PSOE targets Murcia education minister

Miguel Ortega, a lawmaker for the Socialist Party in Murcia, used a May 14 session in the regional assembly to accuse Education Minister Víctor Marín of failing for three years to implement protections for trans students required under Spain’s 2023 trans and LGTBI law. Ortega said the Region of Murcia still has no specific protocol for supporting trans pupils or preventing transphobic bullying in schools, and he told Marín that the gap was leaving minors exposed to exclusion and harassment. La Opinión de Murcia reported the exchange, and a separate PSOE statement said the complaint was made during a control session in the Asamblea Regional. Spain’s Ley 4/2023, published in the Official State Gazette on March 1, 2023 and in force since March 2, 2023, is the national law at the center of the dispute. The law sets out protections for trans people and LGTBI rights nationwide, and PSOE in Murcia says one of its education provisions requires public authorities to establish protocols for the care of trans students and the prevention of transphobic bullying. ### Which part of the law is PSOE saying Murcia has not carried out? (laopiniondemurcia.es) Miguel Ortega said the missing measure is a school protocol covering both everyday treatment of trans students and responses to anti-trans bullying. In the PSOE account of the assembly exchange, Ortega said schools still lack a regional framework to guide staff on issues such as the use of a student’s chosen name and what happens if a teacher refuses to respect a minor’s gender identity. (boe.es) Murcia’s own administration says it has a 2023 “Manual de protocolos, actuaciones y procedimientos de convivencia escolar,” promoted by the regional education authorities and the Observatorio para la Convivencia Escolar. That manual includes procedures against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but campaigners and opposition politicians say it is not the specific trans-student support protocol they have been demanding. (murcia.com) ### Why did this become a political fight this week? May 14 brought two parallel public complaints. In the assembly, Ortega pressed Marín on the issue on behalf of PSRM-PSOE. Outside the chamber, STERM Intersindical and seven LGTBIQ+ groups also demanded immediate compliance with the law and presented their own proposed protocol after months, they said, without a response from the regional education department. (carm.es) The union and groups said Murcia was still relying on instructions dating from 2017, before the national law took effect in 2023. Murcia.com’s report on that news conference named Chrysallis Murcia, Vihsibles, No Te Prives, Colectivo La Traca and ¿Lo Tienes Claro? among the organizations backing the demand. ### What are the critics saying happens in schools without a protocol? (laopiniondemurcia.es) Miguel Ortega told the assembly that the lack of a protocol affects minors directly. He said some schools do not know how or when to process a trans student’s chosen name, and he warned that there is no regional procedure to protect a child if a teacher refuses to respect that identity. (murcia.com) STERM and allied groups framed the issue in similar terms. Their May 14 complaint said trans students in Murcia were left unprotected because the region had not adopted a specific, legally required protocol, and they linked that absence to risks of exclusion, bullying and violence in classrooms. Murcia.com’s account of the event also cited a 2022 Equality Ministry study saying 84% of trans people considered Spain’s education system non-inclusive. (murcia.com) ### What does Murcia already have on the books? Murcia’s regional government hosts a public page for its 2023 school coexistence manual, which says it contains procedures for discrimination by sexual orientation and gender identity, bullying, gender violence and child maltreatment. That means the dispute is not over whether any school-conduct guidance exists, but whether the region has adopted the specific trans-student support framework that critics say national and regional law require. That characterization is an inference from the official manual and the competing public statements. (murcia.com) Murcia’s anti-discrimination page also lists Law 8/2016, the region’s own LGTBI equality law. Activists and opposition figures have cited that earlier regional law alongside the 2023 national law to argue that Murcia’s obligations did not begin this year. ### What happens next in the Murcia dispute? The next step is political and administrative. PSOE has put the issue on the record in the Asamblea Regional, and STERM plus the LGTBIQ+ groups say they have already registered a proposed protocol with the education department and are waiting for a response. (carm.es) Any concrete move now would come from Víctor Marín’s department, which critics are pressing to approve a specific protocol for trans students in Murcia’s schools. (carm.es) As of the May 14 reports, the immediate public record consisted of Ortega’s assembly challenge, the groups’ proposal and the existing 2023 school-conduct manual published by the regional government. (laopiniondemurcia.es) (murcia.com)