Lawmakers in Portugal have voted on three anti-trans bills aimed at rolling back legal gender recognition and restricting access to healthcare.

After debating the bills on March 19 and 20, the Portuguese parliament approved them in general terms with a vote of 151 in favour and 79 against. The three bills will now move to the Committee on Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees for further debate.

The bills were tabled by three right-wing parties, PSD, Chega, and CDS-PP, to amend the Law 38/2018, which currently allows legal gender recognition through self-identification, without the need for a psychiatric evaluation. One of the bills seeks to revoke the self-determination part of the law, forcing trans people to obtain medical diagnoses, a requirement that was eliminated eight years ago.

In addition to reintroducing medical gatekeeping for gender recognition, the bills propose to restrict access to healthcare and undermine protections for trans people. The proposals also seek to bar everyone under the age of 18 from amending their name or gender marker on official documents, changing the current threshold of 16.

If enacted, the bills will effectively roll back the rights of trans people in Portugal. Moreover, one of the bills also seeks to introduce a ban on discussing LGBTQ+ topics in school, in a move that is reminiscent of the so-called “anti-propaganda” laws adopted in Hungary and Russia.

If the bills were to become law, it would mark a significant regression in a country that has been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights in Europe. In the last few years, Portugal has ranked high in ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map, but if the bills were enacted they would drop behind Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, and France.

While the vote was taking place, a protest took place in front of the parliament, where over 200 people gathered. Carrying rainbow and trans flags, the demonstrators held signs that read “My name is not a debate” and “We are not diagnoses.”

Commenting on the vote, Executive Director of Forbidden Colours, Rémy Bonny, said: “These proposals are not isolated. They follow the exact same blueprint we have seen in Hungary and Russia: starting with trans people, then expanding to silence the entire LGBTIQ+ community.

“What is happening in Portugal today is deeply alarming. A country that has been seen as a leader on human rights is now taking its first steps towards institutionalising discrimination. This is how democratic backsliding begins.

“We urge Portuguese lawmakers to draw a clear line now. Stop these bills in committee. Europe has already seen where this path leads and we cannot allow history to repeat itself,” Bonny concluded.