Uruguay: Activists Reject Modifications to Trans Bill

Colette Spinetti, president of the Trans-Uruguayan Collective, and other activists have rejected attempts to modify a bill that makes hormone therapy available to underage transgender persons in the South American country. She said the move to change the law is part of a religious, political strategy.

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Spinetti noted that the law is an “old” demand of the “trans community in Uruguay. I remember that we were touring the country in 2013, attending to this need of a number of trans companions. So, it is an old aspiration that contemplates the needs of a collective group that has been historically violated.”

She went on to emphasize that “when a country needs a law that recognizes rights, it is because that society is not right. Here we have to recognize the other (and) what is happening to our society that is denying rights.”

Articles 5 and 17 of the proposed law, contemplates whether or not minors should receive hormone therapy as part of their sex reassignment treatment without parental consent.

The proposed articles are consistent with “articles 8 and 11 of the Niñex and Adolescence Code, which states that all children under 18 years of age can access the Integrated Health System,” Spinetti said.

“Article 11 says that when minors need, for example, sexual and reproductive health services and the professional sees the denial on the part of the parents as being harmful to the child's health, the professional should bring the case to a competent judge.”

Spinetti clarified that "there is no obligation here to provide hormones to or operate on children and adolescents. In fact, not all trans-people want hormone therapy. Trans identity is a self-perception. I am a non-hormone body. I have not been surgically operated on and I am trans.”

The president of the Trans-Uruguayan collective pointed out that anti-law movements include a religious political strategy.

"We have seen declarations by Pastor Márquez in his Twitter account. I recall the time they organized to incite people against homosexuality and transgender identity...It is evident” that a sector of our politics and “fundamentalist Pentecostal religions go hand in hand.”