Trans activists call off the hunger strike after reaching an agreement with Unidos Podemos to process their law
The 17 trans activists who started an indefinite hunger strike this morning have called off the action after reaching an agreement with Unidos Podemos. Its intention was to demand the "unblocking" of the comprehensive law on the legal protection of trans people, which the parliamentary group registered last February. Both parties have agreed on the commitment to fully take the initiative before August 2019, as confirmed by both the party and the Platform for Trans Rights, to which the activists belong.
"We believe that there is no reason to keep it because we have achieved a date and also the political commitment to demand that the government process it," explains President Mar Cambrollé. From Unidos Podemos they affirmed this morning that the law was in its parliamentary channel and they appealed to the Executive to accelerate the process through a bill, something that has already been raised at the negotiation table that they maintain.
"Trans people have suffered a social, labor, affective, political and medical apartheid, we are the most 'nobodies' of the nobodies', those punished among the punished, the humiliated among the humiliated and, in the Franco regime and the Transition, we were the worst of the worst among social prisoners, and we have also been the forgotten ones of democracy, "Cambrollé argued this morning at the gates of Congress, where she and 16 other activists and mothers of transgender minors have started the strike.
The content of the law
Unidos Podemos registered the initiative last February, based on the guiding principle of self-determination of identity and gender expression. Then, the spokesperson Irene Montero described as "historic" the beginning of the parliamentary path of the rule, which wields concrete measures in various areas. Among others, it foresees that trans people will be treated based on their gender sense in all spaces, both public and private, that their chosen name be respected in all documents and affects the recognition of non-binary persons.
The law aims to create protocols to ensure non-discrimination of transgender people in the health, education and labor fields, as well as the implementation of training programs for justice and health professionals. In this sense, it foresees the development of a new depathologizing model, which guarantees the support, attention and non-discrimination of transgender people in access to health.
The initiative also includes the reform of Law 3/2007 of March 15, which regulates the registry rectification of the mention regarding the sex of the people. The meaning of the modification implies that trans people are not treated as sick in order to access the change of name and legal gender in official documents. Currently, a doctor must diagnose gender dysphoria and the current regulation requires them to spend two years of hormonal treatment.
On the other hand, it excludes minors from this possibility and requires Spanish nationality as a requisite, which is why it also leaves out foreign persons residing in our country. As the trans comprehensive law, a bill of the PSOE whose consideration was approved in November 2017 in plenary, modifies these aspects with the aim of achieving the depathologization of transsexuality.
