The Spanish Senate have officially given formal consent to a new law that allows gender change of a person in the civil registry from the age of 12, without the need for medical advice. From the age of 16, the person's own will is sufficient.
Authorization from a judge will be required for cases between 12 and 14 years old and from parents or legal guardians between 14 and 16 years old.
With the new law, which had already been approved by the Congress of Deputies (the lower house of the Spanish parliament), it will be possible to change gender in the civil registry in Spain, from the age of 12, without a medical opinion, but authorization from a judge for cases between 12 and 14 years old is necessary.
Authorisation from parents or legal guardians is necessary for people between the ages 14 and 16 wishing to change their gender.
For those over 16 years old, the will of whoever wants to make the change will suffice.
In all cases, medical advice and proof of any treatment or hormone therapy are no longer necessary.
Known as the “gender self-determination” law, the diploma is intended to remove the burden of pathology from gender change.
Irene Montero, the Minister of Equality of Spain, said, "Transgender people do not need guardianship or witnesses to tell them who they are. Trans people are who they are and our obligation as a State is to recognize them and protect their rights.”
The new legislation took more than a year to pass and along the way it divided the Socialist Party (PSOE) , which governs Spain in coalition with the far-left platform Unidas Podemos.
The law was also opposed by some feminist associations, considered representatives of a “classic feminism”.
Like the critical wing of the PSOE, these associations condemned the possibility of gender change only based on the manifestation of the will of the person who intends to do so, considering that this could harm the advances achieved by women in the fight for equal rights.
For these movements, being a woman is not a subjective identity and feminism is the struggle against discrimination against an objective identity based on biological gender.
Minister Irene Montero said, in the congressional debate, that “trans women are women” and spoke of “transphobia” during the process of debating the law.
The new law also prohibits genital modification surgeries up to the age of 12 in children who are born with physical characteristics of both genders (intersex or hermaphrodite children).
On the other hand, it enshrines the right of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women with reproductive capacity to access medically assisted reproduction techniques and allows the filiation of children of lesbian and bisexual mothers without the need for marriage.
The new law was voted against by right-wing parties, who claimed that there had not been a sufficiently 'calm and lasting' legislative process, to allow for all the debates and hearings that would be necessary.
The Senate introduced some “technical corrections” in the text of the law, so before it goes into effect there will still have to be a new vote in Congress, which will be the final one.
Source https://postal.pt/
