Last year, 100 requests for sex reassignment were registered in the Basque Country, compared to 55 in 2020
The demand for documentation requests from trans people has skyrocketed in Euskadi. In just one year, the number of requests has grown by more than 80%. If in 2020 a total of 55 people who were in the process of sex reassignment requested administrative documentation, in 2021 there were 100, almost twice as many, as explained on Monday by the director of Human Rights, Victims and Diversity of the Basque Government, Monika Hernando, in the commission of Basque Parliament. More than half of the requests, 64% of the last year, correspond to underage.
Although in Euskadi «the situation of the LGTBI community, in general, and of trans people, in particular, has evolved favorably in recent years, there is still much to be done«, Has defended Hernando, at a time when the Basque government undertakes a review of its regulations to guarantee that trans minors from the age of 4 can have adequate administrative documentation. So far this year, the regional Executive has already registered 28 applications, 17 of minors.
Beyond these requests, 118 trans people attended the service for the first time Berdindu of information and attention to the LGTBI collective and its environment in 2021. 34% of the people who attended this service were trans people. In addition, there were 81 families who turned to Berdindu. The demands that are repeated the most are those formulated by mothers and linked almost exclusively to non-normative gender identities and/or behaviors of their daughters or sons (66 of them minors).
Negative feedback
Although favorable positions and non-discrimination against the LGTBI group predominate today, «the degree of acceptance and expression of comfort is more restrained when it has to do with intersex and trans realities than when it is linked with lesbian, gay or bisexual people«. In this sense, more than 50% of the Basque population has heard or witnessed negative comments or rumors about someone due to their sexual orientation or sexual or gender identity, as well as taunts, jokes, imitations and ugly gestures, according to a study of ikuspegi. Furthermore, 22% know of situations in which the person or group in question is ignored, not allowed to participate or is isolated, while 17,9% say they have known about threats and 13,5% about physical attacks.
The work to end discrimination and equality happens, according to Hernando, by "better and greater coordination, especially in the attention to victims“, as well as putting the focus on the “awareness and education«. Last year fifty cloisters and a total of 2.079 teachers were trained in LGTBI matters, and workshops were given in 159 classrooms that have reached 3.220 students.
