Spain’s transgender wars are turning nasty

Lidia Falcón O’Neill is a legendary figure in Spanish politics. Half a century ago, she stood up to Franco as head of a cell in the communist Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. In 1974, this opposition led to her being brutally tortured:

'When she fainted they untied her and laid her on the ground. They woke her up with a bucket of water. … She stayed on the ground, wet, for hours, until they took her down to the cell. … On the sixth day, the torturers could not continue with the same sessions. They could no longer hang her on the wall because she was rapidly losing consciousness because of it. So, when she woke up, she kept getting punched and kicked while lying on the ground.'

Now aged 85, Falcón – who is president of the Feminist Party of Spain (PFE) – is back on the frontline of Spanish politics – and her latest detractors are the transgender mob who tolerate no dissent on the discussion of gender. The PFE are vocal in their opposition to new 'trans laws' in Spain. That has put them at odds with other left-wing parties, and last year they were thrown out of the United Left.

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The Spanish women’s rights group Against the Erasure of Women (CEBM) told me that the government proposes to remove the checks and balances to allow anyone to choose their registered sex, whether or not they are transsexual.

‘In general terms, the aim is to replace the concept of 'sex' by 'gender', which will reinforce sexist stereotypes and jeopardise what has been achieved in terms of equality,’ a representative of the group said.

In Catalonia, the law on male violence has already been reformed. Campaigners say that this change now means that men who identify as women may be able to enter domestic violence shelters for victims. This is a worrying precedent and could put some of the most vulnerable women in society at further risk of harm. Yet in Spain, as in Britain, few are willing to go public against this emerging trans orthodoxy.