• Vigil marks suicide death of Barcelona transgender teen bullied at school
• Rights group says nearly half of all LGBT youth consider suicide in Spain
Spain’s federation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, FELGTB, has called on Spanish authorities and legislators to strengthen the country’s law protecting transgender individuals, following the suicide death on Christmas eve by a 17-year-old transsexual student in Barcelona who had suffered bullying at school over his sexual identity.
According to a FELGTB spokesperson, surveys show that more than half of LGBT youth in Spain have experienced some form of bullying at school because of their sexual orientation, with young people who are transgender targeted even more because they are more visible and therefore exposed to greater risk.
In a survey by the FELGTB of 700 young people who had experienced bullying over their sexual orientation, 43 percent of those surveyed said they had considered suicide at least once, 35 percent had prepared their own suicide in some detail and 17 percent had tried to commit suicide on at least one occasion.
While Spain has had a law in place since 2007 that governs gender identity and aims to protect LGBT people from discrimination and gender-related violence, the FELGTB says that regulations in place are insufficient and specifically do not address the identity, recognize the rights or protect against the discrimination of transgender people nationwide.
Read the Full Story in Spanish at El País >>
