Celebrations in Spain as country passes transgender law

Spain's lower house of Parliament on Thursday passed a law that allows people over 16 years of age to change their legally registered gender without any medical supervision.

Under the law, drawn up by the centre-left coalition government, minors aged 12 or 13 will need a judge's authorisation to make the change, while those between 14 and 16 will have to be accompanied by their parents or legal guardians.

The law also bans so-called conversion therapies to suppress sexual orientation or gender identity, establishes fines and punishments for attacks on LGBT people and overturns a ban that prevented lesbian couples from registering their children under both parents' names.

Up to now, transgender people needed a diagnosis by several doctors of gender dysphoria, which is the psychological condition of not feeling a match between one's biological sex and gender identity.

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In some cases, they also needed proof they had been living for two years as the gender they identified with — or even records showing they had taken hormones.

Transgender rights groups say the law represents a “before and after” in LGBT rights. But some feminist activists regard gender self-determination as a threat that blurs the concept of biological sex.