Hours before it is known if the PSOE requests a new extension for the presentation of the amendments to the trans law, Carmen Calvo and Pablo Iglesias held a debate last night on the Ser network that once again reveals the discrepancies in the coalition and clarifies background poses. The former Vice President of the Government and President of the Equality Commission of Congress pointed out that the issue is complex because it affects children, and also legal concepts such as identity.
Calvo did not want to comment, when asked by Iglesias, if he defends that people can freely determine their registered sex, pointing out that he does not want to interfere in the debate that is being held in the Socialist group. But what she made clear is that what cannot be denied is the existence of sex. The biological sex on which discrimination against women is based and, therefore, the foundations of the struggle for equality, according to classic feminism
Iglesias, for his part, stressed that a trans person is one who does not identify with the "sex assigned at birth" and therefore defended that the law allows them to decide freely. "A sector of the PSOE -said the Podemos representative- has a problem with gender self-determination because they consider that women will be erased if someone says that they feel like a woman".
In this line, he launched a direct question to Calvo: "In your opinion are trans women women, or not?"
The socialist leader pointed out that the answer is complex because what feminism seeks is for gender to disappear. “Feminism is that we do not want to be constructed as a gender, whether we are born men or women, and that our lives go by with the freedom that women have not had, precisely what we want is to leave the gender”, understood as a sexist role. There are people who suffer a lot – she said in reference to Iglesias' question about trans women – but we cannot “break everything down” because of this.
Calvo insisted on the importance of protecting children. "I don't want children to be hormoned," he said, and he recalled that there are countries like Finland and Sweden that have backtracked on their legislation. The Socialist group is working on amendments to the articles that refer to minors.
Since Equality brought the first text of the project to the Council of Ministers in 2021, a debate was revived between the coalition partners and also within the PSOE, driven above all by classic feminism that questioned some key aspects. Especially, the free determination of the registry sex, understanding that this "free choice" without prerequisites supposes the "erasure" of women and the causes of discrimination, based on the biological fact of being born a woman. Likewise, the feminism that opposes it, led in the PSOE by former vice president Carmen Calvo, warns that the defense of gender identity can lead many minors to initiate transition processes without being transsexual, and therefore to irreversible medical processes. .
The Council of Ministers finally approved the bill last June and Minister Irene Montero decided to process it urgently to guarantee its approval in this legislature. The minister then pointed out that her decision, which cuts the deadlines in half, is based on the proliferation of hate speech and crimes against the LGTBI community. The bill represents, among the different advances that this group applauds, a fundamental step so that the change of sex in the records is carried out freely, without guardianship and, above all, without any "pathologizing" medical or psychological report.
From a good part of socialist feminism it was lamented that this urgent procedure is going to steal a calm debate on a complex law, which puts in check above all the fight for equality between men and women, and the rights of children. Montero's goal is to get the law approved in December.
