Most people don’t realize it, but Sweden moved rightward decades ago with regard to economics because socialism was undermining its social insurance system. Today it ranks higher in economic freedom than the United States. While still a society with high social insurance, it is also very friendly to business as well. They realized that killing the goose that laid the golden egg was a bad idea.

In fact, all the Nordic countries rank much higher than the US in terms of economic freedom. As they became economically freer, we became more and more restrictive and regulatory.

As befits its Leftist leanings decades ago, Sweden was also the first country in the world to both allow transgender people to legally change their gender and to provide free hormone therapy to transitioners. It was proud to lead the way toward social acceptance of alternative lifestyles.

Yet it is Sweden that is helping lead the charge against the radical elements of the transgender movement, pushing back against the increasing institutionalization of gender ideology, and most especially the headlong rush to transition children. As Jazz pointed out, Sweden’s “National Board of Health recently updated its guidelines on medical care for minors who begin to identify as transgender, nonbinary, or “gender fluid.” They will now focus on “psychosocial care” and counseling rather than rushing into hormone treatments, puberty blockers, or surgery.”

Sweden made this move, explicitly rejecting the WPATH guidelines, because the claim that “gender affirming” treatments are safe, reversible, and “lifesaving” for children are utterly without merit. There is precious little research on the subject at all, and what there is indicates that using puberty blockers, no less hormones, on children is experimental and dangerous. As number of children seeking transgender “care” skyrocketed, Swedish doctors became repelled by the obvious social contagion sweeping the West.

LGBT-friendly Sweden cuts ties with WPATH, reiterates psychotherapy as the default treatment for gender dysphoria. Hormones reserved only for the most extreme cases.

This is “conversion therapy,” per ⁦Biden administration and ⁦@AmerAcadPeds⁩ https://t.co/2I0T9tL2JF

— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) December 25, 2022

Great Britain, too, has reversed course on its headlong rush into transitioning children. They have closed down programs that rushed children into treatment, and have been dealing with a scandal involving their “world class” Tavistock Clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Children were being pushed into puberty blocking and hormone treatments without any care for the necessity of or potential side effects from the treatments. The whole Tavistock Clinic had to be closed down it had become such a mess.

Unfortunately, the closing of Tavistock has done nothing to reduce the demand for its services because it is a social contagion. 

Nearly 8,000 children are on the waiting list for NHS gender identity treatment, official figures have revealed.

The number is a rise of more than two-thirds (67 per cent) in less than two years and comes amid growing concerns from medical experts, parents and politicians.

The youngsters, who were under-18, were in line for an appointment at a controversial NHS clinic after they sought professional help.

Great Britain was as big into transgenderism as Canada is into euthanasia. Luckily that is changing.

Scotland is still moving full speed ahead with its commitment to gender ideology, and is getting set for a battle with the UK government in London over the issue. Still, there is progress. Incremental progress to be sure, but Europe is moving in the right direction.

In a landmark move, Switzerland's government has rejected gender ideology by ruling that sex is binary and people must be referred to as either male or female, with no exceptions. https://t.co/dpDOkEWRy5

— Denman (@Denman13897929) January 2, 2023

It isn’t just with regard to gender ideology that parts of Europe have begun to choose a saner path than the United States, but also with COVID mitigation strategies.

Sweden again led the way, having chosen a better path in dealing with the virus than almost any other country in the world. The country eschewed mandates for the most part, informing citizens of the facts as they knew them, and making recommendations, not mandates.  In the main the country let citizens make health choices for themselves, while focusing resources on protecting the most vulnerable.

The results? Sweden has the lowest overall excess mortality in the OECD. They suffered a few more COVID deaths than some of their neighbors, but with less disruption to their healthcare system they have weathered the pandemic with fewer excess deaths from all causes.

Sweden 🇸🇪

🇸🇪 No lockdowns
🇸🇪 No school closures
🇸🇪 No mask mandates

Sweden had the lowest overall cumulative excess deaths in countries analysed by the OECD during the pandemic era from March 2020 to June 2022. pic.twitter.com/nbzI1veo8y

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) November 27, 2022

While the US is still pushing everybody over 6 months old to get the COVID vaccines and boosters, some European countries have reversed course. Denmark, for instance, won’t make the vaccine available to minors at all except in rare cases of immune deficiency, and discourages vaccines for people other than senior citizens.

Their reasoning? The virus is endemic, and the vaccines have potentially deadly side effects, especially for younger people. The health officials recognize that in many cases the benefits for vaccination outweigh the risks, but for most people they no longer do. Would that our public health officials were as rational.

As you can see, the greatest outbreak of sanity appears to be in the Nordic countries, and I suspect that a large reason for that is the greater level of social trust that exists there. While the US authorities tend to treat citizens as children to be led with simple, ideologically charged messaging, Nordic countries seem to treat their citizens with more basic respect.

This, I think, could also be related to their policy changes regarding transgender ideology. Much of the impetus in the US seems to be related to a misguided sense that Americans, if not properly led, will become hateful killers intent on harming others. We saw that with the constant fears of attacks on Muslims post-9/11, where nonexistent bigotry was constantly called out, and we see that with the constant LGBTQ+ affirming drumbeat. Elites see us hateful ravening hordes intent on killing anyone different than us, and pound us with propaganda to avert this imagined fate.

Whatever the cause, the trend is obvious. At least some European countries are far ahead of the US in rejecting extremist COVID and transgender ideology. While American Elites are feeding children into the meat grinder, European countries are taking a step back.

This should both surprise and worry us. America has been the world leader in liberty for centuries, but we have been ceding the title to other countries less fearful of their citizens.

Falling behind Sweden and Denmark in preserving liberty is both a bad look and a bad sign for our country.