Political dynamics, conflicts and straitjackets surrounding Spanish “Trans” legislation: a multiscalar and intersectional analysis

This work presents some of the findings of the Project “Women Movements and Contemporary Feminisms. Political dynamics”. The research questions if the sociopolitical and parliamentary dynamics revolving around the feminist agenda have become more conflict-driven during the Coalition Government (from 2000 onwards) in Spain, given the opposing viewpoints and discourses connected to expansionary legislative initiatives including more social demands, new political subjects and rights for citizens. To answer this, the project draws on an intersectional perspective of different gender-related topics central within the ‘political opportunity structure’ (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015) which opened with the government's capacity to create ‘political agreements’. Using a qualitative comparative method, discourse and framing analysis, this work analyzes the parliamentary relational dynamics revolving around the long and disputed processes of approval of “trans” bills, at national scale and in several Autonomous Communities (Community of Madrid, Basque Country, Castile and Leon, Canary Island and La Rioja) (Suárez Mateu, Téllez Infantes & Martínez Guirao, 2022; Brandariz Portela, Jivkova Semova & Costa Escuredo, 2021; Córdoba, 2021). Particularly, the analysis has covered the whole process of the recently approved (2023) national “Trans” bill (original and final texts, objects of amendments and representatives involved, plenary debates and questions raised both in Congress and Senate, etc.), complementing it with data collected from interviews done to parliamentarians identified as key in the debates. Following temporal and governmental criteria – in terms of political party composition and ideology – the study also compares the national bill with the regional bills approved in the aforementioned Autonomous Communities. By doing so, we unveil the thorny political conjuncture in which the struggle for gender and LGTBIAQ+ rights have been propelled in order to make these ground-breaking legislative initiatives thrive. In sum, the research unfolds not only the ‘multiscalar’ (Herod, 2011; Jessop, Brenner & Jones, 2008) obstacles challenging these legislative initiatives and its implementation (administration, education, health, media, etc.), but also the recurring debates about sex-gender straitjacketing the recognition of more rights for LGTBIAQ+ political subjects. The paper contributes to women, feminist and queer studies highlighting the need to embrace an expansionary intersectional approach and political praxis in order to 1) expand the horizon of action and 2) face the disturbing growing strength of an essentialist and trans- exclusionary “feminist” institutional and popular discourse worryingly aligned with right-wing political formations.