Madrid assembly member Carla Antonelli said the bill was “terrorism towards trans people”
REUTERS
Protections for transgender people will be stripped back in Madrid after a proposal was passed by the Spanish capital’s conservative People’s Party (PP).
Under the reform, discriminating against workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity is no longer a punishable offence.
It is also no longer a punishable offence to beat a person without causing injury based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The bill amended a regional trans rights law and an LGBTQ rights law, both of which were passed in 2016. The decision makes Madrid the first Spanish region to roll back such legislation.
It has sparked outcry from the opposition in Madrid and LGBTQ activists.
Carla Antonelli, an assembly member for the left-wing Mas Madrid party who is trans, wore red gloves symbolising bloodied hands during the raucous debate preceding the vote.
She called the bill an “abomination” and compared it to the actions of Nazi SS doctor Josef Mengele, who “also spoke of science to exterminate Jews and LGTBQ people”.
“When you press that button to vote for this infamy…you will all have blood on your hands.
“This is terrorism towards trans people. You won’t be able to wash your dirty conscience because we will remind you of it every day,” Ms Antonelli said.
Amid jeers from the opposition, the PP’s Monica Levin defended the reform as a way to stop what she described as “social engineering” and “getting into people’s privacy and manipulating them in order to pit them against each other and then come to their rescue”.
Under the reform lawmakers also replaced the terms “trans people” and “gender identity” with “transsexuals” and “transsexuality”, terms which activists say are demeaning.
The option of changing names on regional documents before adapting the national ID was also eliminated.
Mas Madrid, a regional political party in Spain, said it would ask Spain’s human rights ombudsman to challenge the law before the Constitutional Court.
The party’s lawmakers unfurled Trans Pride flags and activists displayed red gloves while shouting slogans before being expelled from the gallery.
Under the reform, the region’s underage trans people will only be able to start hormone replacement therapies after being examined by a paediatrician and a psychologist or psychiatrist.
In December 2022, Spain passed a nationwide bill allowing transgender people aged 14 and over to change their legal gender without the need for psychological or other medical evaluation, though those aged 14 to 16 would still need parental or guardians’ agreement.
Fourteen other Spanish regions out of the country’s 17 have laws for the protection of trans rights, LGBTQ rights, or both on the books.
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