Famed Spanish writer Lucía Etxebarria is breathing a sigh of relief after a Las Palmas court ruled in her favor after she was sued by a “non-binary trans person” for misgendering him. The plaintiff, Marcos Ventura, launched the suit seeking 11,000 Euros for pain and suffering, but has now been ordered to pay Etxebarria’s legal costs.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Ventura is a transvestite who defines himself as a “non-binary trans person who uses feminine pronouns and grammatical gender to refer to himself.” He had launched a lawsuit against Etxebarria last year for an alleged crime against the “right to dignity, equal treatment and non-discrimination.” Ventura’s claims were based on a 2020 post on social media Etxebarria had written in which she identified him as a “man.”
According to The Objective, the judge ruled that the Etxebarria’s statements complied with “the necessary finding of a sufficient factual basis on which to express public opinion.” The judge also agreed that Ventura had sufficiently male aesthetics and physical attributes which would lead a reasonable person to correctly identify him as being male.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit and ordered Ventura to pay the costs of the proceedings.
Ventura, who refused the initial possibility of a settlement agreement, had requested 11,000 Euros in damages for having been “subjected to public harassment and scorn, multiple insults and numerous offensive comments derived from the public exposure and the target that the defendant put” on him, by “exposing [him] to her hundreds of thousands of followers.”
But the judge refuted Ventura’s claims, asserting that there was no possibility a crime had been committed and disagreeing that Ventura had suffered any damages. Ventura will be allowed to appeal the decision.
Etxebarria’s lawyer, Guadalupe Sanchez, praised the ruling, noting that “this sentence, although not final and subject to appeal, is an important step in the defense and prevalence of freedom of expression against those who want to impose censorship based on identity issues.”
In a statement from Etxebarria given to The Objective, the writer thanked the supporters who stood by her through the taxing trial.
“But above all I want to make one thing clear: this ruling is particularly significant because it creates a precedent. And I believe this because, if I had not won, a different sentence could have been used to impose ideological criteria and to carry out personal vendettas, at least this is my personal opinion,” she wrote.
As an example, Etxebarria referenced the recent bizarre case of a trans-identified male convicted of a hate crime against another trans-identified male for refusing to affirm his gender identity.
OPINIÓN | Soy una heroína, deme usted las gracias, por Lucía Etxebarria (@LaEtxebarria).https://t.co/6QpUbwHKU3
— THE OBJECTIVE (@TheObjective_es) April 26, 2024
As previously reported by Reduxx, the Barcelona High Court sentenced a male who claims to be transgender to six months in prison after he was found guilty of committing a crime “against fundamental human rights and public freedoms” for posting “transphobic” comments on social networks.
Referring to the case, Etxebarria explains that “the transsexual woman was sentenced to pay 720 euros and to undergo a ‘re-education course’ – in a Stalinist or Maoist fashion – to ‘cure [his] transphobia.’ And to six months in jail (which [he] will not serve because [he] accepted the re-education course). The judges charged [him] with a crime against moral integrity, according to article 173 of the Penal Code.”
Etxebarria concludes by noting that “ideological laws” are intended to fulfill two purposes. “One, to destroy the core beliefs of the population in order to more easily subdue them. And two, to gaslight people.”
https://reduxx.info/spain-non-binary-man-who-sued-writer-for-calling-him-male-loses-legal-case