The summer of this year saw the launch of Statement festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, which billed itself as "the world’s first major music festival for women, non-binary, and transgender [people] only."
As The Guardian reports however, Sweden’s Discrimination Ombudsman has now ruled that the festival breached a Swedish law that bans gender discrimination. The ombudsman ruled that the festival breached the laws by "discouraging a certain group from attending the event."
Discrimination Ombudsman press officer Class Lundstedt said that the law breaches relate to "statements made before the festival, that they wrote on their website. Still, we haven’t been able to prove that someone would have been discriminated against in connection with the implementation or that someone would have been rejected."
The festival will not face any penalties related to the ruling though. The festival responded with a social media post, saying: "It’s sad that what 5,000 women, non-binaries, and transgender [people] experienced as a life-changing festival made a few cis men lose it completely. The success of the Statement Festival shows that is exactly what we need and the DO’s verdict doesn’t change this fact. Otherwise, we have no comments. We are busy changing the world."
