Micah Grzywnowicz (2012 - 2013)

Poland/Sweden

Born and raised in Poland, Micah now resides in Stockholm, Sweden. Micah is an activist focused on the empowerment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) individuals through the promotion of equality and by supporting new approaches to education.

“You can’t fail if you are proud of what you do”, is a motto that guides Micah’s actions, along with a core belief that everyone has a right to be who they wish to be.

Since 2008, Micah has been working in the capacity of president of ANSO, the Association of Nordic and Pol-Balt LGBTQ Organizations, which aims to question and combat heteronormativity in higher education.

Micah works as a trainer in the youth field and is part of the Trainers’ Pool of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe (CoE). The themes of hir trainings include gender, accessibility, gender equality, inclusion, and human rights.

Micah is also a member of the Advisory Council on Youth within the Council of Europe, which consists of 30 representatives from youth NGOs. They provide opinions and input on all issues concerning youth within the CoE. The Advisory Council also ensures that young people are involved and their voices are heard in the institution’s broader activities.

In 2011, Micah completed a prestigious internship at the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, where zie assisted the Commissioner in publishing Discrimination of Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Europe, a review of all 47 member states of the CoE, the first report of its kind.

As a Sauvé Scholar, Micah will focus on one of today’s serious violations of human rights: the forced sterilization of trans persons. This surgical process resulting in irreversible infertility is a prerequisite for legal gender recognition for trans persons in several European jurisdictions. Micah’s aim is to create a toolkit that highlights various methods, strategies, and tools that activists can use to advocate for an end to this abusive requirement.

Not only does Micah wish to research existing gender recognition laws around the world, but zie also aims to empower trans activists to act and bring change. Micah’s Sauvé project thus combines legal study with the development of an empowerment and training tool and a collection of best practices from different countries. Moreover, Micah hopes to involve various stakeholders within the trans community in order to tailor, as much as possible, the toolkit to the needs of the trans movement.

One of Micah’s main passions and life influences is music. It inspires hir and helps hir focus or relax. Micah has to be surrounded by sounds and voices in order to feel connected. Micah’s passion for music expresses itself through hir friendly, expressive personality, in hir work, and also through being a DJ, one of Micah’s favourite pastimes.

Zie and hir are gender neutral pronouns. To learn more about gender neutral pronouns, please view this table. 

Country of origin

Poland/Sweden

Country of Residence

Sweden