After months of sometimes heated debate within the ruling left-wing, Spanish MPs on Thursday gave final approval to a law allowing people to freely change their gender from the age of 16, at a time when other European countries are holding back on this controversial subject. The so-called ‘transgender law’, which is the battle horse of the radical left-wing party Podemos, an ally of the Socialists in Pedro Sánchez’s government, allows people to change their gender on their identity papers by means of a simple administrative declaration from the age of 16. Up to now, transgender people needed a medical diagnosis by several doctors of gender dysphoria, which is the psychological condition of feeling mismatched with one’s biological sex and gender identity. They also had to prove that they had undergone hormone treatment for at least two years.