Spain backs bill allowing teenagers to change official gender without medical checks

Equality minister says draft law marks giant step forward for LGTBI rights, particularly trans people'

Spain's government has approved a draft law that would allow anyone aged 14 and over to change their gender on official documents without the need for hormone treatment or a medical report, and which would also ban conversion practices and strengthen the rights of LGBTI people.

The proposed measures - which follow months of wrangling between the Spanish Socialist Worker's party (PSOE) and its junior coalition partners in the far-left, anti-austerity Podemos party - would abolish existing legislation that requires people wishing to change their gender to obtain a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and undergo hormone treatment.