There has been much talk of “women’s rights” in Spain this month. There was Women’s Day on March 8, which in Spain is something very important in the media and in the streets, but there are also four new laws championed by the self-styled “progressive” parliamentary majority related to those rights: the “trans” law, which came into force at the beginning of March; the “only yes means yes” law; the gender parity law; and a reform of the abortion law, which will allow minors to have an abortion without informing their parents.
As for the so-called “trans law,” which is highly criticized by feminist associations, there were already such trans laws in some regions, such as Madrid, Andalusia and Murcia. What is going to change with this new law passed by the left-wing majority in the Spanish parliament?
Well, with this new law, from now on in all of Spain, if you say, for example, that you are trans, without even changing your name, without any surgery, then you are considered a woman. And because of this, you get advantages over biological women like me. When it comes to accessing jobs, for example, you will be given preference over me.
Another very dangerous thing is that if, for example, your 16-year-old daughter says she wants to have “sex-reassignment” surgery, then she can have her breasts cut off and her uterus removed.
And this can happen from the age of 16 without parental consent and without a medical endorsement, although a girl or a boy may say they want to have surgery without it being a “gender dysphoria” issue. It can be because they have another type of psychiatric illness. So they will be operated on, and, as we know, these surgical operations are not reversible and have destroyed the lives of many.
It is a very radical law, even more so than the Scottish law, which was rejected by the U.K. government for being too radical.
It is a radical law, and this law has been enacted when there are countries realizing that these things do not work. In Spain, we are going against the latest trend. We are being more stupid than others. We enacted the most radical law just when its approach had been shown to be wrong.
It is a law that is completely misogynistic because of what I have already said: You just need to pretend you are a woman, without changing your name and without any surgery, and you will get all the jobs ahead of me, a biological woman, and ahead of other women. It is a law that only harms women and minors, that confuses them, and allows them to undergo irreversible surgery that will destroy their lives and destroy them biologically.
On the other hand, as a new gender parity law is also being discussed, it seems to me that this new “trans law” is going to solve the parity issue. If a company has too few women on its board, some men just need to declare they are women, isn’t that so?
Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, after just a few days of this “trans law” being in force, there were already many men who had said they were women just to get new rights that are meant for women. For this reason, this is undoubtedly the most harmful law for women ever.
How are feminist associations in Spain reacting?
They are against it and are calling for the resignation of Equality Minister Irene Montero. Montero is a very special case. The truth is that she could be a case for medical study, because what she is doing while pretending otherwise is completely against women and equality.
In the end, I believe that she accessed her job at the Ministry of Equality because she had a relationship with the former vice-president of the government [Podemos’ leader Pablo Iglesias, ed.]. I think she has to prove something or wants to prove something, but she does not have the capacity. She did not get the job because of her own merits but because she was in a relationship. This is in itself something that harms us women because it looks like we can only have positions of responsibility if we have a sentimental relationship with a man of influence.
But laws are passed by the government and then voted on by parliament. It’s not just her law, right?
That’s true. What is happening in Spain is that, in exchange for passing these laws, there are minority groups that are getting benefits. For example, the secessionist groups (of Catalonia and the Basque Country), in exchange for approving these laws and in exchange for approving the state budget, are achieving previously unthinkable things, such as decriminalizing the crime of sedition or decriminalizing the crime of embezzlement.
And what do doctors and psychiatrists say about this trans law, about the possibility for minors to “change sex” or “gender”? Because we are talking about minors who can have operations or hormone treatments without parental consent from the age of 16 and even earlier with parental consent.
Medical professionals are all against it, obviously. All physicians are against it. Doctors were not asked because they would have said no, of course. You don’t even need a medical endorsement, a medical report that justifies something as important as having a mastectomy, which is the removal of the breasts or having the uterus removed. Doctors, women, and lawyers are against it, and only the equality minister is in favor of it together with a small group of people.
Could it then be that the Spanish “progressive” majority ignores science?
It’s not just that it ignores science, it clearly goes against it.
You are a lawyer and human rights expert. Does it not seem to you that allowing minors to do irreversible things to their bodies without parental consent is a violation of the fundamental right of parents to ensure the education of their children in accordance with their convictions, which is guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and also by the European Convention on Human Rights?
It certainly is. In Spain, with these laws, fundamental rights are being violated: the right to physical integrity, the right to life, the right of parents to educate their children in accordance with their convictions, and the right to religious freedom, which are also fundamental rights guaranteed by our own constitution.
However, what the Spanish government is doing is appointing judges who are close to them in order to be able to violate the constitution and fundamental rights with impunity, without any kind of consequence. That is why Spain is in a really dreadful moment: The constitution is being violated, citizens’ rights are being violated, and to avoid any responsibility, Pedro Sánchez’s government has been appointing judges who are close to them, even judges who earlier were in the Sánchez government. The truth is that we are in a dictatorial country, a country that does not respect the rule of law.
Do you mean, for example, that the Constitutional Court is too politicized to reject this “trans law”?
This is exactly what I mean. In fact, the president of the Constitutional Court was the attorney general on behalf of the government, and there are members of the Constitutional Court who belonged to the government. So, what this government has done is manipulate the judges; they appoint judges who are most sympathetic to them and even some former members of the government so that the law can be broken without any kind of consequence.
That sounds very strange because we always hear about Poland and Hungary. However, what you are saying about the judicial system in Spain goes way beyond the EU institutions’ usual accusations against those two countries. Why then do the EU institutions not react in the case of Spain?
I believe the European Union is trying to impose an ideology that is perverse and the only countries that are standing up to them are Poland and Hungary. And since Spain is in line with this perverse ideology of the European Union, nothing is done in this case. This is despite the fact that the situation with the rule of law is much more serious in Spain than what is happening in Poland and Hungary. Spain is actually where a reaction would be needed.
We are even faced with the possibility that they may manipulate the elections. Efforts at manipulating or rigging the elections in some way are something that cannot be ruled out in the case of Spain.
In fact, the first thing Spain’s socialist-communist coalition government did when it came to power was shower certain media outlets with money. This way, they have bought the support of a large part of the media thanks to the millions of euros distributed by the government, and we are talking about the most important media in Spain.
Regarding this “trans law,” in February the vice-chair of the Madrid College of Physicians was interviewed on the Telecinco TV channel, and she said things that also have serious implications for democracy and the rule of law if they are true: “In Spain, in the last year there has been an increase of more than 2,000 percent in the number of demands from minors who say they are trans. The only thing they are offered with this law is affirmative therapy. Treatment is started and professionals are not allowed to do exploratory therapy or make a comprehensive assessment of an adolescent who manifests a deep discomfort, because that would make them liable to fines of €150,000, professional disqualification, and prison sentences.” Can you confirm that is how things work now under Spanish law? It just seems incredible…
Yes, this is how it works. They are destroying Spain’s youth, as they generate a lot of confusion by indoctrinating them in schools and classrooms and then many young people are faced with the alternative of undergoing surgery, which is made easier for them. At the same time, access to professional advice is made difficult. No one can raise objections, no one can open their eyes or advise them. What is being created, moreover, is a clientelistic network with associations and private clinics being created that are dedicated to doing these things and work just like our abortion centers have for years. The “sex-reassignment” business works the same way as the abortion business, with new dedicated centers being created on the same model as the abortion clinics. As a matter of fact, many abortion centers now perform not only abortions but also these types of “sex reassignment” procedures.
Talking about abortion, Spain is also reforming its abortion law to allow 16-year-old girls to have an abortion without their parents’ consent, right?
Yes, and here too it’s all about increasing business. At the same time, a lot is done in schools to encourage sexual relations. In fact, there was a plan in Catalonia to display explicit sex scenes, porn scenes, during classes, thus increasing sexual relations at an earlier age which, obviously, would increase the number of juvenile abortions so the abortion business can make more and more money, destroying women’s lives and killing babies.
Abogados Cristianos won a lawsuit a few months ago. In fact, the Spanish courts have sanctioned those centers for not providing sufficient information to women about abortion…
Not only do they not inform women, but they deceive them, hiding the after-effects of abortion so that women go for an abortion as if it were nothing when they are in reality killing their own child. And with this, not only do they deceive women and destroy their lives, but they also put their health at risk, as they do not inform them of all the physical and psychological consequences. We won that case. In Spain, it has had very few repercussions, however, because, as I have already said, the government has bought the media’s support, and their response has been to prohibit pro-lifers from approaching abortion centers. Now it is forbidden to get close to an abortion center even if it’s just to pray. This is how they reacted. Instead of reacting against abortion centers that deceive women, they reacted the other way around, against pro-lifers.
Is it correct to say, going back to that “trans law,” that now in Spain, if I say that I am trans or homosexual, then doctors have the obligation to help me change my sexual identity, to change my sex, or to accept my homosexual orientation. But if I want to go the other way, it is forbidden to help me because it is called conversion therapy and it is supposedly a barbarity.
Yes, it is correct to say this. As Abogados Cristianos, we won a case of a therapist who had been fined for carrying out these conversion therapies, which were attended freely by people who wanted to be there. We won a very important victory, and the authorities had to reimburse the fine. The law goes even further, however, and in Spain there is no freedom left in that field, as it is almost mandatory to be homosexual or trans, but, on the other hand, if you want to return to a heterosexual way of living because you realize that you made a mistake, then it is forbidden, it is punished, and it is persecuted. Even if you are homosexual and you are against some of the mantras of this gender ideology, they also persecute you. Then it is a constant public lynching.
What is very difficult to understand is that when the government of Sánchez says despite all this that they are in favor of women’s rights, part of the government coalition – Unidas Podemos – does not want to amend its “only yes means yes” law even though there are hundreds of sex offenders who have been set free because of the reduced sentences provided by that law. Why is this so?
One of the objectives of gender ideology in Spain and throughout the world is the legalization of pedophilia. In fact, the equality minister has made a statement in favor of decriminalizing pedophilia. So, this law, whereby rapists and pedophiles are released and compensated, goes in the direction of legalizing pedophilia.
Do you mean that, for Pedro Sánchez’s far-left coalition partner, the only thing that counts is consent, which is central to the “yes means yes” law, and not age?
Yes, but of course, you have to realize that a minor’s consent is not valid. Because you can trick a child into giving you consent. The consent of a minor is invalid by law. However, that is one of the ways that the Ministry of Equality, and I believe that in the end also the whole government, has at its disposal to bring about the legalization of pedophilia.
In light of democratic principles and the rule of law, there seems to be yet another problem with the “only yes means yes” law and the “trans law”: the reversal of the burden of proof – in the case of alleged discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people in the “trans law,” and in the case of a woman’s alleged lack of consent in the “only yes means yes” law. For example, if a woman tells me that there was no consent, I am the one who must prove that there was, right?
Yes, that is exactly how it works. In these laws, the man is guilty by nature. Because he is a man, he is already guilty and he has to prove consent and that this consent was maintained over time. That is, if a woman says yes, but changes her mind 10 minutes later, you are guilty too. Furthermore, if there is consent but later the woman regrets it or whatever, the man is guilty by nature. And I believe that blaming men simply for being men makes them more sexist towards women and it causes them to not want to approach us, as they’d rather avoid potential problems. In the end, it is about destroying the family, destroying women, and virtually prohibiting relationships between men and women as equals.
Well, with “the trans law” we men can always choose to be women, can’t we?
Sure, that’s a good idea. You don’t even need to change your name, nor do you need to have surgery. Although if you have surgery, all the better, because that way you give money to those “transgender clinics,” just like women do to the abortion clinics.