MADRID (AP) – Victòria Martínez continues to sign official documents with the name she, her partner and their two daughters abandoned four years ago. Except for a few surprises, she expects the Spanish government to recognize her as Victoria by May, closing a chapter of patience familiar to transgender people around the world.
Changing her legal identity at a civil registry office in Barcelona will allow Martínez to update her passport and driver’s license and have a health card that correctly indicates that she is a woman. But the trial, which the pandemic prolonged, was, in her words, “humiliating” – requiring a psychiatric diagnosis, three doctors said and the court approved.
“Did I want to be stigmatized for being crazy?” I wanted to apply voluntarily for a reduction report that says this, for a judge to decide if I can be what I already am? Martínez, 44, remembers wondering. “Everything was emotionally exhausting.”
A new law proposed by the far-left party in Spain’s coalition government would make it easier for residents to change gender for official purposes. A bill sponsored by the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, aims to make gender self-determination – without diagnosis, medical treatment or a judge necessary – the norm, with eligibility starting at the age of 16. Almost 20 countries, eight of them in the European Union, already have laws.
Fractions of the Catholic Church and the far right have focused their opposition to the bill on the fact that it would also allow children under 16 to circumvent their parents’ objections and seek the assistance of a judge in accessing treatment for gender dysphoria. for suffering resulting from a conflict between an individual’s identity and the sex attributed to birth.
Less than expected was the fierce resistance of some feminists and the socialist government in Spain.
“I am fundamentally concerned that if gender can be chosen without more than anyone’s will or desire, it could jeopardize the identity criteria for 47 million Spaniards,” said Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a veteran socialist. and women’s rights advocate, she said last week.
Opponents say that allowing men to choose their sex would eventually lead to the “erasure” of women from the public sphere: if more Spaniards registered men at birth switch to women, they say, it would distort national statistics and create more great competition between women for everything from jobs to sports trophies.
The division in Spain reflects a debate between a branch of feminist theorists and LGBTQ rights movements around the world. At the end of the day, activists often derogatoryly referred to as TERFs (Radical Trans-Exclusive Feminists) claim that advancing transgender rights could diminish efforts to eliminate sexism and misogyny by denying the existence of biological sexes.
The State Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual People says that if adopted in its current form, the law would help stop discrimination against transgender people and move Spain to the forefront of protecting LGBTQ rights.
However, the Montero bill has caused outrage on online platforms, where critics are alarmed at provisions that would allocate public toilets and prisons based on “registered sex”. Confluencia Feminista, an alliance of dozens of women’s rights organizations, also opposed any changes to Spain’s existing law.
The concern of Alexandra Paniagua, one of the activists of the new platform, revolves around the idea that by eliminating the opinions of doctors and judges, state-subsidized hormones and gender reassignment surgery would become more available, eventually “promoting” more dysphoria among young people.
“More people will see easier access to invasive treatment, especially girls who have been told that their bodies are less dignified in our society,” she said.
But Trans Platform Federation President Mar Cambrollé argues that some of the fears cited as reasons for maintaining existing barriers are based on outdated ideas that reduce boys and girls, men and women to a handful of socially prescribed characteristics and roles.
“Transphobic attitudes annoy me,” Cambrollé said. “As a woman, I was discriminated against because I am a woman in a world created by men for men, but also by cis (gender) people who build it with other cis people in mind.”
Finding a compromise at any time soon seems an insurmountable task, judging by the virulence of the online debate. Cambrollé sued 85-year-old Lidia Falcón, the founder of the Spanish Feminist Party, for repeatedly saying that transgender and gay people promote pedophilia; prosecutors are investigating Falcón’s statements as a possible hate crime.
Ángela Rodríguez, Montero’s advisor on LGBTQ issues, said the bill’s schedule has been strained, with International Women’s Day set to appear on March 8.
“There is a dispute over the hegemony of the message in the feminist movement,” Rodriguez said during a recent discussion.
What for many is a theoretical debate is painfully real for Martínez, who has closed most of his social media accounts. She says constant discussions feel both “personal” and “perverse, generalizing about what a trans person is.”
“Unfortunately, to this day, it’s even easier for people who look at you when you walk down the street and can reconcile a certain type of face with a pair of tits,” said Martinez, who wears round-rimmed glasses. and her hair in a bean to soften the sharp contours of her face.
To come out as a transgender, first for herself and then for her partner, Martínez had to grow a kind of trust that was not part of raising a child in Spain in the 1980s. There were suicide attempts before she started living. like Victoria and does not consider herself brave.
“For me,” she said, “there was simply no other option.”
However, Martínez was reluctant to take hormones and update his civil registry. She fought hard to be proud of the woman she is, with a deep voice and a way of behaving that stands out. Didn’t she want to break with traditional gender molds, including expectations for transgender women to embody stereotypical femininity?
In the end, she decided that it would be easier to navigate the world with a more socially compliant appearance and an identity card that confirms that she is a woman, even if that meant bowing to existing legal requirements and notions of people who still think in binary terms.
“I lived in hiding for 40 years,” she said. “I’m protecting myself now, but I’m not hiding.”
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AP reporters Emilio Morenatti and Renata Brito contributed to this report.