Dozens of male Spanish soldiers have legally changed their gender, allegedly to claim
benefits intended for women. In doing so, they have exposed the vacuity of Spain’s
so-
Under Spain’s Self- One of the men who now says that he is a woman is Roberto Perdigones, a corporal who admitted that ‘positive discrimination’ provided the incentive for his gender switch last summer. Perdigones now receives 15 per cent more on his salary, a bigger pension and a private, en suite room in his Ceuta barracks. ‘On the outside I feel like a heterosexual man’, Perdigones said, ‘but on the inside I am a lesbian. And it is the latter that counts’. The paper added that the corporal ‘continues to sport a beard’, although he has grown his hair slightly longer and now wears earrings.
Whether or not Perdigones is exploiting Spain’s Trans Law for personal benefit, the
very possibility that he might be doing so highlights the legislation’s flaw: that
simply altering the terms you use to refer to yourself, and requiring others to make
the same alterations when they address you, is all that’s required to confer legal
status on your gender- This is why several feminist groups in Spain opposed the Trans Law right from the outset. Coming together to form the Alliance Against the Erasure of Women, they expressed fears that attempts to discard sex as a biological designation ‘renders invisible the main element on which structural inequality against |
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women is based’ and dilutes the efficacy of measures aimed at women. The Socialists
were also initially sceptical of the need for a Trans Law, although the legislation
has always been championed by leftist Podemos, their coalition partner. ‘The so- Corporal Perdigones draws attention to the problem when he states that his ‘inner lesbian’ should be given legal and professional ascendancy over his ‘outer heterosexual man’ simply because he says so. The ‘Razor’ rule, formulated by Christopher Hitchens, springs to mind: ‘What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence’. That the gender ID law is in essence virtue- That stigma should indeed be shaken off and any resulting discrimination combated;
but in waiving the requirement that gender changes be discussed in advance with healthcare
professionals, the new law glosses over the fact that these are complex psychiatric
and emotional issues. This in turn accounts for the loopholes that are already being
exploited - |