Under a recently elected conservative government, opposition lawmakers are saying Portugal is backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights with a set of three new measures that erase several advances under the country’s previous Socialist governments.

On Friday, Parliament took a step toward approving the repeal of a 2018 law that enshrines a right to gender self-determination and the protection of individual sex characteristics. It was one of the most far-reaching laws of its kind when it was introduced in its original form in 2011.

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Three bills to amend the law were advanced by a far-right conservative coalition that now holds a controlling majority in Portugal’s Parliament.

Among other provisions, the repeal of the original law would reinstate a requirement for “medical validation” for anyone changing their name and gender in the country’s civil registry, Euronews reports.

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Those changes are currently possible for any citizen without a medical certificate. 16- to 18-year-olds only need parental authorization and a report from a health professional attesting to their “capacity for decision-making and informed will.” The amended law would again require the approval of a “certified” medical board.

According to language in the new proposal, a report that “proves the diagnosis of gender incongruence” must be prepared by a specialized multidisciplinary clinical team in a public or private health establishment and must be signed by at least one specialist physician and one specialist psychologist.

Portugal’s government has seen a tilt toward the right over the last several years. In 2024, a center-right coalition called the Democratic Alliance won a plurality of seats in legislative elections, ending eight years of Socialist rule. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro won a renewed mandate in a snap election on May 18, 2025, again forming a minority government. In the meantime, the far-right nationalist, anti-immigrant Chega party has become the main opposition party in the 230-seat Parliament.

A proposal from that party also revokes the current legislation but introduces new articles for the “protection of children and young people,” including a ban on the inclusion of “gender ideology” in education curricula for minors. “Education in this field is reserved exclusively for parents or legal guardians,” the proposal reads.

Another far-right party coalition introduced a measure that “protects the integrity of children” by banning puberty blockers and/or hormone therapy in the treatment of gender dysphoria for trans youth.

“A man is a man, and a woman is a woman,” declared Madalena Cordeiro, a Chega member of Parliament. “The differences between them are clear and evident. It’s 9th-grade science. Now, all it takes is one consultation for a child to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria in five minutes.”

“It’s not care, it’s not medicine, it’s not science,” he claimed.

On the left, Livre party member Filipa Pinto questioned right-wing members over their previous opposition to marriage equality. Would they feel “comfortable about once again being on the wrong side of history, as they were when same-sex marriage was approved?” she asked.

“What wrong have trans and intersex people done to deserve being denied their existence?”

“There is no single reason for these changes, other than ideological obsession,” said another Livre member, Paulo Muacho, who asserted that trans people don’t need to be diagnosed by anyone, because being trans isn’t an illness.

“They don’t need doctors to tell them,” he said.

Socialist Party deputy Isabel Moreira lamented the turn in the tide away from democratic freedoms with the ascension of Chega and their allies.

“Fifteen years after the 2011 law” was passed, she said, “three parties in this house claim that transgender people should not have the autonomy to express their identity.”

“Democracy is being destroyed,” she said. “The playbook is well-known, and it comes from the far-right.” 

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