights to lesbians and gay men, and wanted to compensate for this stain on the church’s history. She says that the Bible, if read properly, does not pour scorn on same-sex couples, and that it is not God’s will to deny same-sex people who love each other to marry. “God does not discriminate,” she says.
Next, I ask about child safeguarding – for example, if a trans-identified man were to accompany children on a church trip. As a “trans woman”, would he be assigned to the girls’ sleeping quarters? “Those people are valid and their identities are valid,” she tells me. We go back to the Bible and what Jesus said. “He especially stood with marginalised people.”
I ask her whether God ever makes mistakes, and whether a child can be born in the wrong body. Before answering, she wants to make sure it will be specified that this is only her opinion. “There are not just two sexes, male and female. It is not that simple.”
How does that work, though, for children who want to be medicalised? “They have a long waiting list, then they have their specialists. I don’t think the church needs to decide anything for them.”
At this stage, Valdimarsdóttir asks if she can speak personally, rather than in her role as secretary to the bishop. She says trans women are as trustworthy as “cis” (biological) women, and that some people are “in between” male and female.
I ask, can a baby be born in the “wrong body”? “Should that child not live?” she replies. “And is this child not perfect as they are also in their minds and in their spirit, in what they say they are?”
Reykjavik-based father Alexandre Da Rocha meets me for coffee to talk about the conflict between him and his former partner over their son. When the child came home from school saying he wanted to be a girl, and was affirmed by his mother, Da Rocha made it clear that he disagreed, resulting in the case being referred to the family court by the mother. In November last year, the court decided that the boy’s mother would have sole custody, having previously shared it with the father.
“In the judgment, it was made clear that I am a good father, a good parent, and that there was no question over that. It is, I am certain of it, because I have refused to affirm my son as a girl,” Da Rocha says.
His lawyer, Hilmar Gardars Thorsteinsson, tells me that the problem in such cases, where one parent is in dispute with the other over children who wish to change sex, is halting the process before the prescribing of puberty blockers.
“It is almost always affirmed by teachers, for example, and then they are recommended to get puberty blockers at around 11 or 12,” he says. “I don’t know exactly the number, but I think it’s around 100 kids under 18 undergoing something like this.”
The following morning, I head to Laugardalslaug swimming baths, one of many across the city. Swimming is sacred to Icelandic people and a big part of their culture. The rules are strict: you are not allowed into the water until you have thoroughly showered. There are posters of stick figures on the walls with arrows pointing towards the armpits and genitalia. How will this work with “trans women” using the female showers, I wonder?
After explaining my purpose in visiting Iceland, I have a conversation with a young, muscle-bound man who works there. “Do you have single-sex communal showers?” I ask. “Yes,” he replies, “there are female showers and male showers.”
“But if I said I was a trans man, would I be allowed to go and shower in the men’s shower room?” His female colleague answers: “The communal showers are not single-sex but you can ask for a private cubicle if you wish.”
I seek clarification: “So are there no single-sex facilities at all?” This question is met with bafflement, so I try again. “Do any women ever ask for the mixed facilities?”
“No,” comes the response.
Ina Steinke has travelled a considerable distance across Iceland to meet with me. She got to know Kristinsson and the others speaking out because she hates the idea that the right to free speech is under threat. After our visit to the swimming pool, she appears angry at what she heard.
“There’s not even a warning,” says Steinke.“Being at risk of seeing a naked man in the women’s showers is this new reality. In our culture, it’s not an issue to be naked in front of other women, it’s part of our heritage. Also, sex offences – it’s nothing new to Icelandic people, but now, we can’t complain about the naked man; we can’t point out the sex of the person that rapes you.”
My final stop before leaving Reykjavik is to the mayoral hustings, where Ari Edwald, the candidate for the socially conservative Midflokkurinn (“Centre”) party, is due to give a speech. During the Q&A, I ask what he would do, if elected, to end the inclusion of gender ideology in schools. His is the only party to have spoken out against gender ideology and its effects on children.
School should not be a place of indoctrination, he responds, adding that contested ideas from sociologists and queer theorists in universities should not be taught as fact. If elected, he will do his part to wind this nonsense up.
With the help of lawyers, LGB Alliance Iceland is preparing various legal routes to challenging transgender practices against Icelandic youth. It is also looking at how to reverse so-called “conversion therapy” legislation, which would effectively criminalise any therapist or counsellor that doesn’t affirm a child presenting as transgender.
Da Rocha, the father desperately trying to stop his child from starting on a path towards changing his sex, is appealing the decision of the family court to deny him joint custody of his son. “If he decided to be gay when he grows up, then fine,” he tells me, but to do something he can never reverse would be terrible for him.”
Meanwhile, Kristinsson is keen to find out what is happening with his criminal case, as it has been several months since he was charged with hate crime offences. I accompany him to the main police station in Reykjavik.
Article 233A of the penal code forbids ridicule, slander and hatred towards those with protected characteristics: in this case, trans-identified people. As he awaits his turn at the security screen, he tells me: “I have the legal label of ‘criminal suspect.’”
“We’ve been looking for you,” says a uniformed officer when she finally appears. “You need to come back and be interrogated for another crime, on Friday.”
*Names have been changed
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