Spanish government aims to remove ‘Q+’ from LGBTQ+

Spain’s socialist government has sparked controversy by planning to remove the “Q+” from LGBTQ+ and ban transgender women from women’s sport.

Prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), or Spanish Socialist Workers Party, made the policy announcements during a party congress in the southern city of Seville at the weekend.

The changes would limit participation in female sports to “people with a female biological sex” and result in the Q+, which refers to people who are queer and questioning, and who do not fit into neat gender and sexuality category, removed from the LGBTQ+ acronym – within a plan to protect queer minorities from social inequality.

For many, the move will be seen as contradictory to Spain’s progressive LGBTQ+ legislation, including its sweeping reforms to gender recognition laws which allow self-ID for trans people from the age of 16, without the need for a psychological or medical evaluation.

Passed last year, by a vote of 191 to 60 – with 91 abstaining – the reforms meant transgender men and women no longer needed to fill in extensive medical forms to change their gender markers on documents such as their birth certificate. Equality minister Irene Montero described the legislative update as a “giant step forward”.

She added: “This law recognises the right of trans people to self-determine their gender identity, it depathologises trans people. Trans people are not sick people, they are just people.”

However, at the time, former Socialist deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo claimed the change would “destroy the powerful battery of equality legislation in our country”.

Gender-critical feminists within PSOE welcomed the latest move, with anti-trans advocacy group Contra el Borrado de Mujeres – Against the Erasure of Women – saying the amendment was “a crucial step toward protecting the integrity of women’s sports”.

However, the amendments have been criticised by LGBTQ+ activists and allies.

Montero, who is no longer the equality minister, said in a post on social media: “A trans woman is a woman. Whatever PSOE says, this is transphobia. The rights of trans people are human rights. Anything else is not classical feminism or left-wing politics, it’s just transphobia.”  

Meanwhile, Mar Cambrolle, the president of the Trans Platform Federation, warned: “When a progressive party falls into the same ideology as the ultra-right, pointing to us as harbingers of social evil, it’s very dangerous for our democracy and the fight towards equality.”

She likened the “perverse use of feminism” to the “right wingers saying migrants are the cause of crime”, adding: “Numerous international bodies, such as Human Rights Watch, are against the exclusion of trans women from women’s sport, it deepens discrimination and stigmatisation.”

Spain’s conservative Popular Party won elections in July, but leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo failed to form a government. Last month, after weeks of discussions, Sánchez secured a four-seat majority in the 350-seat parliament.