Identities, Sexualities and Commemorations: Pride Parades, Public Space and Sexual Dissidence
Begonya Enguix
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, benguix@uoc.edu
ABSTRACT
In this article, we will approach the mechanisms used for entitlement and the way in which public space has been reappropriated and resignified by sexual dissidents as a space for vindication, visibilization and commemoration. We will do so through the analysis of the LGTB Pride Parades in Spain - Madrid Pride in particular - and through an analysis of the relationship between territorialisation, communities (shared identities) and political activism. The use of public space as a specific locus for entitlement and commemoration has only been possible in Spain since democracy was restored and, therefore, it is politically meaningful. LGTB Pride Parades marching through central streets do not only occupy, but 'produce' space and identities. They constitute a privileged field for the analysis of the mechanisms through which sexual diversity manifests and expresses social and subjective identities which are intertwined with discourses and counter-discourses that can be traced through the participation (or absence) from the event, through the strategies of representation displayed and through the narratives about this event. This work is based on systematic observation of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Madrid parades and on the observation of 2007 and 2008 Barcelona parades. We have also undertaken in-depth interviews with members of the organisation of Madrid Pride and Barcelona Pride 2009. It is preceded by intensive fieldwork on the gay community carried out intermittently from 1990 to the present day.
KEYWORDS: sexual identities, representation, public space, politics, consumerism
'Sex and the city'
The visibility of sexual dissidence has historically and intrinsically been linked to urban settings. From the Renaissance enclaves in Italy to the modern Castro or Chueca, sexual dissidents have found a perfect setting in cities. Modern, multicultural, anonymous cities are contexts of the use, production and manifestation of sexual identities through the configuration of urban areas (ghettoes or gay villages) (topography for Aldrich (2004)),
ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTEBOOKS 15 (2): 15-33. ISSN 1408-032X
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through the visibilisation of sexual and gendered identities in Pride Parades and other 'occasions' (Aldrich 2004) and through organisations.
Madrid Pride, the basis of our analysis, is one of the many celebrations that are held annually across the world to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion - the spontaneous, violent reaction by gay men and lesbians in New York City in 1969 to one of the arbitrary police raids on bars, common at that time. These riots mark the emblematic beginning of the contemporary gay and lesbian rights movement.
Pride Parades symbolise 'the shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, from gay community to gay culture nationally' (Herdt and Boxer 1992: 11). Bringing the community from stigma to pride, turning homosexuals into gays, Pride Parades are symbolically efficient, and demonstrate and generate power through social mobilization. They are annual arenas of queer public culture, where embodied notions of subjectivity are sold, enacted, transgressed and debated (Johnston 2005). Bell and Valentine, editors of Mapping Desire (1995), the first book to explore sexualities from a geographical perspective, consider that gay Pride Parades do not simply (or uncontestedly) inscribe streets as queer, but they actively produce queer streets. Valentine goes further when she argues that, 'Pride marches also achieve much more than just visibility, they also challenge the production of everyday spaces as heterosexual' (in Johnston 2005: 56-57). Without any doubt, parades 'queer' streets as marchers go by: but in the case of Spanish parades, the streets occupied are so central, from a symbolically and geographical point of view, that a single parade is not enough to permanently challenge the space or produce a new perspective on it. In this sense, Spanish paraders marching through the city centres are different from marchers in Auckland and Sydney, where parades march within the gay 'ghettoes' (Johnston 2005).
This process of 'queering streets', be it in a more permanent or in a more transitory way, is increasingly and paradoxically becoming an enormous attraction for tourists, as parades have turned into major spectacles for homo- and heterosexual consumption and are advertised by travel agencies; this is the case with Sydney's Mardi Gras or Madrid Pride. In fact, Madrid Pride has become in the popular imagination the most important festive occasion of the city.
More permanently, the establishment of 'villages' is recognized to play a fundamental role in this process, although not all venues have a visible presence within the city:
While some appear cynical about the way gay culture has been commodified and represented in places like West Hollywood, Castro in San Francisco or Canal Street in Manchester, for many others these are spaces which play an important role in staking a visible claim to full sexual citizenship. these often centre on an upper-class, white notion of cosmopolitanism and sexual openness (Hubbard 2001: 61).
Space, then, plays an active role in the constitution and reproduction of social identities '...and vice versa, social identities, meanings and relations are recognised as produced in material and symbolic or metaphorical spaces' (Valentine 2002: 146; van Ingen, 2003). Territorialisation is also understood as a strategy of control (Myslik, in Whisman
1996), a confirmation of 'double life' (Anabitarte 1979) or a place to express one's self with authenticity:
... the authenticity discourse.... positions the scene as somewhere that queer subjects can 'be themselves' echoing the gay liberation discourse of the late 20th century. This may be important for young lesbians, bisexuals and gay men, who can use the spaces of the scene as somewhere to 'make their identities' in a culture that is still often hostile to queer sexualities. Given the dominance of the 'heterosexual assumption'. and the risks involved in transgressing this assumption in everyday places, it is important for young queers subjects to have both discursive and material spaces in which to articulate identity (Holt and Griffin 2003: 418).
Following the authenticity argument, Eribon (2000), Hubbard (2001), Villaamil (2004) and Guasch (2006), consider that homophobia is fundamental to understanding the construction of distinct identities and the subsequent need to create particular social and symbolic spaces of interaction.
In Spain, we know of the existence of specific meeting places in the 1930s, but it was in the 1970s and, especially in the 1980s, when they became foremost, outshining other contexts for homosexual relationships. The gay scene has experienced spectacular growth in recent years, apart from to above mentioned diversification of functions. In particular, in Chueca, the gay district in Madrid, the growth of premises started in 1989 and intensified enormously between 1997 and 1999, when premises doubled. This indicates the slow beginning and the sudden, very recent character of the phenomenon (Villaamil 2004: 77).
For Giorgi, 'in making gay people visible, Chueca epitomizes the new democratic Spain. The social life and public practices of the gay community are at the same time symbols for the nation's political stance' (2002: 60). However, these processes of spatial concentration are questioned by some authors. The fairly recent development of the gay village can be understood as a contemporary manifestation of a longer historical relationship between modern gay identities and capitalist development (D'Emilio 1990). A corollary development has been a shift in the understanding of lesbian and gay identities as matters of taste and lifestyle rather than political identities or erotic cultures (Rooke 2007: 240).
Considerations that 'the forging of identities through the economic and political colonisation of territorial spaces (and the related creation of gay-identified places) is much facilitated by class, racial and gender privilege' (Knopp, in Valentine 2002) have broadened the terms of the debate. Holt and Griffin (2003: 421) also stress this point:
The historical need to construct lesbian and gay authenticity are fused in queer consumerism, as lesbians and gay men are encouraged to express their 'true selves' through clothing, food and drink, going out, music and home decor.
The fact is that most authors indicate that gay bars in the 50s and 60s 'paved the way for the emergence of a mass gay movement at the end of the 1960s' (Weeks 1985)1
although the relationship between communities and activism is complex: 'gay and lesbian political activism both sustains and fragments gay community' and 'it is more accurate to think in terms of multiple community rather than a unified lesbian and gay community' (Taylor, Kaminsky and Dougan 2002: 100-111).
Johnston introduces tourism into the debate on community-identity-consumption. In her opinion,
... cities have become international sites of queer tourism. In many western cities, queer residential and commercial zones have become increasingly visible and attract a diverse public. Part of the visibility can be attributed to the success of gay rights movements and the economic recognition of the 'queer market. Due to gay pride, the changing politics of sexuality have meant that there is and increasing commercialisation and commodification of queer lifestyles (2005: 100).
As we will see, these debates on commercialization, authenticity and ghettification, tourism and style, are reproduced in the emic and etic discourses on the Pride Parades. They are examples of the importance of space for the production of sexualised and gendered identities, for producing and allowing visibility, for producing 'communities' and for incorporating complex relations of hegemony/resistance as de Certeau points out (Skeggs et al. 2004).
Diving into History: a brief introduction
Pride Parades are closely linked to political activism and are based on two themes: 'proud to be gay' and 'coming out', both challenging established conceptions on sex, gender, and sexuality. It is generally assumed that there have been three generations in political activism (Nicolas 1976; Petit and Pineda, 2008). The first includes the German Scientific-Humanitarian Committee founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1897, which was ended by the Nazis (Altman 2002; Nicolas 1976). The second includes the Mattachine Society, founded in 1951, and its feminine counterpart, Daughters ofBilitis, explicitly founded as an alternative to the bar culture (Taylor, Kaminsky and Dougan 2002: 106). This second generation was labelled as 'homophile movement' and it turned to assimilationist positions over the years.
The third generation is centred on Stonewall and the foundation of the Gay Liberation Front in 1969, paralleled at the time in most Western countries (France, Great Britain, Spain, Argentina, etc). Stonewall, the mythic starting point of modern activism, was not an isolated response to oppression: the movements of the 1960s - the civil rights, the New Left, and women's movement - set the stage for the transformation of the gay movement (Taylor, Kaminsky and Dougan 2002: 106) and 'black militants provided a model of an oppressed minority that transformed their 'stigma' into a source of pride and strength'
For Weeks (1985) three elements have come together in the modern gay consciousness: a struggle for identity, a development of sexual communities and the growth of political movements. All three are necessary to the other.
(Duberman et al. 1990: 466). The theme 'proud to be gay' was revolutionary as it transferred the stigma from the individual homosexual to the bigoted opposition (Burns 1983), which made possible the Gay Pride Parades (now LGTB Pride Parades).2
Stonewall stressed the importance of 'coming out' and gave birth to a mass movement. In June 1970, for the first time 5,000 people marched in New York to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion. By the mid-1970s, the yearly marches in several cities were 'larger than any other political demonstrations since the decline of the civil rights and antiwar movements' (Duberman 1990: 466).
In Spain, the first gay organisation was the Movimiento Español de Liberación Homosexual, founded in Barcelona. In 1975, after Franco's death and the restoration of a democratic regime, this clandestine organisation became the Front d'Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC), thus paralleling international Gay Liberation Fronts. From 1977 onward, gay groups flourished all over the country and the FAGC was legalized in 1980.3 The first Pride Parades in Spain took place in Barcelona in 1977 (26th June), with 5,000 participants, and in Madrid, Bilbao and Seville in 1978. Barcelona's demonstration was organized by the FAGC (Front d'Alliberament Gai de Catalunya) and Madrid's demonstration (7,000 people) was organized by FLHOC (Frente de Liberación Homosexual de Castilla) (Trujillo 2008). In 1979, there were demonstrations in the main Spanish cities (Bilbao, Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid). After the de-criminalization of homosexuals in 1978 (when legal prosecution ended) and the legalization of the FAGC, 'associations are empty and discos and bars are full' (Petit and Pineda 2008: 195): participation decayed strongly and was not until 1997 that participation again reached 5,000. From that moment on, the increase in numbers is steady: in 2001, 150,000 people took part in Madrid's Parade; in 2007, when Madrid hosted the Europride, there were 1,500,000 participants and in 2008 there were 1,100,000 participants according to data provided from the organisation committee led by COGAM (Colectivo de lesbianas, gays, transexualesy bisexuales de Madrid). By contrast, about 5,000 people attended the parade in Barcelona, the second largest city in the country, and the city with a longest and more deeply established tradition of LGTB associations. In 2008, apart from Madrid, there were Parades in Valencia, Barcelona, the Canary Islands, Torremolinos, Palma and Zaragoza, all around the 28th June (except the Canary Islands, where the parades are in May) to allow participation in the State Demonstration in Madrid (5th July).4
According to Villaamil (2004), in 2000 Gay Pride became Gay and Lesbian Pride, and in 2001 transsexuals and bisexuals were added to the definition. That very long name was changed to the acronym LGTB.
Some referential texts on the Spanish context are Pérez Cánovas (1996), Mirabet i Mulol (1984), Monferrer (2003), Ugarte (2008) and the web page of Unidad Didactica Sobre Homosexualidad http://fundaciontriangulo.es/educacion/dossier1998/e_historia.htm (Retrieved July13, 2008).
The decision to celebrate Madrid Pride on 5th July was taken in the National Meeting of LGTB Associations and has been very controversial, to the point that on 28th June there was an alternative demonstration in Plaza Mayor as an act of protest towards what is considered as COGAM and FELGTB's control and monopolization of the event. COGAM has now around 520 affiliates and is the biggest LGTB association in the country.
Madrid is Proud: Madrid Orgullo (Mado 2008)
Pride Parades are inversion rituals (Turner 1988) based on visibility that break the frontier between the public and the private through theatre and transgression (Cruces, 1998). Thus, social meanings are challenged, destabilized, subverted. In the case of sexual dissidents, participation can also become a liminal step, the crossing of a border.
They are also a privileged context of interaction between dissidents and straights and are probably the only social occasion in which this interaction is explicit as participants hold control of their means of visibilisation.
Johnston (2005), in a reference book on Pride Parades, explains how in 1996 the Hero parade in Auckland, due to political and public pressure, was moved from Queen Street, a very central space where all other parades took place, to Ponsonby Street, in the gay district. It was considered by authorities a 'public offense', although, in Johnston's opinion 'what was really debated at the April Council meeting was not behaviour at the Hero parade but homosexuality itself' (ibid.: 85). This not only meant to be 'back to the closet' (ibid.: 89), but also a great income for bars and other venues. But for her, 'a gay Pride Parade along Ponsonby Road became less of a political statement about gay rights and more about a night of entertainment' (ibid.: 96). Sydney's Mardi Gras runs in the gay district as well.
The itinerary followed by the parade is, therefore, a significant element to analyse the relevance and the social visibilisation through the occupation of the urban public space. And in this sense, the case of Spain is different from Johnston's cases, as we have stated. If the itineraries of parades -and therefore social visibilisation - can be taken as an indicator of the integration of sexual dissidence in everyday life, in that case, we should assume that integration in a country where same sex marriage became legal in 2005 is very high. All the parades we know march along very central streets and in Madrid the Parade does not march across the gay area of the city, Chueca, but along its borders, occupying a very central part of the city, from Puerta de Alcalá to Plaza de España. However, this has not always been so.
The organisation of the Pride Parade is carried out by COGAM, FELGTB and AEGAL (Asociación de Empresas y Profesionales para Gays y Lesbianas de Madrid y su Comunidad). COGAM is an association, FELGTB is the federation of Spanish LGTB Associations, and AEGAL is a business-related organisation.5 These three organisations name three people each to constitute the 28J Pride Comission in charge of organizing all Pride activitiess and events. The organisation of the social and political activities is centred in the LGTB associations (COGAMand FELGTB), and the festive part (concerts, bars in Chueca and party on 5th July eve) is run by AEGAL, although all three organisations collaborate. The route is proposed to the City Council and the Delegación del Gobierno (the government authorities) by the organizing associations of the State LGTB Demonstration (its official name), COGAM and the FELGBT.6
AEGAL members own approximately 55 bars and ludic premises and 14 other businesses like Shangay and Zero (gay magazines).
The Federación Estatal de lesbianas, gays, transexuales y bisexuales (FELGTB) created in 1992 coordinates LGTB associationism in Spain with a federal structure. It coordinates more than 30 associations all over the country and with COGAM, organizes the Mado. Until 2007, it was FELGT. For more information see http://www.felgt.org.
Before 1995, the route was almost 'clandestine' (Villaamil 2004), but finished in a central place, such as Puerta del Sol. In 1995, COGAM proposed a new itinerary that was accepted by the governing institutions. Several strategies were adopted to occupy space in case the number of participants was scarce: enormous rainbow flags (up to 50 meters) were displayed and balloons were generously used.
From 1995 to 2003, the parade marched from Puerta de Alcalá to Puerta del Sol, occupying a very central, geographically and symbolically, part of the city. In 2005, when same-sex marriage was legally accepted in Spain, high participation was expected and the governing institutions made a last-minute change of itinerary. In 2004, the parade marched from Puerta de Alcala-Callao and in 2007-2008 it was extended to Plaza de España, because of the amount of participants.
In 1996, floats sponsored by LGTB-related businesses participated for the first time in the parade, opening a debate over the commercialisation of the event. After that year, the number of participants was doubled, and in five years it multiplied 20 times (ibid.). The extensive participation in Madrid's Parade is also a very recent phenomenon.
In 2008, out of the 30 floats that participated, 16 were identified as clearly related to the LGTB community (bars, websites, saunas, hairdressers etc.). The initiative to participate arose from the premises themselves, inspired by international parades and as a means to gain publicity and to entertain. The organizing committee accepts or denies the proposals, based on their connection with the LGTB community (bars that have participated for years and whose owners are connected to the associations have priority).
On COGAM s website,7 there are some significant instructions for floats: sponsorship cannot use more than 30% of the available surface and sponsorship is not accepted if sponsors are manifestly contrary to the equality of LGTB. Floats must be aware that they are marching in the LGTB Pride, so they are asked to include in their decoration 'references to the topic (rainbow flags, pink triangles, etc) and they must avoid looking like a Carnival float'. COGAM and FELGTB can ban a float if the sponsor activities or has acted purposely against their interests.
The slogan is decided in the State Meeting of LGTB associations. The year 2007 was the 'Trans' year, while 2008 was centred on lesbians with the slogan 'Por la Visibilidad Lésbica' (For Lesbian Visibility).8
Ideally, we can talk about a formal, structured part of the Parade (institutions, associations, trade unions and political parties) and an informal, more spontaneous and less politically explicit section of the parade that starts with the floats. The parade is opened by the heading banner followed by LGTB personalities, politicians and trade unionists (in 2008, the recently named Minister of Equality participated). After this banner, come the LGTB associations that belong to the FELGTB, with COGAMfirst. Then, other associations and NGOs (Amnesty International and three others); trade unions; political parties and then the most informal part of the march starts with the first floats. All the 'official' banner slogans are supposed to be related to the main slogan of the event.
See http:// www.cogam.es.
This slogan headed all Spanish demonstrations except Barcelona's whose participants marched under the slogan 'Against Heteropatriarchy'.
This is the ideal structure. Nevertheless, the fact is that some unexpected organisations appeared and some individuals or small groups carried uncontrolled banners. Even some unexpected floats or dressed-up cars participated in the 2008 parade. As total control is not pursued and is impossible, spontaneity takes its place. As the parade moves, the fiesta eventually overcomes the task of vindication. So, in some sense, we can talk about Madrid's Pride Parade as a process moving along a continuum between officialitas (formal control) and communitas (Turner 1988), and along another continuum formed by vindication and fiesta.9 The relationship among these extreme positions is complex, as they intersect each other and do not generate stable compositions. Those compositions do not depend only on the interactions among organisation and participants, but on interactions between participants and viewers.
In 2008, the first banner took 45 minutes to march through the route, but three hours later the floats were still passing (the march lasted approximately four hours). Nevertheless, if something is really astonishing about this parade is the interaction with viewers, something that clearly distinguishes the parade in Madrid from the parades analysed by Johnston, where separation of audience and marchers is used for this author to establish a relationship between different dichotomies (in/out; private/public; body/ mind; gay/heterosexual and so on) (Johnston 2005: 98). Spectators constantly enter the march to dance or sing with participants (except for the first three or four banners, which are more formal), to ask them for presents (many floats carry merchandise to give away) or to share a drink. Frontiers are thus diluted, rainbow flags are all over the place, in and out, and coexistence in a particular space at a particular time, explicitly and sexually marked, paradoxically does not become a clear index of one's identity. Some elements - balloons, whistles - are used to create this symbolic link between in and out. Enormous colourful balloons thrown from the floats serve the purpose of enhancing play: spectators and participants throw the balloons to one another, establishing a playful link that dilutes frontiers between participants/audience.
Participants in associations generally wear a T-shirt of the same colour to visibilise their belonging to a group. For the first time, in 2008 COGAM's T-shirts were of different colours (those of the rainbow), what made identification more difficult despite uniformity in the slogan: 'I am a lesbian, too'. This uniformisation aimed to remind people of the political nature of the event and to transmit a sense of unity. Though devoted to lesbian visibility, the march in 2008 did not seem to have higher female participation than in other years. The participants' average age was 30-40 and the male majority was overwhelming, especially in the floats.
Pierce's concept of index (Kerrell 1992) can be useful for the analysis of the parade. The Pride Parade is the context of 'self-controlled self-presentation' and social visibilisation of a 'community' that is generally not easily defined or identified. Indexes and symbols produce 'thick' images that refer to, confirm, challenge and subvert social and self conceptions on identity.
9
The fiesta is stressed through the stages set on streets on the Parade's Route. In 2008 'Hot' a bar, and Gula Gula had go-go dancers and music on their stage.
Among the indexes of LGTB community, drag and leather (already documented for Chicago in the 1970s) were and still are especially notorious (Kerrell 1992). But control, proud control over the representation and not just adscription converts these stereotypical images into powerful and challenging mechanisms that question sex and gender binarism. However, one has to be an expert to read these representations, as their effect on an inexperienced audience can be exactly the contrary of that desired, i.e. the reinforcement of stereotypical figures. They can evoke subversion, as Judith Butler's words clearly indicate, by expliciting the performative nature of gender constructs:
The repetition of heterosexual constructs within sexual cultures both gay and straight may well be the inevitable site of the denaturalization and mobilization of gender categories... gay is to straight not as copy is to original but rather, as copy is to copy. The parodic repetition of 'the original'... reveals the original to be nothing other than a parody of the idea of the natural and the original (Butler 1990: 41).
However, they can also evoke social reproduction and the inevitability of stereotyped social ascriptions that become, this way, inscribed in bodies and naturalized, inescapable:
... those performing masculinity are therefore constructs and constructors of symbolic orders; simultaneously productive and produced, loci of action and participants of interaction, they may perpetuate and/or resist hegemonic social arrangements (Brickell 2005: 37).
Thus the debates in the gay community about the appropriate way to express vindication and to show oneself in a context of controlled and overt interaction have been and are constant. As the context produced by parades is so sexually marked, the inclusion in them is interpreted as one's belonging to a definite group.
Kerrell says that the importance of these indexes had decayed by 1987 in Chicago and now the goals are not confrontation but assimilation, presenting the gay community 'as composed of families, of churches and sport leagues, of clubs and professional associations, of everything about normative society except simply sexual behavior' (1992: 233). In Madrid's Parade, all strategies of presentation (drag and leather, families and sport leagues) coexist. And there is another model, bears, that is also ubiquitous. The presence of drag and leather is not equalled at all in other Spanish demonstrations, where the impression of average everyday presentation, the 'respectable model' (Guasch 2006: 19) is predominant.
James Fernández (in Cruces 1998: 233) sees in demonstrations an 'argument of images'. Those images are suggested by specific objects (T-shirts), colour symbolisms, verbal expressions, key symbolic actions (entering and exiting a wardrobe, as in Barcelona Pride), spatial configurations, and bodies. Gay and lesbian consumers who wear identity-explicit T-shirts ('I am gay, so what?') are employing consumer commodities appropriated into new contexts 'to express opposition or refusal in an expression of resistance (not
consumer resistance) that employs consumption signifiers' (Kates and Belk 2001: 401). These authors think that one can resist the dominant culture through consumption (a distinctive consumption), or can resist consumption itself. Both strategies are present in Pride celebrations, being the former linked to the use of specific signifiers of sexual and/or gender identity (particular commodities). Resistance to consumption is a key element in understanding the narratives that condemn commercialisation in Pride and other LGTB manifestations.
The most powerful and evoking image is the rainbow flag. Although in Barcelona's parade there were pink flags and pink triangles as well, in Madrid the presence of rainbow flags was overwhelming. The flags were smaller than years ago because participation is enormous. Apart from rainbow flags, the presence of national symbols (mainly flags) was very abundant, be it the Spanish flag or the Catalan Autonomous Community flag. Colour balloons were also launched. All these elements that are carried, worn, shouted, or played with become gay signifiers and turn invisible individuals into explicitly visible communities.
But Mado (Madrid Orgullo) not only consisst of Madrid's parade. It includes a Cultural Festival, Visible, also organized by COGAM and ludic activities centred in Chueca, whose streets are adorned and marked with hanging rainbow flags by AEGAL. The area 'occupied' by flags increases every year. In 2008, it was limited by Hortaleza, Libertad, Infantas and Augusto Figueroa Streets). Bars in the area place their bars on the streets, they are crowded day and night, and four stages are set in plazas, with several performances per day. Three or four years ago, it was difficult to get well-known artists to perform in Chueca: nowadays, the demands exceed the possibilities. Changes are rapid and recent. Years ago, the Council did not even allow entrepreneurs to stop traffic in the streets affected, but nowadays, streets are pedestrian during these days. The 28J commission organizes these acts, with prevalence of the entrepreneurial part, although COGAM is in charge of managing all kind of permissions with the Council and is subsidized for the organisation of an event that mobilizes an enormous number of people and generates great income to the city. This is another argument to consider for those whose critique of the Pride is based on the increased commercialisation of the event, a process that is not particular of Madrid, but is generalized to other countries. In fact, once the streets were adorned with flags with a commercial trademark, which was heavily criticised.
Moving on: paradox and contradiction10
The Parade and the Pride activities can easily be labelled as ambiguous and paradoxical, political and festive. Madrid Pride exemplifies to an unknown extent the three main debates that cross-cut identity politics in the country: the debate over visibility (public/ private and publicisation of 'private' bodies) and the means of representation (what to show, why to show, how to show); the debate over the commercialisation and commodification of identities, and the debate over vindication, all of them closely related.
10
Absurd and Paradox are, for Turner, elements that reinforce social regularity. Temporal illicit extravagant behaviour is welcome, and rituals of inversion include both aspects (1988: 180).
After years of prosecution, condemnation by legal and religious institutions, stigmatization and social rejection, the situation of many sexual dissidents has changed since the restoration of democracy in Spain. Nowadays, some public institutions have specific programs on protection of their rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, and the Socialist Party, now governing Spain, promoted and established the legalization of same sex marriage in 2005. None of these achievements would have been possible without the sometimes silent and hidden work of individuals, associations, institutions and scholars. But, as in the 1980s, when after the legalization of associations, the bars became full and the associations empty, now many gays and lesbians think, 'There is not much left to do. We can even get married. What else can we ask for?' These discourses are related with advanced consumer capitalist economies where 'the concept of individual choice tends to depoliticize whatever it touches' (Whisman 1996: 23). From associations, though, things are not seen in the same way: 'much is still to be done to combat homophobia (in schools, at work) and be able to become just a full citizen in social -not legal- life'; 'There is still much to do, but people are not aware'. So, should Pride celebrations be a fiesf to celebrate LGTB rights and show that one is proud? Is Pride still a protest, as sexual rights cannot be separated from social and global change? Whisman expresses this dilemma very well:
The dilemma expresses the crucial divide in lesbian and gay politics at present. On the one hand, is a minority-model approach that seeks equality and civil remedies for a (presumably clearly defined) homosexual minority in a world dominated by a heterosexual majority... they neither have nor see the need for a radical and critical analysis of the underlying structure of the society that oppresses them. On the other hand, are a number of so far only loosely connected approaches that are highly critical of the underlying structures of sexuality, gender, and family that characterize contemporary Western societies (1996: 23).
The intrinsic paradox in identity politics has long existed and has been discussed by many authors (Bourdieu 2005; Lloyd 2005; Messner 1997; Whisman 1996). Dialectics between identity - i.e. differentiation - and assimilation are extremely complex. The gay movement itself, in the US and in Spain, has been moving along the varying edges of assimilationism (appealing now to in-born or naturalized conditions as Hirschfeld or to Human Rights) and deep questioning of sex and gender scripts from a revolutionary stance.
Besides, sexual politics have to face another challenge: they are locked in an 'antinomy of symbolic domination', rebelling against a 'socially imposed categorization' but necessarily 'organized in a category constructed according to that categorization. (in spite of, for example, combating for a new sexual order in which distinctions between different sexual status did not matter)'(Bourdieu 2005: 145).
These dialectics can be used rather than resolved, as Sedgwick proposes (in Whisman 1996: 123) or just decentred. Eribon (2000: 36), for example, refuses to choose between those who fight for same-sex marriage and those who claim their right to difference and marginality, as both must exist.
In Spain, these tensions between assimilation and more radical stances can be traced through the participation or exclusion from the 'official' Pride Parades and/or the organisation of 'alternative' parades. LGTB activists in organizing associations (mostly labelled as 'assimilationist'), consider that these alternative groups 'just protest; they do not work for equality day-by-day, nor have educational programs.
This tension refers to the dichotomy between vindication and fiesta and the question of which element should prevail in Pride performances and can be traced through nomination. Definitions to refer to the parade include terms like parade (cabalgata, desfile), show and demonstration (manifestación). Personal narratives of informants stress one or other terms depending on their context and their ideological position: activists emphasise vindication and political consciousness, thus preferring the term demonstration to the term parade. The tension can also be traced in the most politically explicit moments of the celebration (the opening speech and the manifesto, which is read at the end of the Parade). The opening speech is proclaimed in a festive atmosphere by national celebrities (film stars, pop singers, etc.) and years ago, the Manifesto was also read by celebrities. However, to face the critiques and stress the political character of the act, from 2000 in Madrid the Manifesto is read by active members of the LGTB movement.
In Madrid Pride, this debate is stronger because this city concentrates the presence of festive elements and floats, of drag and leather, the biggest number of participants and viewers (not paralleled by any other city). In all cases, but particularly in Madrid, personal narratives and scheduled events move along the continuum formed along protest and vindication on the one end, and fiesta, on the other. But, fiesta and vindication do not necessarily have to be exclusive, especially if we consider that participation in the parade can be interpreted as a meaningful political act itself, independently of one's position in the parade (be one dressed in casual wear behind a banner, be one dressed with a glitter g-string on a float). However, some personal narratives are based on this opposition, and consider protest and fiesta incompatible.
In clear contrast with Madrid, in Barcelona Pride, where 5,000 people attended the march in 2008, discourses emphasize vindication over fiesta and some radical groups participate. There were no floats, just marching bodies mostly in casual wear. There was some drag and leather but as individual performances, not as a group performance that can refer to a community (as in Madrid). Nevertheless, in 2009 the Association ofCatalan Businessmen (ACEGAL) is undertaking the organisation of Pride events with the intention of turning Barcelona into the gay capital of the Mediterranean and mirroring Madrid. The Parade will incorporate floats and music.
The convenience of making what is private public for political purposes through a 'theatrical instrumentalisation of the private for public aims' is closely related to visibility (coming out) and the means used for representation: 'Why do we need a Gay Pride Day? We should be visible every single day and then, maybe, we would be taken seriously' (Cruces 1998: 230).
When asked about Pride celebrations, all the narratives of our informants consider the correct model of representation, how the community should present itself. This
debate is closely linked to conceptions on protest or fiesta. Those stressing protest adopt a casual wear to give a sense of normality in order to achieve social legitimation; those who stress fiesta in their narratives are more prone to exhibition and spectacular clothes. Thus, many of our informants agree with Kerrell in considering that 'if you want to make it a political statement, I don't think there's a place for drag and leather. If it's just to have fun, be yourself, then fine' (1992: 244). In fact, Skeggs (1999: 228) thinks that public visibility is a trap for sexual dissidents, as it is based upon acceptance of certain compromise, especially in representation.
The organisation of the first Pride Parade in Seville this year is a very recent and excellent example to illustrate this debate. Very recently, Seville's Council contacted with COLEGA (a LGTB association nation-based with a delegation in Seville) to promote a new and more spectacular Pride in the Andalusian capital. Institutions proposed the participation of 16 floats, music and other forms of entertainment. Colega, critical of this kind of celebration, has refused to take part and its president, has declared:
Not all homosexuals identify themselves with gays in g-strings on a float. This stereotyped image damages the social normalization of thousands of gays who live their sexuality naturally, without making of it the centre of their lives, and who day-to-day try to live as any other citizen in our villages and cities without any exhibition. It is not an adequate image to convince that part of society that still does not accept diversity and can only see provocation and stereotypes. How can many gays explain to their parents that they are not like the ones shown on TV?11
Many narratives stress this very same point: 'It would be equally stupid if women showed their breasts and provoked people as sexual objects who presume of their femininity on the Women's Liberation Day'; 'This image is frivolous and makes us seem like clowns'. They also question public funding of these events: 'Everybody can do what they want and dress as they like. But not with the money I pay for taxes. My money should not be used for stereotyping us', and the importance of giving an appropriate image of a community. 'The problem is not how we or they dress; the problem is that they are supposed to represent the community; in fact, media always show images of shaved, and tanned gays who wear bras and feathers'. The idea that there is a uniformed and universalized category - the homosexual - which should be expressed through determined and 'politically correct' ways to achieve full citizenship is widely spread at all levels (audience, participants, media).
Similar narratives can be found at a global scale: for example, Sarah Brown, co-founder of the Transfeminist TransLondon Group has declared that if she marches in the Pride Parade 'I will be the lesbian woman I am, not a group parody'.12
His statement was published on the web page http://www.ambienteg.com/integracion/colega-contra-el-modelo-de-orgullo-gay-que-organiza-el-ayuntamiento-de-sevilla (Retrieved May 30, 2009).
This statement was published on the web page http://drupal.aldehuela.eu/taxonomy/term/17 (Retrieved May 30, 2009).
We must take into consideration, though, that
Just as heterosexuality is not reduced to a single norm with its recurring representation in MTV's variety of Spring Break specials and coverage of overt sexual display at Mardi Gras celebrations, homosexuality at gay Pride Parades may be thought of as contextualized within that moment. The displays of homosexuality are conventions that occur within a particular moment and do not represent homosexuality as a whole and may not even represent the lives of those who engage in these displays at pride events (Clarkson 2008: 380).
Deconstruction of universalized categories and of the need to offer a sense of unity through 'appropriate' ('politically correct') re-presentation is facilitated by the availability of queer discourses of denaturalization and anti-essentialism: this is why some participants and audience construct the performance in terms of subversion and/or transgression (even though representations lay on stereotyped elements which refer to the traditional sex/gender system) whereas others - closer to social ascriptions - stress the spectacular and the stereotypical elements (media included). These stereotypical and extreme presentations are generally interpreted as the inevitable outcome of socially ascribed identities (such as the effeminacy in the case of drag) because social discourses on sex, gender and sexuality can be deeply internalized. Therefore, depending on the knowledge and availability of discourses, corporeal styles can be read as the signs of 'true' immutable identities linked to specific sexualities with no place for play or performance by some participants, audience and media.
For example, in the case of drag, many informants are angered by the effeminacy displayed and just pretend 'to look as normal guys... thus returning feminine gay men to a closet of symbolic annihilation' (Clarkson 2008: 380). In fact, records which stress the most spectacular and extreme performances - media included - just forget the most formal sections of the march and, in the case of Madrid, they just centre on the second part of the march, the most festive one dominated by the floats. The increasing spectacularisation of the event is starting to outshine the vindicative origin of the march.
In contrast, some informants agree with Eribon and consider that '... it is a special day so we can do special things; we have 364 more days in a year to show that we are just normal people' or stress that '... even though those in disguise are a minority if compared to us, they have the same rights as we do to dress as they like' (2000: 34). He considers that:
... the lesbian and Gay Pride is a festive parade celebrated once a year and people who participate have the right to enjoy and dress in disguise! I am more damaged by the obligation that homosexuals have to justify the image they transmit. Would anybody say that Rio Carnival or Lido shows transmit a bad image of heterosexuality?
Nevertheless, the question of re-presentation (of oneself, of one's identity, of the community) remains an important question among our informants and is not just a matter of obligation to be justified.
Claims for 'regular appearance' also refer, in some narratives, to 'invisibility' in everyday life, as 'it favours passing so nobody knows we are gay'. But the same double-effect can be produced by disguise, which favours spectacularity but also anonymity to the participant in a context covered by all media (although not shown on TV as New Zealand and Sydney's Parades).
Gay political correctness and the image of perfect and muscled young men is also debated in personal and scholar narratives. Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion take Grosse to highlight how glorification of physical beauty, body building and youth tend to perpetuate the ways of social marginalization that oppress most homosexuals in mainstream heterosexual culture (Grosse 2002). In the gay districts, fashion, the cult of youth, beauty and masculinity refer to modalities of exclusion of what lies outside those norms (Eribon, in Grosse 2002). This can be seen in the Pride Parades that are like 'Tenerife Carnival: an exhibition of bodies, some, that I neither like nor consider appropriate'.13
The increasing commercialism of sexual identities and Pride Parades and the role of consumption in the making of queer space is also debated (Kates and Belk, 2001; Valentine 2002; Rooke 2007; Holt and Griffin 2003; Taylor, Kaminsky and Dougan 2002; Binnie and Skeggs 2004). The centrality of consumption in queer contemporary culture (Valentine 2002), its role as an identity spine and the high benefits provided by the pink euro are key elements for the articulation of different discourses on authenticity/ghetto, and for the articulation of strategies of commodification of entrepreneurial interests and political interests. In this sense, Madrid Pride can be read as a paradigmatic example. As we have stated, three organisations participate in the organisation of the activities, one being entrepreneurial, and the other two LGTB identity-based associations. Their relationship is not always fluid, as is shown in the constant splits and legal pursues that have coloured that 'marriage' in the last years. A clear example is offered by the Europride. In 2005, an entrepreneur of the FSM group14 (apparently opposed to the AEGAL group), registered the trademark Europride (thus anticipating Madrid's celebration in 2007) and the rights of use in Spain. The European Pride Organizers Association (EPOA) had not registered the trademark in Spain, which made it possible for FSM, which does not belong to EPOA (AEGAL does), to obtain the rights to it. In the end, the case had to be solved in court.
Some narratives are highly dichotomic and oppose consumption to the 'true' meanings of the day. The commercialisation of LGTB issues is supposed to entitle the depoliticisation of the Pride Parade and of the 'official' associations:
The organizing associations are taking benefit out of the 'cause', stressing consumerism and dissolving the revolutionary spirit of Stonewall. LGTB issues are
13
References to the Carnival (and masquerade), studied by Bakhtin, have become inevitable for contemporary parading: even COGAM had to advice floats 'not to look like a Carnival Float' as we stated.
14
This entrepreneurial group owns gay and non-gay premises and organizes, on the same dates that Pride is celebrated, the parties Infinita, addressed to the LGTB community.
political, and many of us die every year so there is more to it that some chaps dancing on a lorry' (Kates and Belk 2001: 418).
Madrid is a candidate city to host the 2016 Olympic Games and, taking advantage of it, AEGAL wants to organize the World Pride event that year (Madrid hosted the Europride in 2007): 'That is what the 28th of June is for these people: business'. In the Canary Islands, an activist has also criticised the 2009 Pride (which has already taken place), because 'the activities promoted just pretend to advertise Tenerife as a gay tourist destination and have nothing to do with the fight for equality':15 'Pride Parades today mean 'enormous income for bars, hotels and manipulation in media; nothing to do with vindication'.
However, on the entrepreneurial side, the discourses are completely different: 'Things are like this now; nothing can be done without the LGTB businesses; they (the associations) need us and we need them; we want to promote Barcelona as a gay tourist destination, as the gay capital of the Mediterranean and, at the same time, we collaborate with associations in campaigning against the expansion of HIV-AIDS, for example; we are part of them and work together, but, as we are businessmen, it is normal we want to make some profit on it: is there any businessmen in the world that does not want to make profit?'
The discourse of some activists is similar: 'What can we do? That is the way things are. There are businessmen - related to us, who campaign with us - and there are merchants. We just try to collaborate with the first ones, generally militants and conscious people whereas "merchants" just look for economic gain'.
As we commented, debates about commercialisation and consumption of identities do not exclusively refer to the Pride organisation, but pervade everything related to LGTB expressions. The gay market and gay topics are, apart from being an enormous tourist attraction, a huge source of income. The rainbow has been an inspiration for the commercialisation of all kinds of objects (keyrings, bracelets, necklaces etc,), and bars and hotels get enormous benefits. Madrid Pride attracts a number of participants and visitors absolutely unparalleled by other cities (in Madrid 2008 there were 1,100,000 participants, in Tenerife 2009 there were 60,000 and Barcelona expects 50,000 participants for Pride 2009). Visitors are mostly gay tourists looking for enjoyment (Spaniards and foreigners) and, in this sense, we cannot assume Johnston's affirmation that Pride is increasingly becoming a 'spectacle for heterosexual consumption' (2005).
And again, what is paradoxical does not necessarily have to be contradictory: gay consumption can also be seen as reinforcing the community and although consumption is opposed to the 'true' meanings, as Fiske pointed out, fun and pleasure are not necessarily incompatible with political and oppositional sentiments (Kates and Belk 2001: 422). In fact, 'conspicuous consumption during Lesbian and Gay Pride Day may be a politically dubious activity but... this same display and show of market power may actually result in the social legitimization of the gay and lesbian community' (Kates and Belk 2001: 392).
This critique was published on the web page http://drupal.aldehuela.eu/content/protestas-contra-la-instrumentalizacion-mercantil-del-dia-del-orgullo-gay-por-parte-del-las.
Seville and Barcelona 2009 tell us much about what was labelled by a LGTB businessman as a 'necessary and convenient marriage', despite contestation by many informants and associations. In these cities, the 2009 Pride will be different from previous years with the incorporation of institutions (Seville) or of business-based associations (Barcelona).
As we have seen, voices are heard that question the limits between a festive identity celebration and a political demonstration (Villaamil 2004: 80) and that question the representativeness (and ways of representation) of participants in the event. Spectacularisation of the event sometimes hides vindication, and media just focus on this image; the commercialisation of identities is on stage.
All this speaks about a young but consolidated process of increasing visibilisation of sexual difference in urban settings through the establishment of gay 'villages' and organisations but specially through presentation and interactions during Pride Week. Despite paradoxical presentations, contradictions inherent to identity politics, despite the always complicated relationship between gay liberation and entrepreneurial projects, and the moving and changing limits of spatial and symbolic frontiers, populations and definitions, Madrid Pride moves on. Spanish Pride moves on. The direction of the movement is still a mystery.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Miguel Brox (COGAM), who has provided us with documentation, constant assistance and talk on Madrid Pride. We also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers that have made very helpful suggestions to improve our work. All translations in the article belong to the author and all sentences between inverted commas and without a bibliographical reference refer to literal quotations from selected informants.
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POVZETEK
Članek raziskuje mehanizme, s katerimi spolni disidenti utemeljujejo načine, na katerega si prisvajajo in uporabljajo javni prostor za upravičevanje svojega načina življenja, povečevanje svoje vidnosti in komemoracijo. Te mehanizme smo preučevali na primeru LGTB parad ponosa v Španiji in še posebej madridske parade, pa tudi prek analize odnosa med teritorializacijo, skupnostmi (skupnimi identitetami) in političnim aktivizmom. Uporaba javnega prostora, kot posebne lokacije za upravičevanje in komemoracijo, je v Španiji postala mogoča in politično smiselna šele po vzpostavitvi demokracije. LGTB parade ponosa, ki korakajo po glavnih ulicah, ne le zasedajo, ampak tudi 'proizvajajo' prostor in identitete. Predstavljajo privilegirano polje za analizo mehanizmov, skozi katere se izraža spolne raznolikosti ter socialne in subjektivne identitete, ki jih povezujejo diskurzi in proti-diskurzi, izraženi z udeleževanjem dogodka (ali odsotnostjo) in skozi strategije reprezentacije ter naracije o tem dogodku. Analiza temelji na sistematičnem opazovanju madridske parade ponosa v letih 2006, 2007 in 2008 ter barcelonske parade ponosa leta 2007 in 2008. Izvedli smo tudi poglobljene intervjuje z organizatorji madridske in barcelonske parade ponosa 2009, vse skupaj pa temelji na intenzivnem terenskem delu med gejevsko skupnostjo, ki je v intervalih potekalo od leta 1990 do danes.
KLJUČNE BESEDE: spolne identitete, reprezentacija, javni prostor, politika, potrošništvo
CORRESPONDENCE: BEGONYAENGUIX, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Estudis d'Humanitats, Av. Tibidabo 39-43, 08035 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: benguix@uoc.edu.