By Airam Fernández, from Santiago, Chile. The Chilean Senate passed the Gender Identity Bill this week in a lightning session, hours after Michelle Bachelet's government designated the initiative as "urgent." It was in its third legislative stage and its fifth year in Congress. Around 7:00 p.m. on Monday, the changes introduced in late January by the Chamber of Deputies were rejected. This means the bill will now go to a joint committee in the new Parliament, composed of deputies and senators, for further discussion and to try to resolve the most controversial points. Lawyer and activist Constanza Valdés explained to Presentes that the rejection of the amendments is a positive development, as minors and married people had been excluded from the text. This will open the debate in the joint committee to include them again, although with a risk: "There could be a setback in the progress made in the Chamber, regarding the principles and expression of gender."

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Despite the government's commitment to "advance as much as possible" with the bill, as government spokesperson Paula Narváez repeatedly stated, a message on the President's Twitter account made it clear that the speed of the process, just a week before Sebastián Piñera takes office, is due to the Oscar won this past weekend by "A Fantastic Woman," the film starring transgender actress Daniela Vega. "The growing consensus around Chile having a Gender Identity Law must be transformed into concrete actions. Therefore, I decided to give the bill, which is in its final stage in Congress, top priority. Transgender people cannot wait any longer!" the president wrote. Valdés is certain that the award played a significant role in what happened this Tuesday: "It definitely helped generate the necessary political consensus for the vote," she stated.

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Iguales also sees it this way. "This is the triumph of a story of perseverance that demonstrates the tremendous vulnerability to which trans people are exposed." “It is a historic victory for Chile, but to celebrate it without understanding our duty as a society to protect the trans community is petty,” said Juan Enrique Pi, president of the foundation, in a statement. Among the articles approved by Congress in January are those concerning guarantees derived from the right to gender identity and the principles of non-pathologizing the difference between biological and social gender, along with the elimination of a medical evaluation that certifies the psychological and psychiatric capacity to justify a request for gender change. In that last session, Article 3, regarding the right to access hormonal treatments and surgical interventions, which had previously been eliminated, was reinstated. The joint committee that will be in charge of the future of the law can be formed starting next week, since the current Parliament only has this Wednesday's session remaining. After the Senate's approval, Minister Narváez emphasized that this will be one of the biggest challenges for the next government, which begins on March 12, along with the new Congress.