The rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people have taken center stage ahead of Spain’s July 23 national election. Opinion polls predict Alberto Nunez Feijoo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) will win the election after four years of coalition government by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists and the leftist Unidas Podemos. But Feijoo would likely need the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government. Vox has strongly opposed LGBTQ+ rights. Local elections in May paved the way for PP-Vox coalitions in several Spanish municipalities. Vox made headlines in May by hanging a sign from a Madrid building showing a hand dropping cards with symbols representing feminism, communism, the LGBTQ+ community, and Catalan independence into a rubbish bin. Both Vox and the PP have promised to take action against some pro-LGBTQ+ measures passed by the left-wing government. They have both pledged to change a self-determination law that came into force in March, allowing trans people over 16 to change their legal gender simply by informing the official registry, rather than undergoing two years of hormone treatment. Spain mostly respects LGBTQ+ rights, but activists said a PP-Vox government would roll back their rights.
