Why Spain is trusting trans teens on their gender, rather than restricting them

Dictator Gen. Francisco Franco’s rule was a grim era for Spain’s transgender community.

“At the time, a trans person could be taken from the streets to prison, without any chance to consult a lawyer, and be kept there for as long as a judge saw fit,” recalls Mar Cambrollé, who has been fighting for trans rights since General Franco died in 1975, and now is president of the transgender rights association Federación Plataforma Trans.

A Franco mindset no longer shapes Spain’s view of gender identity. Just in the last 20 years, the country has undergone a radical shift in how it perceives its transgender community, particularly trans youth. Last year, the country adopted legislation allowing anyone age 12 or over to change their legal status to match their gender identity (though those under 17 would need judicial or parental consent, depending on their age).

Tragedies like the recent death of high schooler Nex Benedict in Oklahoma have drawn fresh attention to the rights and experiences of trans teens. Some jurisdictions, including a number of U.S. states, are tightening laws against changing gender identity. But in Spain, the desire to protect youth has produced the opposite response.

“Ten years ago, trans people were seen as sick people in Spain,” says Aingeru Mayor, author of the book “Transitos,” which draws on the testimonies of parents with trans children. “But children do not generate the same rejection that adult trans people generated. They appeal to society’s instinct to care for its cubs.”

And now across Europe, there is broad acceptance of trans people in society – including allowing them to change their legal status to match their gender identity, which 62% of Europeans support, according to Eurobarometer data published in December.

“Some European countries, which have been historic leaders on LGBT rights like same-sex marriage, are recognizing that trans people have been excluded from some of the advances that have occurred in the last two decades,” says Cristian González Cabrera, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These populations have unique needs, and there is a shift to be increasingly inclusive and intersectional and finally address the historical debt that many countries have to this historically marginalized group.”

“The law was a miracle”

Ivan, who was assigned female at birth, resented wearing pretty dresses to weddings as a child. As a teen, he wore makeup and feminine attire, but felt like he was role-playing. He cringed when called by his birth name.

But by chance in 2020 while getting a COVID-19 vaccine, someone referred to him using a masculine pronoun. That moment felt fantastic. “I liked it so much, I had to ask myself why,” he says.

So when Spain’s new law on gender self-identification came into effect, Ivan – then 16 years old – wasted no time setting up an appointment to change his information in the Spanish civil registry. Ivan, whose last name is being withheld, valued being able to start the process discreetly, without looping in his parents – although in the end his mother accompanied him to formally present the request.

“The law was a miracle, to be honest,” says Ivan. “It struck me as positive that young people who are not emancipated can start the process on the own. There are cases of parents kicking out their children because they are trans.”

Making the change at 16, rather than 18, meant the opportunity to earn a high school diploma that aligned with his sense of self. “Once I came out, I had no more doubts,” he shares on a WhatsApp call taken during a break from studying chemistry in the region of Galicia.

Just a month after the law went into effect, Ivan had shared his identity at home and at school. It went smoothly. Only one of his brothers struggled initially with Ivan’s identity and new name – thinking the change may have been a passing phase inspired by TikTok.

Going to an association to support the families of trans youth helped allay his parents’ nerves around the health consequences of hormonal treatment. “It seems to be a recent thing that people can talk about it,” he says. “Before maybe you got killed or a beating. Now there is more protection or support, so more people dare to come out.”

Ana Beltran/Reuters

Carla Antonelli, the first openly transgender person to serve in a Spanish regional parliament, raises her gloved hands, representing hands stained with blood, as she and others vote against a proposal to strip protections for trans people at Madrid's regional parliament, Dec. 22, 2023.

“A reality that you couldn’t even imagine”

An outcome like Ivan’s would have been inconceivable even a decade ago: Until 2013, the concept of a trans child was virtually unheard of in Spain.

That changed in large part because the work of the country’s first association for families with trans children and adolescents, Chrysallis. The organization provided vital support to trans youth at a time when the knowledge of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers on trans identities was still anchored on the concept of it being a pathology.

“It was a reality that you couldn’t even imagine until then – it seemed like trans people didn’t have a childhood, that they just came out in adulthood,” says Bea Sever, president of Naizen, the Basque and Navarre Association of Families with Trans Minors. “However, if you listen to their story, you’ll realize that they all tell you, ‘I knew it since I was a little, even though I didn’t know how to put words to it.’”

Some of these families shared their stories with the public, helping others to come to terms with the reality they were facing. “In Spain, there are more and more families that can accompany their sons, their daughters, because they know that what their sons and daughters are expressing is possible,” says Mr. Mayor, the author.

Experts say that such activism was crucial for paving the way to Spain’s gender self-identification law. They also point to the prominence in recent years of various trans personalities in music, film, and television for helping familiarize society with their struggles.

A different outcome

In the end, the self-identification law passed with a firm majority. Though there was acrimonious debate over the law, it played between the left-wing parties, says Javier Corral Diaz, a journalist who wrote his thesis about its reverberations on social media. Anti-trans feminists raised concerns that trans rights gains could come at the expense of women. “The core of the debate revolved around whether sex is a cultural construct or something truly natural,” he says.

But the right and far-right parties kept relatively quiet. Mr. Corral suggests that may be a sign of progress in a country where social mores were once shaped primarily by the Catholic Church.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been pushback. While the national government and many regional governments may enable young trans people to legally express their identities, a few regions do not have laws recognizing such trans rights. These regions still do have to recognize the genders recorded in the national registry. But their lack of such legislation – or in the case of Madrid’s regional government, their repeal of trans rights laws in December – indicates there is still a conservative backlash against gender identity laws.

Still, the rise of associations helping families of trans children has helped society to see trans people in a kinder light.

“It is never the parents who want their children to be the sex they don’t appear to be or another sex,” says Jokin Zurutuza, the father of a 13-year-old girl. She was assigned male at birth, but socially transitioned at age 9 with the support of her parents and school.

“It’s not that we parents are extra progressive parents who like these things,” he adds. “No, we are normal moms and dads and we want our son to be a son and our daughter to be a daughter. But more than that, we have to be loving people to our children and love has to be above all else.”

Editor's note: The story has been updated to give Mr. Corral's full name, and to classify Galicia as a region.