MADRID (AP) – Victòria Martínez continues to sign official documents with the name she, her partner and their two daughters dumped four years ago. Surprises aside, she expects the Spanish government to recognize her as Victòria in May, closing a patient chapter known to transgender people around the world.
By changing her legal identity at a registry office in Barcelona, Martínez can update her passport and driver’s license and carry a health card that correctly states that she is a woman. But the trial that extended the pandemic was, in her words, “humiliating” – requiring a psychiatric diagnosis, reports from three doctors and court approval.
“Did I want to be stigmatized by being labeled crazy? Was I willing to voluntarily request a psychiatric report stating that, to let a judge decide if I can be what I already am? Martínez, 44, recalls her question. “The whole thing has been emotionally draining.”
A new law proposed by the far-left party in the Spanish coalition government would make it easier for residents to change sex for official purposes. A bill sponsored by Equity Secretary Irene Montero aims to make gender self-determination – no diagnosis, medical treatment, or court required – the norm, with eligibility starting at age 16. Almost 20 countries, eight of which are in the European Union, already have similar laws.
Factions of the Catholic Church and the far right have opposed the bill on the fact that it also allows children under the age of 16 to circumvent parental objections and seek the help of a judge in gaining access to treatment for gender dysphoria, the medical term for the psychological distress that results from a conflict between a person’s identity and the gender assigned to birth.
Less expected was the fierce resistance from some feminists and from within Spain’s socialist-led government.
“I am fundamentally concerned about the idea that if the gender can be chosen with no more than one’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. said last week.
Opponents argue that allowing people to choose their gender would ultimately lead to the ‘expulsion’ of women from the public sphere: if more Spaniards registered at birth switch to female, it would distort national statistics and increase competition creating between women for everything from jobs to sports trophies.
The divide in Spain reflects a debate between a branch of feminist theorists and LGBTQ rights movements around the world. On the one hand, activists often derogatoryly referred to as TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) argue that the promotion of transgender rights could undermine efforts to eradicate sexism and misogyny by denying the existence of biological sexes.
The state federation of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people says that if the law is passed in its current form, the law would end discrimination against transgender people and spill over Spain to the European vanguard of protecting LGBTQ rights.
Montero’s bill has nevertheless sparked unusual anger on online platforms, with critics raising the alarm about provisions that would allocate public restrooms and prisons based on ‘registered gender’. Confluencia Feminista, an alliance of dozens of women’s rights organizations, has also spoken out against any change to existing Spanish law.
The concerns of Alexandra Paniagua, one of the new platform’s activists, revolve around the idea that by eliminating the opinions of doctors and judges, government-subsidized hormones and sex reassignment surgeries would become more available, ultimately causing more dysphoria among young people. would ‘promote’.
“More people will see easier access to the invasive treatment, especially girls who have been told 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 holding the existing hurdles in place are based on outdated ideas that reduce boys and girls, men and women to a handful. socially prescribed characteristics and roles.
“Transphobic attitudes piss me off,” said Cambrollé. “As a woman I have been discriminated against because I am a woman in a world made by men for men, but also by cis (gender) people building it with other cis people in mind.”
Finding a compromise at any time quickly seems like an insurmountable task, judging by the virulence of the online debate. Cambrollé has charged 85-year-old Lidia Falcón, 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, an advisor to Montero on LGBTQ issues, said the bill’s timing has added to tension, with International Women’s Day on March 8.
“There is a dispute over the hegemony of the message in the feminist movement,” Rodríguez said during a recent panel discussion.
What is a theoretical debate for many is painfully real to Martínez, who has shut down most of her social media accounts. She says the constant chatter feels both too “personal” and “perverse,” and generalizes what a trans person is. ‘
“Unfortunately to this day it is even easier for people who stare at you walking down the street and they can reconcile a certain type of face with a pair of tits,” said Martínez, who wears round-rimmed glasses and bob her hair to soften her sharp facial contours.
To come out as a transgender person, first to herself and then to her partner, Martínez had to cultivate a kind of confidence that wasn’t part of growing up as a boy in 1980s Spain. There were suicide attempts before she started living as Victòria, and she doesn’t consider herself brave.
“For me,” she said, “there was simply no other choice.”
Still, Martínez was reluctant to take hormones and update her registry office. She fought hard to be proud of the woman she is, with a deep voice and a striking way to wear. Didn’t she want to break with traditional gender models, including the expectation that transgender women should 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 confirming that she is a woman, even if it meant bowing to existing legal requirements and the notions of people who are still always in binary thinking. terms.
“I lived in hiding for 40 years,” she said. “Now I protect myself, but I don’t hide.”
AP reporters Emilio Morenatti and Renata Brito contributed to this report.