Kajsa Ekis Ekman

Kajsa Ekis Ekman (born in 1980) is a Swedish author, freelance journalist and debater.

Her works have sparked debate in subjects regarding capitalism, prostitution and surrogacy, taking a left-wing and feminist perspective.

Her writing and debate on gender, transgender issues and feminism have sparked controversy and accusations of being trans-exclusionary.

Ekman grew up in Stockholm and initially became involved in the punk movement in her early teens.

That led her to engage in political activism for animal rights and anti-fascism and subsequently the left-wing movement.

She participated in the protests at European Council meetings in Gothenburg 2001, coined the Gothenburg Riots, and has mentioned experiencing a decline in activist movements as an aftermath.

During an open house at Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, she voiced her opposition to the newspaper's lack of appeal to young people.

Journalist Viggo Cavling, editor at the newspapers Whats-On-appendice DN på stan encouraged her to write something herself and send it in.

She had an article published, which led to a collaboration that sparked her interest in writing.

She has studied literature at university level, among other subjects.

Ekman has founded several networks and organizations, including the climate action group Klimax, anti-surrogacy group Feministiskt Nej till Surrogatmödraskap and Greece support network Nätverket för Grekland. She was a spokesperson for the group Shut It Down, which worked in 2010 to stop the fossil fueled powerplant Värtaverket using acts of civil disobedience.

She contributes to the cultural section of Dagens Nyheter and is a columnist for the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen.

She has previously worked as an editorial writer for left wing paper Dagens ETC and was a member of the editorial board for the magazine Brand.

Ekman has been published in TruthDig, FeministCurrent, and Kathimerini.

She lectures internationally on prostitution, surrogacy, and theory of crisis.

Ekman made her debut as an author in 2010 with the book Being and Being Bought, subtitled "Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self".

It received mixed reviews, and her stance against surrogacy sparked debate.

Maria Sveland described it as "one of the year's most important books" in Dagens Nyheter, and it has been translated into English, German, Spanish, and French.

The debate led the Left Party and Feminist Initiative to take a stance against surrogacy in Sweden.

In 2010, Ekman put up the bathtub of the Municipal commissioner for Sports, Regina Kevius, for sale on the online marketplace Blocket in protest against the commissioner's privatization of the public swimming pool in Högdalen, Stockholm.

The ad was removed by Blocket because the bathtub did not belong to the advertiser.

Ekman argued that by the same logic, Kevius also had no right to sell the swimming pool, as it belonged to the people.

The inspiration came from activists in Gothenburg who put up local politicians' homes for sale on online realtor site Hemnet after the city started selling properties from the public housing stock.

Ekman followed up by posting books that she guessed the chairman of the municipal board in Nacka was reading since he put the operation of libraries out for tender.

Ekman's book Skulden: Eurokrisen sedd från Aten (approximately "The Debt: Eurocrisis perceived from Athens"), from 2014, explores the economic crisis in Europe and Greek government-debt crisis from a Greek perspective.

The book was translated into Greek under the title (approximately "The Stolen Spring").

It challenges the myth of the lazy Greek often cited in Sweden and the rest of EU.

For the book and her engagement in Greece, she received the "Swedish-Greek of the Year" award in 2015.

Ekman's book On the Meaning of Sex: Thoughts about the New Definition of Woman, which addresses what she refers to as the new understanding of gender, was published in April 2021.

It spurred major controversy and Ekman was dubbed a "TERF", trans-exclusionary radical feminist, by parts of the feminist and LBGT-movement.

Ekman argues that Israel as a state is "built on occupation, the displacement of people, and apartheid" and that this should be criticized.In the summer of 2015, she participated as an activist aboard one of the ships in the Ship to Gaza campaign to protest against Israel's blockade of Gaza.

The ship was overtaken by the Israeli military, and she was subsequently detained for a week in Giv'on Prison in Ramla.

Ekman has given a TEDx talk on capitalism.

In 2018, Ekman revealed in an article in Aftonbladet that children had been stolen from China for adoption when politician Ulf Kristersson had a tenure as chairman of the Swedish Adoption Center.

He has since become the leader of the Moderate Party and further on Prime Minister of Sweden.

Over thirty children were placed from orphanages involved in human trafficking.

The article was followed up by a report in Dagens Nyheter in 2022, which showed that Kristersson was aware of the suspicions.

Ekman expressed surprise that no investigating journalists had picked up the story.

In 2020, she was awarded the Swedish cultural award Lenin Award given that she is an "independent socialist and feminist with the whole world as her field of work."

She has referred to herself as "generally left-wing."