Spain’s first trans senator vows to defend gender self-ID law
Spain’s first openly transgender senator said she will strive to protect hard-won progress on LGBTQ+ rights, including the country’s ambitious trans self-ID law, as right-wing parties seek to roll back the community’s gains. “We will defend our rights tooth and nail,” Antonelli, 64, who took up her Senate seat on Thursday following Spain’s inconclusive July parliamentary election, told Openly in a phone interview.
Antonelli, one of Spain’s best-known trans figures – partly through her acting role in a popular TV series, was a leading advocate for the self-ID law passed by the country’s former progressive coalition.
It lets trans people aged 14 and over change their legal gender without the need for psychological or other medical evaluation and judicial approval, scrapping a requirement for them to undergo two years of mandatory hormone treatment.
Both the conservative People’s Party (PP) and far-right Vox have promised to revoke the legislation should they succeed in forming a government.
