Spain’s most prolific serial killer of this century is now housed in a women’s prison. Joan Vila Dilmé — serving a 127-year sentence for eleven nursing home murders between 2009 and 2010 — was transferred last month to the women’s section of Puig de les Basses prison in Figueres after declaring a female gender identity under Spain’s 2023 Trans Law.
The Trans Law allows any person over 16 to change their legal gender documentation by submitting an application to the Civil Registry and making a single personal appearance. After a three-month wait — with no medical diagnosis or treatment required — the new gender identity is confirmed. Prison officials are then obligated to transfer inmates to facilities matching their declared identity.
Dilmé is not an isolated case. A trans-identifying man accused of stabbing a 27-year-old to death in Reus was incarcerated in a women’s module after his arrest. Pedro Jiménez García — serving a 93-year sentence for the sadistic murder of two female police trainees — has begun the legal gender-change process in prison and may soon be entitled to a transfer. A Basque police officer who tried to kill his wife and daughters in front of his children in 2024 legally changed his gender to female.
In 2023, a trans-identifying male inmate impregnated a female prisoner after being transferred to a women’s facility in Alicante. In multiple cases, male domestic abusers have changed their legal gender and then requested access to the women’s shelters housing the wives and children who fled from them. In one case, a sexual assault victim had her official protection order removed because her assailant was now legally classified as a woman.
The women now sharing a cell block with Spain’s most prolific murderer were not consulted about this arrangement.