Although Spanish legislation recognises the obligation of public authorities to recognise, guarantee, protect and promote equal treatment and non-discrimination of LGTBIQA+ people, the 2023 state LGBTI Law, passed after a dirty and transphobic campaign by both the right wing and trans-exclusionary feminism, only recognises gender self-determination for trans men and women, leaving us, non-binary people, out.
Although the law has been a major step forward for part of the trans community, as it has achieved depathologisation to rectify their documentation, it was born with an expiry date, leaving many trans people out in the cold:
- us, non-binary people
- transgender people under the age of 12, contrary to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court (STC 99/2019)
- trans migrants, who face additional barriers and, today, three years after the law was passed, are unable in practice to change their sex/gender on their documentation, as no regulation defining the ‘competent authority’ has been approved.
The failure to recognise our identities in the state LGBTI Law is a breach of international human rights standards. We warned about this in 2023, and time proved us right in 2025. The United Nations Human Rights Committee made this very clear in July of that year in its Concluding Observations on the Spanish State's report on its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: The Committee "notes with concern that Law 4/2023 limits the legal recognition of gender identity to the categories of “man” and “woman”, which in practice means that non-binary identities are not reflected in official identity documents or other administrative records of the State. In this regard, the Committee expresses its concern that this lack of recognition exposes non-binary persons to discrimination in various areas, including public and leisure spaces, the education system, health services and employment, among others."
We continue to face situations every day in which our identity is denied. We do not exist in society's imagination, and the vast majority of bureaucratic procedures require us to deny our identity in order to fill out forms. This situation causes enormous psychological and social harm in our lives, yet it could be resolved very simply: by modifying the computer systems.
It is an almost constant experience of invalidation of our existence, a refusal to accept our identity as real or true. Added to this is harassment in education, at work and even in leisure activities. According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 81% of non-binary people avoid certain spaces for fear of being discriminated against, harassed or subjected to violence: 12% always, 24% often and 45% sometimes. In addition, 81% of LGBT people mask their real gender in public spaces, and half do so frequently. Living in hiding, pretending to lead a double life. And despite the high levels of masking, six out of ten LGBT people have experienced discrimination in leisure and recreational activities and spaces.
As a result of this systematic violence, only 44.2% of non-binary people consider their health to be very good or good, compared to 85.3% of the general population. In fact, more than 70% of the health problems experienced by non-binary people are related to mental health: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, among others. For example, in the general population, only 6% have attended a psychology or psychiatry consultation in the last 12 months, while in the non-binary population this figure rises to 66%.
Discrimination, invisibility, avoidance of public spaces, lack of networks and social violence are a huge burden on the living conditions of non-binary people, compounded by enormous difficulties in accessing social and health care services. Non-binary people who want to modify their bodies encounter more barriers or are denied outright. These difficulties and refusals of access are compounded if they are also fat, psychiatrised/neurodivergent or migrants.
Healthcare for transgender people remains trapped in transition paths marked by the male/female binary. As a result, in order to access hormone treatment, many non-binary people feel forced to lie, presenting themselves as trans men or trans women. Treatments such as microdoses of hormones or hormones other than testosterone or estradiol are not even considered. Many non-binary people who want to access a mastectomy in the public health service are rejected for not following the expectations of a binary transition to a trans man, which begins with testosterone hormone treatment. Ultimately, the only solutions left to non-binary people who turn to the healthcare system range from giving up on the possibility of medical transition, self-medicating with hormones, or trying to raise the money to pay for their transition in private healthcare, all of which have negative consequences for their mental health.
Currently, non-binary people living in Spain are simply trying to survive in a binary and hostile world that attacks, invisibilises and ridicules us. We denounce this binary system, the result of colonialist cultural imposition, which violates our rights, makes our lives precarious and doubly marginalises our migrant, racialised and refugee comrades.
For all these reasons, on Thursday 26 March, in the context of 31 March, Trans Visibility Day, we want to protest outside the Civil Registry offices to demand that the Spanish state comply with its human rights obligations in accordance with international standards.
We demand to enjoy a full and dignified life. Being able to openly express our identity and be respected by society and the authorities would allow us to live our lives with a minimum of dignity, a constitutional right that is violated on an almost daily basis. Being able to live with dignity is also a basic human need.
To guarantee this dignity, we demand, as a non-negotiable condition, the full recognition of our non-binary identities in all areas - in the state LGBTI Law, in the Law on Equality between Women and Men, in the Law against Discrimination and Equal Treatment, in healthcare, in our working lives, in education, in sport and in all leisure facilities. And we demand this in defence of all non-binary people, regardless of their nationality, age or any other circumstance. Hey, non-binary people exist!
State Non-binary Network (Spain)
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