Never, the rights of any group as minority and as vulnerable as those of trans people and people queer They had found themselves in the middle of so much controversy within the political line that, a priori, is the guarantor of those rights. But for several years now, it is what has generated debate, tension and rejection both within the PSOE, and in the two coalitions that have followed each other since 2021 – first, with Unidas Podemos, now, with Sumar. On the one hand, the majority space, who remember that trans women are women, that their rights are human rights, and that the defense of these rights must increase the more vulnerable the groups are; and on the other, Although this law has already come into force and the public conversation seemed to have diminished, the last Socialist Congress, this weekend in Seville, has reopened it. In the presentation, an amendment presented by the Guadalajara delegation has been introduced so that “no male person can participate in the categories intended for women”, and the nomenclature for the group has been agreed upon as LGTBI, without the Q, and without the +.
The Q, in reality, was never there. which refers to people queer within the acronym of the LGTBIQ+ collective. In the Congress prior to this one, that of 2021, “thus, even if the Q was not there, it was understood that adding the + would include the rest of the identities of the group,” explain internal party sources. Even so, since then, both the organization and its specific general secretary have always used, on a day-to-day basis, LGTBI, without the “+”. In that presentation, the one from 2021, the group appeared up to 44 times throughout the text. : four LGTBI+, once LGTBI (without the +), and in point 261, three times LGTBIQ+. And although no one seems to know the origin of that Q in this last presentation – which several people call a “disaster” in relation to this -, some of these sources suggest that it was an issue introduced directly from Moncloa.
Víctor Gutiérrez, the LGTBI general secretary of the PSOE, re-elected in this Congress, explains that “what came to the debate in the presentation was whether or not to leave the + in LGTBI+, the Q had nothing to do with it. , so we wanted to align the party’s nomenclature with that of the Government, but the vote came out against it. But let no one doubt that we are going to work to guarantee the rights of all the acronyms of the group, so that everyone feels included and protected.”
Several people from the party assure that the decision that the “+” does not appear “does not represent the majority of the PSOE”, but that the group of feminists who were against it had been well organized and had the power to move that vote to their side. favor. After the vote, already at night, several attendees say that applause and cheers and shouts of “long live the women’s struggle” were heard for having left the “+” and also the Q out of the acronym.
That part of the PSOE that managed to swing the vote is “small”, and, it is no secret, it has been led by Carmen Calvo. Now and since tensions began in socialism after Pedro Sánchez handed over the Ministry of Equality to Unidas Podemos. That flag, historically socialist, then passed into the hands of Irene Montero and not only the political differences regarding that part of the group that is trans people, but also something that bubbled underneath, the tension generated by having lost the exclusivity of feminism in the political sphere.
The discrepancies, at first just discrepancies, grew until moments in which the coalition was on the verge of being endangered. And they also provoked. Now, that consonant is not just a consonant but part of a political positioning that since Montero left and the socialist Ana Redondo held the portfolio, that ministry no longer fractures the coalition, but the decisions of the PSOE along with its current partner, Sumar, do. and it does continue to “do harm” and “raise blisters” within socialism, say several of those party sources.
Another assures that “once the Q appears, no matter what, the message is that it is removed, not that it is not inserted. That represents a subtraction, and subtraction, as a political issue, is very strong.” There were other amendments to the presentation, which have not been approved, and which went much further, such as removing the T from the acronym of the group, which is the one that encompasses trans people, because “there were those who argued that it was anti-feminist and misogynistic and ultraliberal and atrocities in this sense,” says another source.
Víctor Gutiérrez, the LGTBI general secretary, has done so with something he posted on July 4. “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. The rights of trans people are human rights [Derechos Humanos]. The rights of trans people DO NOT undermine or curtail anyone’s rights. The rights of vulnerable groups and minorities DO NOT put at risk what has been achieved,” says that post.
The immediate rejection of groups and government allies
A message that LGTBIQ+ groups, organizations and different political personalities have been repeating for hours all this Sunday afternoon on different networks after learning what had happened during the Socialist Congress. ”The fight for rights cannot leave anyone behind. “You do not fight against the extreme right with the ideas of the extreme right,” he warned. And in that same network, the now Podemos MEP Irene Montero, promoter of the ley trans as Minister of Equality in the previous government of Pedro Sánchez: ”The PSOE has approved in its federal congress to defend the prohibition of the participation of trans women in women’s competitions. This is transphobia, trans women are women, whether they have a penis or a vagina.”
Montero, who rejects that this amendment can be presented from a feminist perspective, emphasizes that Human Right Watch considers that the sex tests carried out by some federations or sports organizations are “degrading practices” based on “arbitrary definitions of femininity and racial stereotypes.” ” and assures that the UN has also considered them unnecessary and humiliating. He has encouraged anyone who has doubts about this to inform themselves and not look the other way because “transphobia” in sport, he has warned, generates “transphobic violence” in other areas of life.
Más Madrid, through its spokesperson in the regional Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, has warned the PSOE that it “commits a serious mistake” by not carrying the acronym Q+ in the name of the group, something that it sees as “a step backwards” in the defense of the rights of the group solely “to please those who seek to exclude.”
A rejection that has also been immediate on the part of trans groups, who have expressed their indignation with the PSOE for having approved the amendment. The Trans Platform, which brings together the main trans groups, assures that the PSOE’s accusation of trans people represents a “perverse use” of feminism and has equated it “to when the extreme right criminalizes migrants as causes of delinquency”. “That a party that calls itself progressive falls into the same ideological frameworks of the extreme right, pointing out that we are the cause of social evil is something highly dangerous for democracy and the advancement of equality in our country,” lamented the platform’s president, Mar. Cambrollé.
The Platform of LGTBI Entities of Catalonia has also expressed its “strongest rejection” of the approved amendment, considering that this decision, “far from being a gesture of inclusion, represents a setback in the recognition of diverse identities and the progress achieved.” as a movement, with collective effort.” For the Platform, the acronym LGTBIQA+ “are not simple letters, they represent millions of people who have fought and continue to fight for their visibility, dignity and rights.” And he defends that changing this symbolic and political framework is “making these communities invisible” and dismantling decades of work in favor of equality and diversity. Furthermore, it emphasizes that this measure comes at a particularly worrying time, that is, when LGTBIQphobic attacks are growing and fundamental rights are being questioned on various political and social fronts.
