The
trans law
begins its processing this Tuesday, by the hair, in the middle of Pride week. After almost half a year of arduous negotiations between the Government partners, the
Bill for the real and effective equality of transgender people and for the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people
begins its legislative journey with its approval by the Council of Ministers . The text includes free self-determination of gender, that is, that a person can change the name and sex on the DNI only with their will. With this change, Spain would become the 16th country in the world that allows gender self-determination, after Denmark, Portugal, Norway, Malta or Argentina, among others.
The draft, which has been opposed by the feminist movement, foresees eliminating the need for medical reports or years of hormonal training that are now needed to change the DNI.
It is changed to a double appearance system: the person must request the change in the Civil Registry and return three months later to ratify it and make it effective, without guardianship or witnesses.
More information
This is how the 'trans law' remains in Spain, beyond gender self-determination
The 'trans law' from opposite angles
"At last, trans people will no longer be considered sick in Spain," the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero (United We Can), proclaimed on Monday at the government's institutional act for International LGTBI Pride Day. “This law is a sincere pardon to all those people to whom this country has told that their lives were worth less. Your lives matter ”, said the minister, the most active within the Government in pushing the law.
Uge Sangil, president of the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals (FELGTB), stated that, although the law has not yet been approved, "this is the first step to achieve rights and end pathologization." The work of this association, as well as that of Chrysallis - which brings together families with trans children - and that of the Triángulo foundation, has also been key to unlocking the negotiation. In this, the date has played an important role: the PSOE, guarantor of LGTBI rights with measures such as equal marriage, did not want to reach Pride without a proposal to present.
The great stumbling block, which both UP and the collectives had set as a red line, was precisely the free self-determination of gender, which has finally been achieved in terms similar to those foreseen. People over 16 years of age may request it themselves. And it will be allowed with the assistance of parents or guardians from the age of 14 (the age at which the DNI is mandatory) and not from 12 as included in the draft that Equality prepared in February. It is also far from what the PSOE itself proposed in 2017 in a bill - ratified by Parliament in 2019 with the backing of all political forces, among which the far-right Vox party was not yet - that did not foresee any limit of age in the case of minors as long as they present it "through their parents or legal representatives".
The rejection of self-determination of gender came mainly through the first vice president of the Government, Carmen Calvo. In the summer of 2020, Calvo signed with José Luis Ábalos, an argument from the PSOE "against theories that deny the reality of women" contrary to gender self-determination. It stated that "if sex is denied, the inequality that is measured and built on the basis of this biological fact is denied." Calvo's position coincides with part of the feminist movement, which sees in this regulation a threat: they consider that sex is not something that is chosen, because then all the laws that specifically avoid discrimination against women would be at risk. Some of these organizations demonstrated last weekend against the
trans law
.
Collectives such as the Feminist Policy Forum claim that, instead of promoting this regulation, issues of the feminist agenda be addressed "that have nothing to do with feelings and yes with the reality of half of the population of this country", such as the gap gender or inequality in work or pensions.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, defended this Monday the need to "safeguard the balance of women's rights and of a group as punished as the trans group", when asked in an interview in the SER about the protests of feminist associations.
Sánchez defended the "maximum guarantee for a very vulnerable group to have maximum legal security" and recalled that PP and Vox will foreseeably appeal to the Constitutional Court.
Finally, Equality, First Vice Presidency and the Ministry of Justice, headed by Minister Juan Carlos Campo, have closed a text that includes free determination of gender without witnesses or judicial intervention. The planned procedure will be similar - without the need for third parties, no tests or pathologization (consider it a disease) but in some cases with deadlines - to that contemplated by the other 15 countries that recognize it. The aforementioned Denmark, Portugal, Norway, Malta or Argentina. And also Ireland, Luxembourg, Greece, Costa Rica, Mexico (only in Mexico City), Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay, according to data compiled in a report by Ilga (the international association of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and intersex ), 2019. Danish law, for example,It provides for a reflection period of six months before formalizing the change. The one in Portugal contemplates that the second time you change your sex you go to court. According to official data, since the Portuguese approved gender self-determination in 2018 without the need for a medical report or hormonal treatment until last February, 568 people have requested a sex change in the civil registry.
The text of the draft does not make any allusion to hormonal treatments for minors, another aspect that has aroused suspicion on the part of the feminist movement. The February draft of Equality did refer to a hormonal blocking treatment "at the beginning of puberty" to help stop the development of the breasts or the beard and walnut. And, afterwards, to the crossed hormonal treatment (testosterone for transsexual boys and estrogens for transsexual girls). Currently, in Spain, hormonal blockers can be accessed at puberty, but many times a long process is required, it depends on the different regulations of the autonomous communities and requires parental consent.Up to 12 autonomous communities have approved regional laws that allow the change of sex and name in health and school documents - not in the DNI, which is a national document - and, in most cases, they include access to hormonal treatments for minors. The draft that reaches the Council of Ministers this Tuesday only refers to the fact that "hormonal and surgical treatments for trans people have been incorporated into the portfolio of common services of the National Health System and in the portfolio of complementary services of some autonomous communities" .The draft that reaches the Council of Ministers this Tuesday only refers to the fact that "hormonal and surgical treatments for trans people have been incorporated into the portfolio of common services of the National Health System and in the portfolio of complementary services of some autonomous communities" .The draft that reaches the Council of Ministers this Tuesday only refers to the fact that "hormonal and surgical treatments for trans people have been incorporated into the portfolio of common services of the National Health System and in the portfolio of complementary services of some autonomous communities" .
The text finally merges two laws that the government partners had compromised on trans rights and LGTBI, respectively. In addition to self-determination of gender, it contemplates the right of filiation of the sons and daughters of lesbian women (who must now marry to be able to recognize both the newborn) or include fertility treatments in the portfolio of common services of the National Health System for lesbians or trans people "with the capacity to bear children." They also contemplate penalties of up to 150,000 euros for those who practice conversion therapy, aimed at "modifying people's sexual orientation and identity or gender expression."
After its approval in the Council of Ministers, the text still has the review of the advisory bodies and all the parliamentary proceedings in the Cortes, with the contributions and amendments of the rest of the groups, before its final approval. The groups plan to take advantage of this period to negotiate the incorporation of issues that were in the initial draft of Equality. "We will analyze the draft calmly, we have a challenge ahead to enrich the text," says Uge Sangil, who points out that the registration change of sex and name is allowed from the age of 12 accompanied by their parents or guardians,extend free gender self-determination also for migrants or the recognition of non-binary people —those who do not identify themselves as male or female— for whom the groups claim a third box on the DNI.
