There is no place for non-binary people on the electoral roll. At least not as such. Until a third sex is recognized in the registry office, in order to be elected it is necessary to declare oneself as a man or a woman. The Central Electoral Commission (JEC) put it in black and white in an instruction published last November in the Official State Gazette (BOE) after a question posed by Izquierda Unida: “Electoral candidatures must include, together with the name and surname of the candidates, the reference, which will coincide with that expressed in the DNI, to the fact that it is a man or a woman, without being able to replace it with any other mention relating to sexual orientation, sexual identity or expression of gender”, we read. declared. Light. This decision strengthens equality on the electoral lists and at the same time causes discomfort among non-binary people, those whose gender identity and/or expression transcends the binary, does not define themselves as man or woman, nor within the limits of masculine or feminine.
“It surprises us, it follows the logic that we don’t exist,” says Alana Speck, a non-binary German living in Seville and integrated into the Sexualiarte association, and to whom the Spanish judicial system has recognized the right to register with Immigration with a third option that coincides with the one reflected in her German passport. “My legal sex in Spain is undefined,” he points out. “I could run in municipal and European elections in Spain, as a citizen of the European Union. And there are more people like me,” she says. “So what do they do? They ignore a reality that already exists in Spain. The problem is that both transnational law like this instruction they ignore international law.”
Speck recalls that the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed its “concern” in July over the lack of recognition of non-binary identities in Spain. In this budget it has been expressly indicated that what there is so-called transnational law (4/2023 for the real and effective equality of trans people and the guarantee of the rights of LGBTI people) distinguishes only between men and women, which “exposes non-binary people to situations of discrimination in various fields, including public and recreational spaces, the education system, health services and employment, among others”. The law does not provide tools to legally recognize non-binary people, nor to study how to include them in the Spanish legal system. Furthermore, an amendment by several political groups requiring non-binary people to omit any mention of their gender in official documents was rejected.
It’s not something anecdotal. From the “LGTBI+ State 2025” study by the Federation of LGTBI+ States, which indicates that 8.5% of the LGTBI+ group identifies or feels “non-binary”, it can be extrapolated that approximately 400,000 people declare themselves “non-binary” in Spain.
In this context, Blue Rodríguez, a 25-year-old communicator and activist, argues that the JEC’s instructions are “total and absolute nonsense,” especially when applied to the political sphere, where, he says, “people’s reality should be reflected as it is.” He explains that his identity passes through any form of public participation and that measures like this consolidate a message of exclusion: “The moment I want to be an active soldier, I will be forced to hide an essential part of my personal and political identity.”
Rodríguez placed himself outside the binary at the age of 17, after an identity crisis and starting a process of research without references; He knows well what it means to grow up without a mirror to look at himself in. For this reason he believes it is essential that there are visible non-binary figures in politics and remembers trans leaders like Carla Antonelli who “opened the door for many other trans people to feel valid” and with the possibility of occupying spaces of power. “Being visible is already a political act. Doing it from a public position is even more important”, he summarizes.
For Darko de Fimavilla, a 37-year-old activist, the decision represents “a setback” and “an attack on human rights”, especially considering that “there are many countries that already recognize non-binary identities and that even in the passport, which is an international document, a third box is recognized”. He believes that this will especially affect left-wing parties – “the right doesn’t even consider that non-binary people exist” – and recalls that in various spaces there has been discussion about how to include these identities in equality systems. She is clear that “a position held by a non-binary person can never be detrimental to women’s rights” and defends that there should be a specific quota for non-binary people that is always subtracted from the men’s share.
Personally, Darko knows well what failure to recognize entails. In the previous elections, before changing his name to the DNI, the JEC had forced him to appear on the lists with his dead namehis previous name, leaving his real name in parentheses.
“This has a major impact on the mental health of non-binary people and means that we often do not want to access certain spaces, in particular institutional politics, precisely for fear of suffering violence,” he explains regarding the JEC instruction, which recalls that the Equality Law establishes that electoral lists must be configured by people of one sex or the other, sorted in an alternative way. Furthermore, the Agency reminds you that the Registry requires that in the birth registration it is indicated whether the newborn is male or female; and that the transnational law It does not refer to the fact that there may be, at least in the registry entries, more genders than female and male.
“It seems convenient to maintain the criterion expressed in Instruction 5/2007”, concludes, consequently, the body that guarantees the cleanliness of the elections on the criterion of specifying whether the candidate is a man or a woman.
Question from the United Left
The JEC had not expressed its opinion on this issue after the approval of the 2024 Equality Law. “I think it is the first time,” photographs a member of the organization consulted by EL PAÍS. It all starts with a question that Izquierda Unida registered in September, according to documentation to which this newspaper has access. “If there are non-binary people in an application, how should the permission for alternation and equality be interpreted so as not to harm these people or violate women’s rights?”
This is how the body responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of the elections and compliance with the electoral law responds. “It seems appropriate to clarify the interpretation of the rule of alternation and equality in the case in which non-binary people are present in the candidature”, we read. “The total absence of any legal reference to a third sexual denomination seems to indicate that the law does not provide that there can be, at least in registry entries, more genders than female and male,” he adds. Therefore, in the absence of specific legislation that recognizes a third sex in the registry, “the identification of the sex in the candidate ranking must coincide with the corresponding mention expressed in the DNI”.
It is not a secondary fact. Sumar, a minority partner in the government, presented a bill in April for the recognition of the non-binary gender, in addition to the intersexual reality, and to be able to include it in the DNI. The initiative awaits to be evaluated in the plenary session after the executive has expressed itself comprehensively on the matter, as can be read on the Chamber’s website.
“Being intersex or non-binary in 2025 means still living in a world that has established that you only have to choose between two boxes, and this means silencing the true identity of many people,” reasoned Verónica Martínez Barbero, Sumar’s spokesperson in Congress, when presenting the initiative. A situation now consolidated in the electoral lists. This is how they see the JEC’s decision in this formation: “Equality is strengthened, which we undoubtedly support, but thousands of people who feel neither men nor women continue to be excluded. In the 21st century, this must be changed.”
