Last month, the Spanish serial killer known as ‘the Angel of Death’ was moved into the women’s section of Puig de les Basses prison in Figueres, Spain. Joan Vila Dilmé is serving a 127-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2014 of eleven nursing home murders carried out between August 2009 and October 2010. Dilmé, dubbed the most prolific Spanish serial killer this century, now identifies as a woman and will be imprisoned in a facility that matches his “gender identity.”
Dilmé is not the first such case. Last year, a trans-identifying man accused of stabbing a 27-year-old to death in Reus was incarcerated in the women’s module of the Mas d’Enric penitentiary in Tarragona. As Reduxxreported on April 21, Pedro Jiménez García, a “violent criminal with an extensive record of sexual offenses has reportedly begun the process of ‘transitioning’ to ‘female’ while serving a 93-year sentence for the sadistic murder of two female police trainees.” He may soon be entitled to a transfer to a women’s prison.
These serial killers are taking advantage of Spain’s sweeping and revolutionary ‘Trans Law,’ which bears the clumsily Orwellian title “Law for the Real and Effective Equality of Trans People and for the Guarantee of the Rights of LGBTI People,” passed by Parliament in February 2023. According to that law, people can simply ‘identify’ as the opposite sex and change their legal documentation with an application to the Civil Registry and a single personal appearance.
Once this process is completed, confirmation of a new gender identity arrives after three months—nothing else required—for anyone over the age of 16. Previously, legally changing sex on formal documents had required an official gender dysphoria diagnosis and two years of medical treatment. In one fell swoop, Spain became one of the most trans-captured countries; although twelve European countries have ‘self-identification’ laws, only Malta and Iceland compare for permissiveness.
