Alejandro Espino |
Pontevedra (EFE) “We had been waiting years for this moment to arrive,” she says.
“I am very happy and looking forward to being called by the registry to give me the new papers,” said this young woman from Ponte Caldelas (Pontevedra) in an interview with Efe, who hopes to be able to release the DNI with the appropriate sex for her identity in a period of four months.
The new law, Alicia celebrates, is a “great progress” for all transgender people, since until now in order to complete this administrative process “they made us spend two years on hormones and obtain a lot of medical certificates.”
And, even fulfilling all these requirements, in the case of minors they had to obtain a judicial guarantee, that is, “depending on whether a judge said yes or said no,” stressed the teenager from Pontevedra.
In his case, he began to be aware of his reality when he was barely 9 years old. It wasn’t until four years later, “when I came out” as a trans girl. Until then, she preferred to say that she was gay “because it seemed like something easier to say.”
“In general, I never found any problem,” admits Alicia Arruti, in her immediate environment. Her parents accepted her condition from the first moment and therefore, although it was no longer necessary with the new law, she did not go to court alone to change her registered sex.
Accompanied by her mother
She was accompanied by her mother “because since I have the support of my family, it seemed to me the best option.” It was a great day for her too. “I wanted to accompany her and do this process with her because we support her in everything”, María emphasizes.
Alicia changed her name a year and a half ago, but she had to wait longer for the change in the registry. She was going to ask for it under the old law “but we didn’t know how it would end,” reflects her mother, so “we took a risk and decided to wait.”
“We were impatient,” says Alicia’s mother, who recalls how last Thursday, the first day with the Trans Law in force, they appeared at the Pontevedra civil registry. “We went with all the enthusiasm in the world”, although there they also collided with the bureaucracy.
At first they were told that the law was not yet in force “but when we told them yes, they checked it and did all the paperwork”, summarized mother and daughter, who defend that “it is very important that your identity matches what it says in your documents”.
Thanks to this new law, “they do not have to continually demonstrate their condition,” says María, who covers her daughter when she adds that after this great step “we cannot forget about non-binary people, migrants or those under 12 years”.
Alicia, who is the student representative of her high school on the school board, has come to advise several of her classmates, something she is delighted to do because “I always like to fight for the high school and if I can do it for trans people, even better.”
In this regard, her mother assures that “I was clear from the beginning that I was going to support her” but even so she decided to go to Arelas, an association made up of families of trans children and adolescents, “who helped me a lot and updated me what was I supposed to do.”
Hence, María highlights the importance of carrying out pedagogical and awareness-raising work among people, especially thinking of minors “who do not have the support of their family and their environment”, making schools “safe spaces”.
In all of them, teachers and students must collaborate, according to the mother of this young woman, so that schools and institutes are places “where their physical and moral integrity is ensured and where they are respected, they are not mocked and support them.”
