The Gay Man Iceland Wants to Silence: Inside a "Gender Gilead" - Eldur Smári Kristinsson (#24)
28 July 2025
With Eldur Smári Kristinsson
Europe
Iceland has deployed hate speech law against a gay rights activist for questioning gender-identity orthodoxy — and done so three times. Eldur Smári Kristinsson's prosecutions offer a documented case study in what happens when statutory hate speech provisions collide with LGB dissent. That question is directly relevant to the United Kingdom, where conversion therapy legislation, proposed expansions of hate speech law and the legal meaning of biological sex remain live, unresolved political disputes.
Eldur Smári Kristinsson chairs Samtókin 22, Iceland's Lesbian and Gay Alliance — a position that might suggest a figure of the progressive mainstream. Instead, he has become one of his country's most legally embattled dissidents, facing a third criminal investigation for social media posts that challenge gender-identity doctrine. The first complaint arose after he described a breastfeeding man as a woman; subsequent cases followed posts questioning whether same-sex attraction must be redefined to encompass transgender partners. He says he now carries hidden cameras whenever he appears in public, unwilling to be caught without a record of what happens around him. The charges are brought under Iceland's hate speech provisions, which cover gender identity and expression. Publicly contesting gender-identity claims can therefore, in principle, constitute a criminal offence under Icelandic law. This is not a theoretical risk for Kristinsson — it has materialised repeatedly. His account is detailed enough to function as a case study in how hate speech law, once extended to cover gender identity, operates against a gay man arguing from within the LGB tradition. The episode also examines what Kristinsson has observed in Icelandic education. He describes children returning from kindergarten asking parents whether they can change sex, and BDSM presented in sex education as a recognised sexual orientation. Iceland's small population of roughly four hundred thousand means that policy changes move through institutions quickly, with fewer counter-institutions capable of slowing or scrutinising them. The rapidity of that transformation is itself part of his argument. From a British perspective, Iceland's experience is not remote. The UK's own conversion therapy bill debates have repeatedly raised the question of where lawful clinical and pastoral practice ends and criminal conduct begins. The Cass Review, published in April 2024, concluded that the evidence base for social and medical transition in children was weak and that the clinical pathway had developed without adequate scrutiny. Critics of that conclusion have at times sought to frame gender-critical speech itself as harmful. How hate speech law interacts with legitimate clinical and scientific disagreement is a question both Iceland and the United Kingdom are navigating, though at markedly different stages. Kristinsson's position carries a specific irony that the episode examines directly: a gay man, leading a gay rights organisation, prosecuted under laws whose stated purpose is to protect sexual minorities. That same structural tension surfaced in the United Kingdom with the formation of the LGB Alliance and the subsequent legal challenges it faced. The fact that a comparable figure in Iceland has incurred criminal sanction for making closely related arguments illustrates how significantly the legal environment for LGB dissenters can differ across jurisdictions — and how quickly it can shift. His parliamentary candidacy, prompted in part by a presentation at Genspect's Lisbon conference, represents an attempt to contest these questions through formal democratic politics. Whether that route remains genuinely open, or whether the cumulative effect of hate speech prosecutions narrows the space for public dissent, is a question with implications well beyond Iceland.
