Reduxx has learned that a website endorsed by the Norwegian Government which promotes the medical transitioning of children is owned by a twice-convicted pimp.
Transhjelpen provides resources related to the ‘transitioning’ of children and teens. The site’s online shop offers breast binders for teen girls, ‘tucking’ undergarments for young boys, prosthetic breasts and penises, and a variety of sex toys and lubricants.
The Transhjelpen website also offers advice aimed at quelling the concerns of parents and teachers regarding childhood gender identity. It asserts that “children as young as four or five” may “claim they were born in the wrong body,” and recommends caretakers begin socially transitioning children by changing names and pronouns used to address them.
Medical interventions are also recommended by Transhjelpen. Drugs which are euphemistically referred to as ‘puberty blockers’ are described as “a completely safe way to pause or postpone changes that would have given the child more gender dysphoria… Should it be found that the child is not trans, the blockers are stopped and puberty will continue as normal.”
But Reduxx has learned that the youth-focused website is registered by Erotismen, an “affirming” fetish community focused on sexual activity as a lifestyle founded by Tom Ketil Krogstad. Krogstad has been convicted of pimping on two occasions.
Erotismen is described as a “lifestance community that empowers the individual, works for increased understanding and respect for others, and a better world for all,” according to the organization’s website.
“The basic idea of Erotismen arose from the acknowledgement that many people can’t live the life they want, because of cultural or religious limitations. Erotismen was developed further on the acknowledgement that people that are part of a community where they can be themselves experience an improvement of their own quality of life.”
Krogstad heavily implies that Erotismen is a religious organization, and as “it is illegal to be a member of multiple religious or lifestance-communities in Norway,” he encourages new members to withdraw from other religious affiliations before registering.
The idea for the group came to Krogstad after public scrutiny for activities at his former sex-centered organization. “It came as a reaction to the resistance and stigma that establishing Club4 was met by. Club4 was established as a sanctuary where people could be themselves and live out their sexual fantasies and desires with like-minded people. Unfortunately, there are those that don’t approve of people being themselves.”
Club4, a sex club in Trondheim founded by Krogstad in 2000, made headlines after he was convicted on charges related to pimping through the venue on two separate occasions — first in 2001 and again in 2021.
Though Krogstad was convicted of pimping, illegally serving alcohol, and showing pornographic films at Club4 in 2001, he was not sent to prison until 2003, where he served a sentence of 14 months. He was subsequently released in 2005. During court proceedings, he called himself an “erotic martyr.” During this time, Club4 was shut down, but in 2013, Krogstad opened the venue again.
In 2007, Krogstad was questioned by Swedish police on the “sexual preferences” of a man charged with the violent murder of his partner. The suspect had visited Club4 prior to drugging and killing a 31-year-old woman in a camping cabin in Östersund. The victim was found with “extensive cuts” to her lower abdomen and groin.
Krogstad was again discovered to be illegally selling women in the prostitution trade at Club4 in 2020 after he was reported by radical feminist collective Kvinnegruppa Ottar.
“The National Board of the Women’s Group Ottar has today reported Krogstad for pimping, and expects him to be investigated for violations of the Criminal Code Section 315 first paragraph letter a and b which deals with pimping and brothel activities,” said the Women’s Group in a press release.
In the basement of the Club4 shop, a number of men were found to have paid NOK 300 (approx. $30USD) each to participate in “gangbangs” after two young women came forward to describe their ordeal.
The Trøndelag District Court found Krogstad guilty of mediated contact between prostitutes and sex buyers from 2016 to 2019, and sentenced him to eight months in prison.
Krogstad’s Transhjelpen website claims to work in partnership with Norway’s Patient Organization for Gender Incongruence (Pasientorganisasjonen for Kjønnsinkongruens – PKI). The group, as its name suggests, works to connect individuals seeking medical interventions with gender clinicians. In particular, PKI targets potential patients who are rejected by the National Treatment Center for Transsexualism (NBTS) at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet for puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones following a psychiatric assessment.
PKI has made statements supporting the medical transitioning of youth, and most recently defended a private clinician who had his medical license revoked by health authorities after a third investigation into his practice. Dr. Esben Benestad, Norway’s most well-known trans-identifying male and gender clinician, has repeatedly circumvented national protocols in regards to prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and hormones to minors, and has advocated for the recognition of ‘eunuch’ as a gender identity.
Transhjelpen similarly endorses alternative clinics to the National Treatment Service for Transsexualism (NBTS) at Rikshospitalet Hospital (NBTK). According to Transhjelpen, the hospital, which does not recommend medical interventions for every patient, has “outdated and old-fashioned attitudes to gender roles.”
Responding to news that Benestad’s medical license had been revoked by the Norwegian Health Authorities, Transhjelpen posted a notice to Instagram addressed to “all patients of Benestad who are unable to renew their prescription” which urges any individual who is refused hormones or puberty blockers to “complain,” and links through to both PKI and the nation’s leading trans activist organization Foreningen (FRI).
The Transhjelpen account is mutually connected with FRI on social media, where the organization is also advocating for the former doctor Benestad. On February 3, FRI and their supporters took part in a demonstration in Oslo for “dignified health care for trans people and the loudest trans cry of all time – for Esben Esther.”
Last year, Reduxx exposed one of FRI’s previous representatives as the operator of a castration fetish website called the Eunuch Maker.
Marius Gustavson was arrested along with six other men in February 2022 for performing clandestine castration surgeries in his home. Shortly after his arrest, he told The Independent in an interview that he had carried the operation out on 58 other men. He stated that he had his own genitals surgically removed because he wanted to “look like a Ken doll with nothing down there.”
Benestad himself has advocated a theory of a “eunuch gender,” a concept which he wrote about in a 2010 paper titled, From gender dysphoria to gender euphoria: An assisted journey. In the paper, Benestad claims to have met members of the “eunuch gender” and cites a website called the Eunuch Archive as being a source for his research. The Eunuch Archive hosts and produces fantasy materials that center around children having their puberty halted, either chemically or surgically, as part of a pedophilic sexual fetish.
In the two years since Transhjelpen was launched, the organization has gained the support of leading figures working in the field of sexology in Norway. The site’s Instagram account is followed by multiple LGBT organizations and notable sexologists, including Tore Holte Follestad, who is the head of the Norwegian Society for Clinical Sexology (Norsk Forening for Klinisk Sexologi – NFKS), which frequently promotes BDSM. Follestad is a sexual counselor specializing in “gender incongruence” as well as “sexual fetishes.”
In 2022, a site run by the Norwegian Ministry of Children, Youth, and Family Affairs (Bufdir) responded to a question ostensibly posed by a 14-year-old teen by recommending they visit Krogstad’s site Transhjelpen in order to secretly obtain a breast binder without their parents’ knowledge. The site is aimed at children and youth aged 13 to 20 and provides information on sexuality and gender identity and receives upwards of 1 million monthly visits.
“I’m non-binary, but I’m not out to my parents and I really want to buy a chest binder,” the comment reads. “It’s being sent from the U.S. and I’m terrified of what might happen if my parents find the package, I don’t think they will support me and my choice,” the response read. “As for the chest binder, you can buy it from Norway. On the Transhjelpen website can you buy chest binders in Norway. You don’t have to buy it in the US. Then it’s also easy to send it back if it doesn’t fit.”
The government ministry previously came under scrutiny in 2020 after one of its representatives recommended that a 16-year-old girl visit a plastic surgeon to have her breasts surgically removed.
The teen told Bufdir that she “hated having breasts” and wondered if she could have them removed “without having to change gender.”
An unnamed sexologist responded, saying, “Unfortunately, it is not possible (as of today) to have your breasts removed at the state’s expense, if you do not at the same time experience having been assigned the wrong gender at birth. If your desire persists, I would recommend that you contact a plastic surgeon who works in the private sector. There it is possible to have this type of operation performed.”
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