If, as expected, the Senate adopts it definitively in the coming weeks, this text will authorize self -determination of gender by a simple administrative declaration.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
A bill to freely change gender from 16 years old was adopted at first reading by Spanish deputies, Thursday, December 22, after months of tensions within the left in power and the feminist movement. Battle horse of the Radical Left Party Podemos, ally of the socialists in the government of Pedro Sanchez, this text was supported by 188 deputies, while 150 voted against and 7 abstained.
If, as planned, adopted definitively by the Senate in the coming weeks, it will allow Spain to join the few countries authorizing gender self -determination by a simple administrative declaration. In Europe, Denmark was the first country, in 2014, to grant this right to transgender people.
Concretely, this text must allow transgender people to change their name and gender on their identity papers during a simple meeting with the administration. And this, without providing medical reports or evidence of hormonal treatment followed for two years, as is the case today for adults in the country.
fracture within the left
“This law is repairing a historic state debt with regard to transgender persons” and “” Distarthologise “, said on Wednesday, before the deputies, the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, Carrier standard of this law. “Trans women are women,” insisted this manager of Podemos, denouncing “transphobia”.
Baptized “Trans Law”, this text will also allow 14-16 years to freely change in civil status, provided that they are accompanied in the procedure by their legal tutors. The 12-14 year olds will have to obtain the approval of justice. Currently, all minors must obtain this judicial authorization. In all cases, a period of three months is provided between the filing of the request and its validation by the applicant so that he can confirm his decision to change its genre.
Adopted in the Council of Ministers over a year ago, this bill caused a fracture between Podemos, which made it a pillar of its government action and demanded express adoption, and the socialists, who have tried to modify the text, in vain. He also profoundly divided the feminist movement, between the supporters of M me Montero and historic activists, at the war open against this text.
“Claiming gender as being above biological sex (…) seems to me to be a decline” for women, denounced the former number two of the Sanchez government, Carmen Calvo, in an interview published by the daily El Mundo in September. “The State must give an answer to transgender people but the [biological] sex is neither voluntary nor optional,” she added, highlighting the legal risks induced by this law.
Prohibition of conversion therapies
These historical feminists fear in particular that male people identifying themselves as women can participate in female sports competitions or have prisons for women. Echoing these fears, the socialists have filed an amendment in order to extend the obligation of an authorization for justice to 14-16 year olds, but it was finally rejected.
This law “symbolizes the greatest legislative defeat of the Socialist Party in the face of Podemos” since the training of the executive in early 2020, wrote the conservative daily El Mundo while El Pais (Center left) evokes “a Texts that has created the most tensions within the coalition government “. Activist LGBT+ and first transgender woman to be elected in a regional parliament in Spain, Carla Antonelli slammed with the Socialist Party in October to protest the will of her formation to modify the bill.
“We have seen part of the socialist party and the feminist movement move from the defense of the rights of the trans minority to the fierce boycott of our existence,” she accused on Thursday in a platform published by El Pais . Among other provisions, the bill also prohibits conversion therapies, aimed at changing the sexual orientation of LGBT+people, with fines of up to 150,000 euros.