Spain passes new transgender law, to allow anyone above 16 to change legal gender

The law also banned conversion therapies, established fines and punishments for attacks on LGBT people, and overturned a ban that prevented lesbian couples from registering their children under both parents’ names

Spain’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday passed a law that allows people over 16 years of age to change their legally registered gender without any medical supervision.

Under the law, drawn up by the centre-left coalition government, minors aged 12 or 13 will need a judge’s authorisation to make the change, while those between 14 and 16 will have to be accompanied by their parents or legal guardians.

The law also bans so-called conversion therapies to suppress sexual orientation or gender identity, establishes fines and punishments for attacks on LGBT people, and overturns a ban that prevented lesbian couples from registering their children under both parents’ names.

Up to now, transgender people needed a diagnosis by several doctors with gender dysphoria, which is the psychological condition of not feeling a match between one’s biological sex and gender identity.

In some cases, they also needed proof they had been living for two years as the gender they identified with — or even records showing they had taken hormones.

Transgender rights groups say the law represents a “before and after” in LGBT rights. But some feminist activists regard gender self-determination as a threat that blurs the concept of biological sex.

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