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MADRID: Madrid’s regional assembly on Friday (Dec 22) passed a proposal by the Spanish capital’s ruling conservative People’s Party (PP) to strip back protections for transgender people, sparking outcry from the opposition and LGBTQ activists.
The bill, which amended a regional trans rights law and an LGBTQ rights law – both passed in 2016 with the PP’s backing – makes Madrid the first Spanish region to roll back such legislation.
It was approved with 80 votes in favour and 53 against thanks to the absolute majority the PP holds in the chamber. It was also supported by the far-right Vox party, which governs in coalition with the PP in some Spanish cities and regions but not in Madrid.
Under the reform, discriminating against workers on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity is no longer a punishable offence. It is also no longer a punishable offence to beat a person without causing injury based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Amid jeers from the opposition, the PP’s Monica Levin defended the reform as a way to stop what she described as “social engineering” and “getting into people’s privacy and manipulating them in order to pit them against each other and then come to their rescue”.
Carla Antonelli, an assembly member for the left-wing Mas Madrid party who is trans, wore red gloves symbolising bloodied hands during the raucous debate preceding the vote.
She called the bill an “abomination” and compared it to the actions of Nazi SS doctor Josef Mengele, who “also spoke of science to exterminate Jews and LGTBQ people”.
“When you press that button to vote for this infamy … you will all have blood on your hands. This is terrorism towards trans people. You won’t be able to wash your dirty conscience because we will remind you of it every day,” Antonelli said.
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