Madrid (EFE) of tension when, in the block on LGTBI rights, the spokeswoman for Sumar, Elizabeth Duval, a trans woman, asked the representative of Vox: “Do you consider me a chronic patient?”
The episode happened in the final block of the debate, dedicated to the rights of LGTBI people. At the CaixaForum, a space ceded by the “la Caixa” Foundation, a cycle that the EFE Agency called for the general elections next Sunday, July 23, has closed.
For ten days, the forum has addressed present and future challenges such as environmental policies, the role of Spain abroad, the economy and equality.
Equality: a harsher climate
Feminism has been one of the issues that has inflamed the political climate the most throughout the last legislature due to the controversies that arose around the trans law and the ‘only yes is yes’ law.
The person in charge of the area in the PSOE, Andrea Fernández; the senator of the PP Patricia Rodríguez; Vox deputy María Ruiz; and Sumar’s spokesperson for equality, feminism and LGTBI rights, Elizabeth Duval, have been in charge of setting the positions of their parties and organizations.
There have been proposals and confrontations, but also personal allusions. The one that has generated the most tension occurred in the aforementioned last block of the debate. The Vox representative had questioned the health of trans people if, precisely because of the treatments they receive, they have to be medicated for long periods of time.
Duval, hearing these words, asked Ruiz if she considered her “chronically ill”, to which the Vox representative initially responded evasively: “I don’t know her personal reality; I don’t know”.
Sumar’s spokeswoman insisted: “Know that I am a transsexual woman and you know that I started treatment at the age of 14.”
María Ruiz, one of the voices of the Vox parliamentary group in Congress on equality during the last legislature, said then: “I don’t know, you will know, but if you have to constantly take medication, well, probably yes.”
Suicidal ideation before being trans
The signing of Yolanda Díaz for Sumar, her voice in matters of equality and feminism, replied that the cataloging of transsexuality as a disease depends on no government. It depends on the World Health Organization, and it is not the case.
The Vox representative interrupted her colleague in the debate to say that indeed “it is not a disease”, but she immediately pointed out: “The reality is that you have to take medication and that is negative for your health.”
The writer and activist continued by mentioning a British study on transsexuality in which, following a series of interviews, it was concluded that 67% of the people who had started transit had previously thought about the idea of suicide.
Along these lines, he denounced that in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni governs, whose party is in tune with Vox’s postulates, parental rights are being denied to couples of lesbian mothers.
Support from Díaz and Errejón
This was not the only clash between Duval, who previously, citing the aforementioned British study, found a reply in the PP senator, for whom said report, dating from 2014, has lost its validity. “Society changes”, have been her words.
The personal dispute between the representatives of Sumar and Vox continued in the debate environment, since just a few minutes later Andrea Fernández, from the PSOE, asked the deputy of the Santiago Abascal formation if she, as a consumer of the contraceptive pill , is also a sick person.
The repercussion of the crash did not take long to travel through social networks. The leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, and the number 4 of the coalition for Madrid, Íñigo Errejón, expressed their support for Duval.