LGBT Rights in Spain - Government of Zapatero

Government of Zapatero

Same-sex marriage and adoption were legalized by the Spanish Legislature under the administration of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2005. As of 2006, the Spanish Administration is seeking to negotiate foreign adoption with other countries. In November 2006 Zapatero's government passed a law that allows transgender persons to register under their preferred sex in public documents without undergoing prior surgical change. The law on assisted reproduction was also amended in 2006: children born within a lesbian marriage for in vitro fertilisation treatment can be legally recognized by the non-biological mother.

Soon after the same-sex marriage bill became law, a member of the Guardia Civil, a military-police force, married his lifelong partner, prompting the organization to allow same-sex partners to cohabitate in the barracks, the first police force in Europe to accommodate a same-sex partner in a military installation.