Spokesperson for Spanish bishops laments approval of trans law

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 30, 2021 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

Following the approval of the so-called “Trans Law” by Spain’s Council of Ministers, Luis Argüello, the spokesman for the Spanish Bishops’ Conference and auxiliary bishop of Valladolid, said that this law “transforms feelings into a legal category and enthrones the will to do whatever one wants without any limits.”

Argüello stressed that the draft law “ignores the sexual reality of all the cells of the body and above all, it despises people who are suffering by proposing they change their National Identity Document (DNI) as a way out” of their gender dysphoria crisis.

The Spanish government’s Council of Ministers approved on June 29 the bill entitled “the real and effective equality of trans people and for the guarantee of LGTBI rights,” otherwise known as the “Trans Law.”

The legislation can now go to the Congress of Deputies (lower house), to begin the legislative process.

The draft text provides for self-determination of gender so a person can change one’s name and sex on the DNI just by presenting a declaration, without the need for providing medical reports or proof of having started hormone treatments – which current law requires.

The legal change of sex can be requested beginning at the age of 12, with judicial authorization. For those 14 to 16 years old, it can be requested with the consent of parents or legal representatives; after 16 years of age, the person can go to the civil registry office alone and request the change, without the need for anyone to certify the change.

This law also prohibits conversion therapy, punishable by fines of up to 150,000 euros.

Fines range between 200 to 2,000 euros for minor infractions, such as offending people for their gender identity; fines between 2,001 and 10,000 euros would exist for serious offenses such as a website provider not removing offensive expressions.

Fines ranging between 10,001 and 150,000 euros would be enforced for the most serious infractions, such as using or disseminating textbooks and materials in schools “that present people as superior or inferior in human dignity based on their orientation and sexual identity, expression of gender or sexual characteristics.”