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Alex he had a vulva, but over time, his mother, Raquel Sánchez , realized she always had a boy. From the time he began to notice the things that usually differentiate girls and boys, at a very young age, she saw him tear out his pigtails, use hairpins, wear dresses... "I bought him mostly unisex clothes, but he still took them from his older brother," she recalls.

This Madrid mother's story is similar to that of most trans children who have been fortunate enough to be born into families sensitive to their reality. When children grow up a little and begin to perceive the marks of gender, a process of exploration and accommodation begins, which usually tends toward what is socially feminine or masculine. Gender, for child psychomotor therapist Cristina López , begins with other people: "It's already within me when I address the children I work with, with the games I expect them to play, the personality I expect them to develop, the developmental milestones we specialists record... everything is marked by gender roles." When preferences or behavior don't fit those expectations, alarm bells can go off. "Some parents associate it with pathologies. They say things like: 'She plays like a girl, that's not normal.' But that's a social thing, not a pathological one," López continues.

In the case of little Álex, the process was explicit from the beginning. “One day we were talking, when he was five years old, and he said, ‘Mom, I want to be a boy,’” Sánchez recalls. “I responded by arguing that girls can also wear their hair short, like he wanted, and that when they grow up, they could also have girlfriends with other girls. He replied, ‘I want a girlfriend, but I'll be a boy,’” she adds. Shortly after, the day he got his hair cut, he spent the entire afternoon looking at himself in the mirror and playing. “He said, ‘Mom, don't I look good?’ It was the first time he had ever changed his pronouns,” she recalls.

“We are not ideology, we are people”

The audience of the morning television debates or those who read some books will understand Alex's case as the triumph of a supposed " queer lobby . Trans people, and especially trans minors, are the target of volumes such as Nobody is Born in the Wrong Body: Success and Misery of Gender Identity (whose presentation in May 2022 in Barcelona was boycotted by LGBTQ+ activists who suffered police violence) , which claim to dismantle the so-called "gender ideology," which, they claim, lies behind demands such as gender self-determination, included in the "trans law" promoted by the Ministry of Equality in 2023.

“We are not ideology, we are people,” recalls pioneering activist and former member of the Madrid Assembly, Carla Antonelli . “They put a Star of David on our foreheads when they talk about the 'transgenderism' that is pervading the country. They have dehumanized trans people to make it seem like they're not talking about people,” laments Antonelli, who believes that “transphobia has become so normalized that some people dare to say things like raping a trans woman is less of a rape because she can't get pregnant.”

"We can't get them to brush their teeth and change their gender? How do you think you can change someone's identity from the outside?"

Powerful media outlets and influential people are behind the rise of trans-exclusionary thinking, which has seduced former vice presidents of the government and historic feminists. "If you think you're a feminist and maintain a discourse that mirrors that of the far right, don't forget that they'll take you down too if they get the chance," warns Antonelli.

Natalia Aventín , president of the trans-allied families association Euforia, recalls that “the TERF [trans-exclusionary reaction] discourse was already there.” She points out that, for years, they have endured being called “transsexualizing mothers,” as if they were behind their children's identities, she denounces. “Can't we get them to brush their teeth and we're going to get them to change gender? How do they think someone's identity can be changed from the outside?” she asks.

Raquel Sánchez shares the same experience: “When I had the trial for Alex's name change, the child became nervous and didn't speak, so I had to explain it myself. I told the judge that no matter how excited you are about having a boy or a girl, no parent would initiate all this on a whim. Do you think I need to go through this whole process? None. I'm doing it because it's my child's happiness. It's his nature, I've always seen that.”

“Trans childhoods have always existed, but they were repressed. The vast majority of us had to hide, living in the closet.”

Debunking hoaxes

In the face of the trans-exclusionary backlash against the obsession with judging the development of trans children as if it were a new phenomenon, Carmen García de Merlo , forcefully states that “trans childhoods have always existed, but they were repressed. The vast majority of us had to hide, living in the closet; of course, I was a trans girl too.”

Hoaxes about "hormonalized" and "mutilated" minors are a constant feature of hate speech. García de Merlo does indeed recall the case of an acquaintance, but in the opposite sense: "It was a trans man who once refused to wear his communion dress. They forced him to do so and then took him to a psychiatrist." The doctor plied him with pills and, "when they didn't do anything, they injected him with female hormones, under the pretext that he needed them. That was a case of a minor who had been hormone-treated and psychiatrically treated since childhood, but by the system," he recalls.

Activists are tired of facing these kinds of lies. Carla Antonelli points out that there isn't even any invented hormone for trans people: "The treatments we use are those that exist for other things. The estrogens we trans women take are menopause patches, contraceptive treatments... things that are already on the market." She also points out that hormone inhibitors—which delay the development of puberty but don't contain hormones of the opposite sex—are frequently used in minors "who have precocious puberty, especially in girls who get their periods very early, at eight or nine years old." In this case, since these are cisgender girls and boys, "no one raises a conflict about whether this is right or wrong," she laments.

“Those who insist on biology seem to ignore the existence of intersex people.”

The most common specter of hormone treatments is that of reversal. What happens, asks the trans-exclusionary reaction, if the child regrets it? In the case of hormone blockers, nothing. Puberty will continue once the treatment ends. And in the case of cross-sex hormones (estrogen for trans girls and testosterone for trans boys), these only begin to be used from the age of 15 or 16. “By then, the minor may have been expressing their gender identity for a decade. It's something they're clear about,” Antonelli points out. Are there people who “detransition”? García de Merlo asks, “Yes, but it's a very small percentage. Are we going to focus on those cases and not the majority?” she answers. Some studies, such as the 2019 "Detransition rates in a national UK Gender Identity Clinic" or the 2014 "An Analysis of All Applications for Sex Reassignment Surgery in Sweden," put this percentage between 0.47 percent and 2 percent. When cross-sex hormones are discontinued, the body eventually recovers the hormones it produces automatically.

Those who question the determination of trans minors “are infantilizing their self-perception,” explains Cristina López. This child development specialist believes that when people say it's a game or “just kids' stuff,” they don't take into account that “children always play, and it's in these games that identity is built. Of course, we shouldn't give credence to the fact that one day Juan wants to be called Violeta. We should embrace it, just as another day he'll want to be Batman,” she shares. But if this behavior is repeated, “if the child insists on maintaining their identity over time, we should listen to them and observe them,” she advises.

López also points to one of the biological bases that argues for the trans-exclusionary reaction. “Those who insist on biology seem to ignore the existence of intersex . They haven't figured out what to do with them,” she argues. The existence of these people, who demonstrate the diversity of the sex/gender system, does not, however, translate into an open-mindedness. “Biology is the queen of diversity; it is not something stable, nor static, nor does it provide answers to everything,” concludes Natalia Aventín.

"We've become human targets. If it were being done to another group... it simply wouldn't be allowed."

Hormone therapy and surgery are often the only options medically proposed for developing as a trans person, although there are increasing voices questioning these possibilities. Hormones and interventions aren't a bed of roses, but Raquel Sánchez would like her son to be listened to. "He's six years old and he's already telling me he doesn't want breasts, he wants hair. And he wants a man's voice. He asks me: 'What can I put in my mouth to give me a man's voice?'" she says. She insists that no father or mother wants their child to be on medication for life, "but their happiness depends on it."

Trans fixation

Purportedly scientific books, heated debates that give rise to hate, columns in supposedly progressive newspapers… “It's unfortunate to admit, but transphobia is in fashion,” laments Carla Antonelli. “Some people have made it into the media solely for their attacks on trans people. It's a scandal that such reactionary and false ideas have taken root, such as those about bathroom rapists,” she notes, referring to the oft-debunked hoax about supposedly trans women transitioning to use women's restrooms for criminal purposes. These debates revolve around a trans community that, the activist recalls, is estimated at only 50,000 people in Spain: “We've been turned into human targets. If this were happening to any other group… it simply wouldn't be allowed.”

In the face of the notion of being trans as a fad—widespread by the trans-exclusionary reaction on channels like TikTok and YouTube, where teenagers are sharing their transitions—Carmen García de Merlo believes in the importance of the human dimension in making their experiences understood. “The point isn't to give a talk full of academic theories, but to tell society about our lives. To tell them about the rejection from our families, about how difficult the path is. Are they really going to continue believing that we go through all this on a whim?” she explains.

Being a girl or a boy “isn't like wanting to go to EuroDisney,” Raquel Sánchez firmly states. “My son Álex can't feel any other way. Anyone who approaches him, even those who have had doubts, sees what's happening: he's a boy. This is natural. In nature, there are boys with vulvas and girls with penises, and they have to understand that,” she continues. However, she recalls the case of her pediatrician, who asked her and her partner if, as parents, they weren't going to stop this: “I immediately sent a notice to the center and changed pediatricians.”

Natalia Aventín's hope is that everyone "reaches out to trans children, even with all their prejudices, because reality will hit them hard. When people see reality, it changes their perception." And she includes "people who are intuitive allies," but who haven't dug deep enough to properly refer to these children. "They think they're helping and say things like 'the boy who wanted to be a girl.' This happens because there are always a lot of cis people talking about trans people in the media. If trans people were the protagonists of public conversations about them, the outcome would be very different," she points out.

Fortunately, cases like that of Álex and his mother demonstrate that a new normal is spreading among trans children. “The day after I told the mothers at school about the name change, everyone was calling him Álex. It's incredible how beautiful the transition has been. It's us adults who create problems; the children accept everything naturally,” she recalls, proudly recounting how one of those mothers told them that her daughter had told her that Álex boasted about having a mother who doesn't force him to be a girl. “Where is my son going to get that from, where is he going to learn it from? What he did learn is that because he has a vulva, he was forced to be a girl. I could see that in the environment,” she concludes. Fortunately, his family, his surroundings, and he himself have proven her wrong.