Wybrane aspekty prawne transseksualizmu w Hiszpanii

Abstract

The issue of gender reassignment has been the subject of increasingly intense public debate for some time now. Different legislatures respond to the signals coming from these debates in different ways: some legal systems have already regulated these issues, while others have not yet been able to choose the optimal legislative solution and still do not specify many issues in the applicable law. One of the legal systems where the issue of the legal regulation of transsexuality arises from time to time is Polish law, which, however, lacks comprehensive regulation of this matter. Over the years, the legislature has considered various drafts on this subject with varying intensity, but has not yet decided to introduce any legal regulation; the impression is given that Poland is still searching for the optimal solution to the problem of gender reassignment. Spain, one of the countries with extensive experience in this area, has legislation that currently contains very progressive and controversial legal regulations on transsexuality. Its basic principles may be valuable in further Polish discussions on the optimal shape of legislation in this area; this article therefore presents these solutions, describing their historical development, current wording and the first practical controversies related to their everyday application. The aim is to outline the gender reassignment procedure in Spain. The article is based on a dogmatic-legal analysis of Spanish regulations concerning gender reassignment, supplemented by an analysis of doctrine and case law, as well as elements of a functional and comparative legal perspective.