Living at the Intersection: Othering in Sweden
How homonationalism, welfare-algorithm bias, and multiple-minority stress shape life for racialized LGBTQ+ women in Sweden—and paths toward justice.
SWEDENREFLECTIONS
Zayera Khan
11/8/20256 min read
Living at the Intersection: The Other in Swedish Society
There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly being positioned as "the Other" in a country that prides itself on equality. It's the tiredness of existing at multiple intersections where you're perpetually not quite Swedish enough, not quite straight enough, not quite "integrated" enough. And yet, paradoxically, you're always too visible.
The Philosophy of Othering
When Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," she was describing how identity gets constructed through social relations of power. The concept of "the Other" is central to understanding how societies define themselves by defining what they are not. The dominant group establishes itself as the norm, the subject, the Self—and everyone else becomes the Other, the object, the deviation.
In Sweden, we see this play out in fascinating and deeply troubling ways. This country markets itself globally as a beacon of gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and progressive values. Sweden ranks among the world's most gay-friendly nations. It has comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. On paper, we should be thriving here.
But here's the thing about being a woman with a foreign background who is also lesbian in Sweden: you become not one Other, but multiple Others simultaneously. And these identities don't just add up—they interact, creating entirely new forms of marginalization that the progressive discourse often fails to recognize.
The Swedish Paradox
Sweden's self-image as a tolerant, equal society creates a unique trap. Research shows that ethnic minority LGBTQ people in Swedish spaces experience what one study called "constantly contested identities." In a country that believes it has solved discrimination, acknowledging that you experience it becomes almost impossible. You're told that discrimination "shouldn't" happen here, as if Sweden's progressive reputation could shield you from lived reality.
Recent investigations have revealed how even Sweden's welfare systems perpetuate othering. In 2024, Amnesty International exposed that Sweden's Social Insurance Agency uses AI systems that disproportionately flag women, people with foreign backgrounds, and low-income earners for fraud investigations. The algorithm literally encodes othering into the welfare state, treating certain bodies as inherently suspicious.
The Double Bind of Progressive Nationalism
What makes Sweden's form of othering particularly insidious is how it wraps itself in the language of tolerance. It's what scholars call "homonationalism"—the appropriation of LGBTQ rights to draw boundaries between "civilized" Sweden and "backwards" immigrants. The rainbow flag stops being about queer liberation and becomes a symbol of Swedish values, implicitly excluding those of us who carry both identities.
You see this in how Swedish politicians discuss "honor-related violence" as if it's something imported from elsewhere, never examining how Swedish society produces its own forms of gendered violence. Research on Swedish policy reveals that migrants are often portrayed through what's called a "collectivist thinking" lens—their cultures are seen as "problematic" and different from Swedish values. Meanwhile, Swedish cultural norms remain unexamined, positioned as neutral and universal.
For lesbian women with foreign backgrounds, this creates an impossible position. Within immigrant communities, you might face homophobia. Within Swedish LGBTQ spaces, you face racism and exoticization. One study of ethnic minority non-heterosexual people in Sweden found they experienced alienation, exotification, and tokenism in LGBTQ spaces—constantly positioned as outsiders even in spaces meant to be inclusive.
The Violence of Being Made into the Other
The consequences of othering aren't just philosophical—they're material and psychological. Research shows that ethnic minority LGBTQ people experience what's called "multiple-minority stress," facing discrimination from multiple angles simultaneously. Around 10% of LGBTQ people in Sweden report being physically attacked in the five years before recent surveys, but these statistics don't capture the daily microaggressions, the constant explaining, the vigilance required to navigate spaces where you're simultaneously hyper-visible and invisible.
Recent reports document how women with foreign backgrounds face particular vulnerability to domestic violence, partly because of restrictive migration policies. Until recently, migrant women had to stay with a partner for two years to maintain their residence permit—a rule that trapped many in abusive situations. Even when these policies change, the structural othering remains: you're seen as particularly vulnerable because of your "culture," not because of laws that restrict your agency.
The Conditional Embrace
Perhaps the most painful aspect of othering is what researchers call "the conditional embrace"—the sense that acceptance is always provisional, always dependent on performing the right kind of difference. Not too foreign, not too queer. Integrated enough to not threaten Swedish norms, exotic enough to prove Swedish tolerance.
In asylum accommodation, LGBTQ refugees from conservative countries sometimes find themselves housed with people from those same communities, facing the homophobia they fled. Swedish systems fail to recognize that safety requires more than just being in Sweden—it requires being seen as fully human, with complex needs that can't be addressed by checking boxes about vulnerability categories.
What This Means for Us
Living as the Other in Swedish society means developing what scholar Gloria Anzaldúa called "mestiza consciousness"—the ability to hold multiple, often contradictory identities simultaneously. It means learning to navigate Swedish LGBTQ spaces that assume whiteness as the norm, while also navigating immigrant spaces that assume heterosexuality. It means being used as evidence of Swedish tolerance while your actual experiences of discrimination are dismissed.
Recent developments are concerning. While Sweden passed progressive legislation in 2024 lowering the age for legal gender transition to 16, anti-gender campaigns are gaining ground. Far-right parties like the Sweden Democrats attack Pride events and LGBTQ organizations. Scholars warn of "insidious de-democratization"—small but cumulative political shifts that marginalize trans people, migrants, and racialized minorities.
Resistance and Solidarity
But here's what othering can't account for: our resilience, our communities, our refusal to be reduced to categories. Organizations like RFSL Newcomers create spaces specifically for LGBTQ people with migration backgrounds. These aren't spaces where we have to choose which part of ourselves to perform—they're spaces where our multiplicity is recognized.
The solution isn't just better anti-discrimination laws, though those matter. It's a fundamental shift in how Swedish society understands itself. It requires Swedes to stop seeing equality as something they've already achieved and start recognizing how Swedish norms themselves create Others. It requires LGBTQ spaces to interrogate their own racism. It requires immigrant communities to confront homophobia without being stereotyped as uniquely patriarchal.
Most importantly, it requires recognizing that we who live at these intersections aren't problems to be solved or symbols to be wielded. We're full human beings whose experiences reveal the limitations of Swedish progressivism. Our existence isn't a threat to Swedish values—it's an invitation to imagine something more radical than tolerance: actual justice.
Moving Forward
The concept of the Other reminds us that identity isn't natural or fixed—it's produced through relations of power. That means it can be challenged and changed. When we name othering, we refuse its terms. When we build community across our differences, we create spaces where multiplicity isn't a problem but a strength.
Sweden will continue to market itself as progressive. The gap between that image and our lived reality will continue to exist. But every time we speak our truth, every time we refuse to perform the right kind of difference, every time we demand recognition of our full humanity, we chip away at the systems that produce the Other.
We belong here—not conditionally, not partially, but completely. And that belonging doesn't require us to be less foreign, less queer, or less ourselves. It requires Sweden to expand its imagination of who counts as Swedish, who counts as human, who counts as us.
Evidence base
Amnesty International. “Sweden: Authorities must discontinue discriminatory AI systems used by welfare agency” (27 Nov 2024).
Amnesty Sverige. “Försäkringskassan måste upphöra med sitt diskriminerande AI-system” (27 Nov 2024).
https://www.amnesty.se/aktuellt/sverige-forsakringskassan-ai-system/
EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). “LGBTI Survey—Country data: Sweden” (factsheet from EU LGBTI II survey).
https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/lgbti-survey-country-data_sweden.pdf
EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). “LGBTIQ Survey 2023/24—Country factsheet: Sweden” (latest country sheet).
https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/lgbtiq_survey-2024-country_sheet-sweden.pdf
Riksdagen. “It will be easier to change gender” (17 Apr 2024).
Reuters. “Sweden passes law to make it easier to change legal gender” (17 Apr 2024).
RFSL. “New Legal Gender Recognition Act (from 1 July 2025)” (info page).
https://www.rfsl.se/en/organisation/vard-for-transpersoner/new-legal-gender-recognition-act/
Frontiers in Psychology. Miller, E.L. (2022). “A conditional embrace—Swedish LGBTQ+ spaces through the eyes of ethnic minority non-heterosexual individuals.”
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009192/full
(PubMed Central mirror): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9801980/
SAGE (Sexualities). Liinason, M. (2023). “Homonationalism across borders: Exploring cross-scalar politics of LGBTI+ rights.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634607221112647
Wiley (Antipode). Lågemann, J. (2024). “Homonationalism on the Defensive: News Media and Moral Panic in Sweden.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12987
RFSL Newcomers — national information page.
https://www.rfsl.se/en/medlem/asyl/
RFSL Newcomers Stockholm — local services and contact.
https://rfslstockholm.se/en/newcomers-stockholm/
University of Gothenburg & Örebro University. “Honour, Violence and Gender—International research review” (2025).
https://www.gu.se/sites/default/files/2025-04/Honour-violence-gender-tga.pdf
