The Congress of Deputies approved this Thursday a bill in Spain, known as “trans law”, which allows freely change gender from the age of 16.
The text received 188 votes in favor and 150 against, in addition to seven abstentions and will now begin its process in the Senate, according to a report from afp. The PP, Vox and Ciudadanos were opposed.
If the project is definitively approved in the upper house in the coming weeks -as is very likely-, Spain will become one of the few countries in the world that authorizes gender self-determination by submitting a personal application.
✅ The Plenary has approved the Sports Law, as well as the opinions of the bills of the university system, employment, fight against corruption, equality of trans people, stock markets, sustainable fishing.
? Press release: https://t.co/geAPKlVY3T pic.twitter.com/SNBGcBa9CD
– Congress (@Congreso_Es) December 22, 2022
Denmark was the first European country to grant this right to transgender people in 2014.
Specifically, the new regulation must allow a transgender person to change their name and reference to their sex in their documents by submitting an application at the Civil Registry. Until now, this modification was only allowed for people of legal age who provided a medical report and accredited having undergone hormone treatment for at least two years.
The initiative, dubbed the “trans law”, should also allow young people between the ages of 14 and 16 to change the mention of their sex in the Civil Registry, provided they are assisted in the process by their legal guardians.
For those from 12 to 14 years old, it is necessary that they have judicial guarantee. Currently, all minors must obtain this authorization from a judge. In all cases, the law provides that the applicant must go to the Civil Registry within a period of three months from the initial appearance to ratify his request, “assessing the persistence in his decision” to change gender.
Approved by the Council of Ministers more than a year ago, this bill has caused strong tensions between Podemos, which made the initiative a central pillar of its government action, and Sánchez’s socialists, who tried in vain to modify the text , says the source.
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It also generated deep divisions in feminism, between those who share the vision of Irene Montero and historical militants, in open war against the project.
The law also prohibits conversion therapy, guarantees access to assisted reproductive techniques for lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people with the capacity to gestate, and recognizes the filiation of children of lesbians and bisexuals without the need for them to be married.
The president of the Trans Platform in Spain, Mar Cambrollé, declared shortly after that this group had been depending on surgeries and treatments for 20 years and the new law means recognizing these people without medical or psychological treatment, “complying with the Council of Europe and the resolution of the United Nations”, according to a quote from RTVE. “Today Spain is a benchmark in Europe and it is an important day for democracy”, she said.
With information from AFP and RTVE.
