After months of sometimes heated debates within the ruling left, Spanish MPs voted on Thursday a law allowing people to freely change gender from the age of 16, at a time when other European countries are slowing down on this controversial subject.
Battle horse of the radical left party Podemos, an ally of the socialists in the government, this law allows people who wish to change their gender on their identity papers via a simple administrative declaration from the age of 16.
It will therefore no longer be necessary to provide medical reports attesting to gender dysphoria, i.e. distress caused by a mismatch between the biological sex and the gender with which a person identifies, and evidence of hormonal treatment followed for two years, as was the case so far for adults.
The text – voted by 191 deputies while 60 voted against against and 91 abstained – also extends this right to 14-16 year olds, with the agreement of their legal guardians, as well as to 12-14 year olds, if they get the green light from the courts.
Spain thus joins the few countries authorizing gender self-determination, like Denmark, the first country to have granted this right in Europe, in 2014.
“Today we have taken a giant step” in recognizing the “free determination of gender identity”, launched Podemos Minister for Equality Irene Montero, defending a law which “depathologizes” transgender people and also prohibits conversion therapy aimed at imposing heterosexuality.
MEPs also voted on Thursday for a law creating an unprecedented “menstrual leave” in Europe and strengthening the right to abortion in public hospitals, new “feminist conquests”, according to Podemos.
The debate on gender dysphoria has gained momentum in many countries in recent years with the increase in requests for transition, especially among minors.
But the vote on this law in Spain comes at a time when several countries, some of which were hitherto at the forefront on the subject, are backtracking or being circumspect.
In Sweden, the authorities decided a year ago to end hormone therapy for minors, except in very rare cases, citing the need to exercise “caution”. They have also come to drastically restrict the use of breast removal for teenage girls.
In Finland, a similar decision was taken as early as 2020 on hormone therapy, while in France, the Academy of Medicine called for “great medical caution” in the treatment of young patients and expressed its “more great reservation” on hormonal treatments.
Finally, the United Kingdom last month blocked a Scottish law on transgender rights, similar to that of Spain, voted in late December by the Edinburgh parliament after heated debate.
This episode weakened Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who announced her resignation on Wednesday, after a heated controversy arose from the incarceration in a women’s prison of a transgender woman convicted of raping two women before her transition.
In Spain, the “trans” law has aroused fierce opposition from the right. “We are not here to experiment with people,” insisted Maria Jesus Moro, a Popular Party deputy, on Thursday.
But this text has also caused deep divisions within the left and the feminist movement, at a time when Spain is preparing for legislative elections at the end of the year.
The text has been ardently defended by Podemos and by Spain’s largest LGBT organization, FELGBTI, which hopes, according to its president Uge Sangil, that this law will “encourage other countries to follow” the Spanish “example”.
But other, dissonant voices have been heard on the left, with some feminists believing that the notion of gender self-determination jeopardizes decades of struggle for gender equality.
“To claim gender as being above biological sex (…) seems to me to be a setback”, denounced the former number two in Pedro Sánchez’s government, Carmen Calvo.
“Opening this door” of gender transition “without any restrictions (imposed) on children seems to me hasty” and “very dangerous”, commented for his part Rim Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, in an interview with the Madrid daily El Mundo.
02/16/2023 17:24:58 – Madrid (AFP) – © 2023 AFP