The law allows the gender on identity papers to be changed without any further action other than a public declaration of non-conformity with the gender assigned at birth.
After months of heated debate which divided the left and a part of the feminist movement, the Spanish parliament finally approved the “Law for the Real and Effective Equality of Trans Persons” on Thursday, February 16. The bill was passed with 191 votes in favor (the Socialist Party, the far left-wing Podemos and the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties); 60 against (Vox, far right); and 91 abstentions (the People’s Party, moderate right).
It enshrines the right to gender self-determination through the possibility of changing gender on identity papers without any other step than a public declaration of non-conformity with the gender assigned at birth. “This law allows everyone to be who they are, without shame, without fear and without discrimination,” said Minister of Equality Irene Montero (Podemos), who has defended this bill against all odds for almost three years to ensure its passage.
The law aims to combat discrimination against transgender people and depathologize trans identity, according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), which removed it in 2019 from the list of mental disorders. The law strengthens sanctions for discrimination against trans people, whether in access to housing or employment. It bans conversion therapies aimed at changing their gender identity. And it allows trans men who have retained their gestational capacity to have access to assisted reproductive services in the national health system.
The gender shown in the civil register will be the one that counts, both for athletes participating in competitions and for delinquents and criminals in prison. A similar situation caused one of the controversies that led to the resignation of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, something the People’s Party brought up during the debate on the law.
While this law is a “historic victory” for the trans community to become less “stigmatized,” it has also provoked the indignation of a part of the feminist movement, grouped within the Alliance Against the Erasure of Women. For this alliance, the law leads to the “legal erasure of biological sex,” “inoculates children with sexist stereotypes,” “makes it impossible to take any action to rectify the discrimination suffered by women in the public space” and could jeopardize the reserved spaces where women feel safe (toilets, domestic abuse shelters and prisons).