Sweden is celebrating its first transgender government minister, becoming only the second European country to appoint a trans person to a senior government role.

Trans woman Lina Axelsson Kihlblom, 51, is now minister for schooling in the cabinet of Magdalena Andersson, who has been the Swedish PM since 30th November.

Andersson’s cabinet is majority-female, with 11 male ministers and 12 female ministers, including Kihlblom, who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1995.

Andersson became PM after her predecessor Stefan Loefven tendered his resignation on 10th November after he became the first Swedish leader ever to lose a motion of no confidence.

Both Andersson and Loefven belong to the centre-left Swedish Social Democratic Party, which is in a confidence-and-supply agreement with three other parties and one independent MP.

Sweden takes the top spot in the EU Gender Equality Index, above Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Finland, in that order. Greece takes the bottom spot.

In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people to change their legal gender following sex reassignment surgery.

And in 2013, legislation was passed allowing people to change their legal gender without undergoing hormone replacement therapy or sex reassignment surgery.

The first European country to appoint an openly trans minister was Belgium, when it named trans woman gynaecologist Petra De Sutter as federal Deputy Prime Minister last year.

When interviewed on Swedish public radio after she was appointed, Kihlblom said: “This is not a big deal, although it is important to me and many others who are experiencing the same issues.

“If I, in any small way, can be a role model or a trailblazer, I am happy about that.”

Before her rise to political office, Kihlblom, who published an autobiography in 2015, worked as a school headteacher in one of the most deprived areas in Sweden.

One of her goals in government is to try to outlaw schools from generating private profits.