By Olivier Bault
Spain’s leading mental health specialist organizations published a stark warning in the newspaper ‘El Mundo’ on October 17 against the ruling coalition’s “Trans Law” bill which will go through the Spanish parliament.
The “Law for real and effective equality of trans people and the guarantee of LGBTI rights” will introduce the right to “gender” self-determination in Spain at a time when other countries are retreating from their laws based on gender ideology.
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It ‘endangers the comprehensive medical care to which all children are entitled. It ignores that “in all judicial decisions concerning the life of a minor, the best interests of the minor must prevail.”
And it ignores that countries such as ‘Finland and the United Kingdom have moved from fast and invasive models to others that are more reflective and linked to mental health,’ El Mundo wrote on October 23, citing Luisa Lázaro, the president of Spain. Association of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry (AEPNyA).
AEPNyA is the leading pediatric psychiatry organization in the country.
In other words, the law is being protested by the country’s medical professionals themselves.
The so-called “Trans Law” is a bill drafted by Equality Minister Irene Montero of the leftist Podemos party and supported by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
This despite strong opposition from within the ranks of his PSOE party, especially from party feminists such as the former vice president of the Sánchez government (from June 2018 to July 2021), Carmen Calvo, a PSOE MP who now chairs the Committee of Equality in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Spain’s parliament.
If passed, the Trans Act will allow anyone over the age of 16 to change their “gender” at will and be treated as if they belong to the opposite sex, including access to toilets or changing rooms, and participation in sporting events – only to name a few examples.
Children between 14 and 16 will need their parents’ consent and those between 12 and 14 will need to get a judge’s approval for their requested “gender change”.
This radical “Trans Law” is likely to have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and parental rights and will lead to new forms of discrimination.
Because of the social risks, the bill pushed by Spain’s current socialist-communist government has been criticized by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which is the Judiciary’s supervisory body, and by the Council of State, the main advisory body for the executive branch. and also by several feminist organisations, including the Socialist Feminist Association of the PSOE (Femes).
In addition to the country’s leading mental health societies, including the aforementioned Spanish Society of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry and the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health (SEPSM), Spain’s trans bill has been strongly criticized by the Endocrinology Society and even the College of Doctors of Madrid.
The latter already notes that “there is an avalanche of young people with disorders looking for a magical solution in trans identity”.
Part of the concern of health professional organizations stems from the fact that once approved; The new law will prohibit mental health professionals from interfering in the process of “gender determination” of minors.
This circumstance leaves the young people alone with the decision of whether they want to have sex reassignment surgery.
According to health experts, this is a “scandal” that is carried out “according to ideological and not scientific criteria” and “can bring a lot of pain and regret to many people”.
Luisa González, vice-president of the College of Doctors of Madrid, claims that “there is no science to justify legislation in this way”.
She adds that “there is no scientific consensus” on treatments that the law “applies blindly” and that the regulation, promoted by the Spanish government, “prevents professionals from working, violates the human rights of minors by hindering their care. it even usurps the parental authority of parents”.
The law will make Spain the tenth country in Europe to allow “gender self-determination” simply by submitting a civil status declaration, the others being Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland.
However, apart from Norway and soon Spain, no other country allows minors to change their “gender” without parental consent.
On October 26, Sánchez’s Socialists asked for a postponement of the vote on the bill in parliament to allow time for changes that would give it “legal certainty”, as the right-wing opposition is expected to question its constitutionality.
They won the vote against their far-left ally Unidas Podemos with the support of the center-right People’s Party (PP).
The move has sparked anger in the ranks of Unidas Podemos, with Equality Minister Irene Montero saying: “We will not accept a single obstacle to rights after the law has been agreed in a very tough negotiation within the government” and “no I have to make LGTBI people expect more.”
However, the PSOE’s stated aim is to have the dangerous law – which will be fought by both medical professionals and concerned parents across the country – approved by the Cortes Generales (Spanish parliament) before the end of the year.
To do this, it will need to secure the support of left-wing, regional pro-independence parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Unlike Hungary’s child protection law, Spain’s Trans Law will not lead to any ban on EU funding from Brussels, as Spain’s anti-science, pro-trans law is in line with the Commission’s stated ideology European.
Hungary is currently facing billions in cuts, and its stance on trans issues plays a major role in left-liberal efforts to hold back the country financially.
Discriminatory laws of this type already exist in Spain, but so far, they have only been passed in a few regions, including those governed by the center-right Popular Party (PP).
This is the case in the PP-governed autonomous community of Madrid, where local party leader and regional president Isabel Ayuso, allegedly one of the PP’s most right-wing leaders, refuses to revoke the LGBT law that was voted in with the support of her in the Community of Madrid under the presidency of Cristina Cifuentes, also from the PP of Ayusos.
On October 21, the issue of the Community of Madrid’s LGBT and “trans” laws opened a rift between the regional government and the Vox parliamentary group.
The issue was brought back to the table a few days later by Vox’s regional parliamentary spokesperson and provincial party leader Rocío Monasterio, who asked Ayuso to repeal the Trans Madrid Law.
“The Madrid Community Trans Law is even more aggressive than Irene Montero’s,” Monasterio explained on El Toro TV on October 28.
Cifuente and Ayuso’s Trans Law is “more aggressive” because it allows “hormone treatments to be applied at a very young age and there is no way back,” the woman told Vox.
Puberty blockers are associated with psychiatric disorders, higher rates of cancer, suicide, osteoporosis, and a host of other serious medical disorders.
As Monasterio explained, “Madrid’s Trans Law dictates that if a child indicates that they want to be trans in front of a social worker, the social worker must fill out a report that goes to a medical center where the doctor has the obligation not only not to oppose the change gender, but will also be required to treat that child with hormones, even if his or her parents are against it.
If the parents object, the Madrid government and the social worker can initiate court proceedings to strip the parents of custody of the child, because gender identity, what the child wants, is ‘above all else’.
This post was first published here.
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