Background: This is part of the rewrite of the background text for the region specific lesbian travel guide. It focuses on lesbian intersections with the homosexual rights activist movement during the Felipe González government. As this was written, some info intended for this section got moved to previous sections already posted here. Kind of oops. Haven’t updated them. Anyway, trundling on…

Homosexual rights activism

With the post-Franco transition period having ushered in a period where homosexual rights could be openly addressed culturally and politically for extended periods of time, a situation was created where lesbians intersected much more with gay men on activist related issues and culturally than they did before.  Compared to some countries like the United States, these intersections were a decade to decades behind.  In regards to lesbian history, these intersections mean that, like on the issue of marriage equality, lesbians and gay men share at places a common history based on sexual orientation.

There were a number of attacks against lesbians and gays in San Sebastian in December 1983. EHGAM, EHGALT and the Asamblea de Mujeres de Donostia released a press release to condemn these attacks. The attacks included physical threats, insults, attempted assaults, physical aggression. Lesbian groups, feminist groups and gay rights groups had spoken to the provincial government of Gipuzkoa on at least four occasions to complain about the abuse, along with trying to talk to the mayor’s office. They also tried to file complaints with the Guardia Civil, with little follow-up being done in response. The press release was followed up by five days of protests and a demand to speak to the president of the province about the continuing harassment. Lesbians eventually abandoned EHGAM Navarra and EHGAM Guipúzcoa in 1985.

Organizations like Grupo de Acción por la Liberación Homosexual (GALHO) and Asamblea Gai de Madrid (AGAMA) were active in the early 1980s in Madrid.  Gay rights movement organizations, both organizations disappeared by late 1985 as the movement dealt with ideological rivalries and also personalities that tore it apart.

Spanish lesbian and gay political movements were all but extinct by the mid-1980s. A number of organizations had demobilized after accomplishing their goals in the transition period. Other organizations had internal crises that they could not overcome. The movement had also split, with different groups having competing political demands. Coordinadora de Frentes de Liberación Homosexual del Estado Español (COFLHEE), leader of one faction, focused on more traditional homosexual liberation, remaining outside politics and institutionalism. Coordinadora de Iniciativas Gais (CIG), was created in 1986, led the other faction. CIG supported moderated institutionalization and were more willing to engage in political activism.

While lesbians were working on their own political goals as women, the homosexual rights movement continued to work on their own issues in the 1980s. COFLHEE led on a number of issues. They too wanted to end discrimination, seeking support from unions, political parties and alternative movements like their own to accomplish that as legal loopholes for discrimination under the law also allowed for racial, religious and sex-based discrimination.

World-wide, in 1985, the lesbian and gay liberation movements were shocked by a renewed attack against them by the Vatican. This assault of lesbian and gays started around the same time as the Rock Hudson died of AIDS and the AIDS epidemic gained world-wide attention. As a consequence, the global movement began to frame their demands as part of a broader human rights campaign.

Spanish lesbian and gay political movements were all but extinct by the mid-1980s. A number of organizations had demobilized after accomplishing their goals in the transition period. Other organizations had internal crises that they could not overcome. The movement had also split, with different groups having competing political demands. Coordinadora de Frentes de Liberación Homosexual del Estado Español (COFLHEE), leader of one faction, focused on more traditional homosexual liberation, remaining outside politics and institutionalism. Coordinadora de Iniciativas Gais (CIG), was created in 1986, led the other faction. CIG supported moderated institutionalization and were more willing to engage in political activism.

COGAM was the largest homosexual rights organization in Madrid in the late 1980s, having been founded in following a meeting of Coordinadora de Frentes de Liberación Homosexual del Estado Español (COFLHEE) in 1985, founded in Chueca in 1988 and formally established in 1988. Mili Hernandez Garcia was the first lesbian to join the preceding organization, doing so in 1986.The group strived more towards moderation, and away from radical liberation philosophies characterized by a number of other homosexual rights activist groups in Madrid at the time. Around 1988 and to around 1990, COGAM organized a number of protests which CFLM members participated in.

World-wide, in 1985, the lesbian and gay liberation movements were shocked by a renewed attack against them by the Vatican. This assault of lesbian and gays started around the same time as the Rock Hudson died of AIDS and the AIDS epidemic gained world-wide attention. As a consequence, the global movement began to frame their demands as part of a broader human rights campaign.

Barcelona hosted the 7th International Gay Women and Men Association (IGA) European Conference from 27 December 1985 to 1 January 1986. It was organized by Front d’Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC) and included a demonstration on 1 January 1986. Topics at the conference included the issue of lesbians and gay men in the military, AIDs, homosexuality and the Catholic Church, and North-South cooperation. While lesbians were welcome at the meeting, by that point they had pretty much separated from the broader homosexual rights movement with only 10% of the participants being lesbians. Of that 10%, none were Spanish. While lesbians were welcome at the meeting, by that point they had pretty much separated from the broader homosexual rights movement with only 10% of the participants being lesbians. Of that 10%, none were Spanish. This was not a result of confrontations between the gay men’s community and the lesbian community, but rather that the lesbian community abandoned the homosexual rights community in favor of feminist militancy and the homosexual rights movement in Spain never made a concentrated effort to try to bring lesbian feminists back under the homosexual rights umbrella and replicate situations in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States where lesbians abandoned feminists to maintain relationships with gay men.

Spanish gays and lesbians began to work together again by 1986 to try to move forward to achieve broader LG rights and change societal views of them so that non-homosexuals did not need to fear them. This coincided with renewed activism tied into the global AIDS epidemic.

Reformist homosexual rights organizations in the late 1980s and early 1990s were often focused on the AIDS epidemic, the inaction of Spanish institutions as it related to both AIDS and other homosexual rights, and ending feelings of guilt around enjoying sex and sexuality. One of the issues with these types of organizations was they tended to view homosexuals as monolithic, and they were very exclusive on their subjects. This meant they excluded lesbians, transexuals and immigrant gay men.

Lambda Collective was founded in 1986 in Valencia. The group would be involved in various demonstrations every year advocating for gay and lesbian rights as part of their organizational activities.

Coordinadora de Iniciativas Gais was founded in 1986 as a state organization. The group came out of FAGC and was headed by Jordi Petit, and was the third major split from that organization.

Federació d’Associacions Coordinadora Gai Lesbiana (CGLC) was a gay and lesbian rights associated founded in the city in December 1986 by people formally associated with Front d’Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC). They soon started mobilizing to battle against HIV and AIDS. It was member of ILGA, with Jordi Petit serving as honoring president. The federation had several associations affiliated with it including Associació Cristiana de Gais i Lesbianes (ACGIL), Pandora, Diversitat & Discapacitat, Gais Positius, Grup d’Amics Gais (GAG), Grup Jove and Stop Sida.

Foro Permanente sobre Homosexualidad was founded in Córdoba in 1988 by Rafael Salazar Conde in 1989 for gays, lesbians, bisexuals.  Two years later, the organization was the launching point for the creation Asociación Colega, Confederación Española de Lesbianas, Gais, Bisexuales y Transexuales  (COLEGA); this group also included transsexuals. Both organizations, under Salazar’s leadership, specifically sought to highlight the work of lesbians who Salazar understood were doubly discriminated against. Rosa Ortega was one such lesbian to benefit from those programs. Activists who created the organization thought they needed a stronger organization to defend gay and lesbian rights in the city. The group had ties to Izquierda Unida.

Coordinadora Gay-Lesbiana de Cataluña was founded in Barcelona by Jordi Petit and by former militants of Front d’Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC) in December 1986, after Petit left FAGC because they were too busy debating the merits of becoming a state institution or whether they should tear down state institutions. Petit wanted to focus on providing care to gay men who had AIDS and preventing AIDS through things like condom distribution. The group’s purpose was to mobilize the LGB community to try to normalize homosexuality and obtain rights for LGB people. While it had a few lesbians attached to it, the group was almost entirely composed of gay men. By 1987, the group had begun to take action on HIV and AIDS related activism; almost all this work though focused on the needs of gay men to the exclusion of lesbians as people who could get HIV or AIDS. The federation was dissolved on 4 December 2013 after they were denied public funding from the Ministeri de la Sanitat and were unable to secure similar levels of private funding.

The Coordinadora d’Iniciatives Gais (CIG) published a denouncement of Margaret Thatcher’s recently passed Section 28 by the government of the United Kingdom that prohibited local governments from engaging in “promotion of homosexuality”, which had the impact of silencing many gay and lesbian organizations. The denouncement was made during a state visit by Thatcher to the country in 1988. A protest was held in front of the British embassy on 21 May 1988 by around 40 gay and lesbians against Thatcher’s clause 28.  Five representatives, one from each group present, chained themselves to the gates of the embassy.  Groups participating included CLFM and COGAM.

Coordinadora de Frentes de Liberación Homosexual del Estado Español (COFLHEE)’s last major effort on behalf of violence against lesbians was a campaign in 1989 with a motto of “Lesbiana, que no te discriminen” to let lesbians know that the Ley Antidiscriminatoria applied to them. It was also the last major campaign by lesbian feminists in the city, as movement subsequently shifted to focus on marriage equality.

Even when there were homosexual rights groups that were mixed sex during the 1980s, lesbians were always in a very clear minority. Gay men appeared largely okay with that, blaming the separation on the need for specific types of affirmation coming out of the dictatorship. Gay men sought affirmation in the macho culture of the dictatorship period and women sought to participate in spaces where they could seek assistance on sex specific rights. Jordi Petit was not, seeing the need to reconcile the two as important to the overall movement. He talked about the issue publicly a number of times in 1988.

During the late 1980s, the transvestite movement in Spain began to organize independently. This was explicitly linked to the rights of gay men and the defense of prostitution. At its inception, it did not have links to feminist communities, lesbian communities and lesbian feminist communities. It was only later that the two would begin to merge and take the form of Spanish queer feminism. One of the issues that lesbian feminists and radical feminists ran across starting in the late 1990s in dealing with these new activists and later queer feminists was and continue to deal with is the inability for queer feminists to define what a woman is.