Lose Some, Win Some.

This morning I wrote about Pride event being banned or harassed, well it is not all bad news coming out of Europe…

Spanish government approves new bill on transgender rights
By The Hill
June 27, 2022


Spain’s Cabinet approved on Monday a new draft of a LGBTQ rights bill that if backed by parliament will allow people as young as 16 to change their gender freely, and those as young as 12 to do so with a judge’s authorization.

This version of the bill is very similar to the one that was initially presented by the government a year ago but was held up due to debates within Spain’s left-wing ruling coalition.

The bill was promoted by the left-wing United We Can party, the government’s junior partner. But there was some initial pushback from the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez representing feminist criticism of self-determination on the grounds that it can lead to women being disfavored in some areas such as sports. That debate appeared to conclude when Sánchez removed a vice-president who was most strident in her criticism of the bill when he remodeled his Cabinet.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing for us in Spain.

Spain: Trans rights supporters on hunger strike over new law
AP News
By Aritz Parra
March 10, 2021


Transgender rights activists in Spain said Wednesday they are going on hunger strike until the ruling left-wing coalition submits draft legislation to allow gender self-determination without a doctor’s diagnosis.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists have been accused of blocking a draft for a new transgender rights law proposed by their minority coalition partner, the far-left United We Can.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a Socialist, has said that allowing freedom to choose one’s registered gender without a gender dysphoria diagnosis and treatment could undermine the rights of other people, especially women.

Gathering at the gates of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish parliament in Madrid, activists announced that 70 of them, including transgender people and their relatives, would start hunger-striking from Wednesday.

Mar Cambrollé, from Plataforma Trans, said she was displeased with the Socialists’ arguments to snub the draft bill from United We Can, which took the Equality portfolio when the government was formed last year.

We are like a yo-yo, getting jerked up and down being used as a political pawn.