IN SOME 200 YEARS, Spain has gone from a country that imposed the death penalty for sodomy to one that legally recognizes same-sex couples. Most of this progress has taken place over the last thirty years, notably since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in the mid-1970’s. While the whole West was undergoing a “sexual revolution” during this period, Spain’s path to liberation was informed by its history as a Western country whose culture has been uniquely influenced by Islam.
The Middle Ages in Spain had the character of a chess game being played by Muslims and Christians fighting over the Iberian Peninsula. The traditional account tells us that Christian legal codes were very severe with respect to sodomy, while Muslim culture offered a more tolerant climate, one that even celebrated same-sex friendships (as in some Andalusian poetry). Since I’ll be discussing the issue of Islam and homosexuality presently, let us assume the accuracy of this account for the time being.
The 19th century saw the elimination of the death penalty for homosexual conduct (1822) and the decriminalization of homosexual acts, when a Napoleon-inspired penal code was implemented. Same-sex sexual encounters were no longer a felony, but neither was homosexuality legal. In cases of public scandal or abuse, penalties were piled on. Fast forward to the year 1954, when Franco revised the Vagrancy and Villainy Act of 1933 to include “people with homosexual tendencies” among those who could be arrested and in some cases committed to special institutions. In 1970, the Danger and Social Rehabilitation Act replaced the old law of 1933. Under the new text, those who committed homosexual acts were to be sent to rehabilitation camps. Between 1974 and 1975 alone, 152 people were committed under this law.
The death of Franco in 1975 did not bring immediate change. In 1979 the law was changed to remove homosexual acts from the Vagrancy and Villainy Act, but the latter was only abolished in 1995. Nevertheless, the new democratic state and the Constitution of 1978, which decriminalized homosexual acts, have brought significant changes to all aspects of Spanish life, including a general atmosphere of tolerance and the emergence of a robust gay and lesbian “scene” in the large cities.
A major legal development was the Penal Code of 1995, which includes “sexual orientation” as a category that enjoys broad protections. Article 510.1 reads: “Those who promote discrimination, hatred or violence against any group or association because of racism, anti-Semitism … sex, sexual orientation … will be punished.” This category is also included in the Code’s hate crimes provision (Article 22.4), which defines “aggravating circumstances … to commit the crime because of racism, anti-Semitism or … their sex or sexual orientation.” In addition, several laws have been implemented in different autonomous communities to assure equal rights to same-sex couples, in many cases granting rights that make the status of registered same-sex couples quite similar to that of married couples, except for adoption, which is still a quite controversial subject.
The gay rights movement began in Spain as a reaction to the news that a new, very repressive law was going to be approved in 1970. Two activists sent a letter (under a pseudonym) to the bishops who had seats in the Francoist congress urging them not to enact the law. Their plea was not heard, and the Danger and Social Rehabilitation Act was approved. Later, in 1972, a clandestine organization, the Agrupación Homófila para la Igualdad Sexual, was created in Barcelona. This group would eventually become the Movimiento Español de Liberación Homosexual. It published a newsletter that was printed in France for a time, and later—after protests from Spain’s ambassador to France—in Sweden. The group was renamed Front d’Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC) and in 1977 issued its first gay manifesto.
This manifesto is interesting because it reveals the peculiar position of gay people in Spain. Among its demands were: the abolition of the Danger and Social Rehabilitation Act; equality for men and women; sex education in schools; the right of people to dress as they liked; the right to personal intimacy; the separation of Church and State; an end to censorship; STD prevention efforts by the Social Security administration; the legalization of divorce; relaxation of laws covering contraceptives and abortion; an end to compulsory military service; and an end to discrimination against transgendered people. As these diverse demands indicate, the focus was on “unity of action with radical movements” in general. Gays and lesbians saw themselves as part of a larger political movement that was fighting to transform a dictatorship into a democracy. This approach deeply influenced the subsequent evolution of the gay movement.
As all these demands were gradually met, the movement inevitably lost its revolutionary character. The fight against AIDS gave a boost to gay organizations in the 1980’s and 90’s. In contrast to the sweeping concerns that animated the movement in the 70’s, however, the focus in more recent years has been on specific issues such as HIV prevention, discrimination in the Catholic Church, lesbian visibility, and domestic partnerships.
AMONG EUROPEAN countries, Spain presents a paradox because it is a Mediterranean country that has followed a political evolution closer to the identity politics model found in the Northern countries. And yet, unlike the situation in those countries, there does not seem to be a strong political movement or an established gay community in Spain, something that a number of Spanish gay and lesbian scholars (many of whom live and work abroad) have commented upon. Typically this absence of a cohesive gay community is attributed to the “Mediterranean” model of homosexuality. This idea, which can be traced back to travelers from the North in the Middle Ages, assumes that there is a large zone of liberty for homoerotic activity between males, but no such thing as a “homosexual identity” as such. (However, according to this view, those who display effeminate behavior and take the passive role in sex may be stigmatized and subjected to public opprobrium.)
I do agree with those authors who indicate that such a concept does not allow for the kind of political opposition or sense of community that exists, say, in the U.S. or Britain. However, I find quite suspect the attempt by some people to oppose this concept to an Anglo-Saxon “gay identity” model to explain the peculiarities of homosexual identities in Spain. This contrast, I believe, is based on a Western Orientalist view of Islam and a profound colonial ethos.
The Mediterranean model posits a “sotadic zone” that corresponds to regions that are or have been under the influence of Islam: Northern Africa, the Middle East, Sicily, and Spain. The claim is made that Muslim societies have historically been more tolerant of homosexual behavior than have Christian ones—but can this assertion be supported? The Prophet Mohammed condemned sodomy, as we can see, both in the Koran and in several hadiths. However, there is in Islam a general acceptance of sexuality as an integral part of human experience. This, along with the separation of men and women and the close friendships between men—which include far more physical contact than in Northern societies—may have led Northern Europeans to conclude that homosexuality was socially acceptable under Islam.
Another factor that must be taken into account is the colonial gaze, the class difference that existed between men with money who came down from the North and the young boys of the Mediterranean who offered themselves sexually. It’s one thing to engage in sex for money with a foreigner—someone who was not part of the social game and not about to change its rules—and quite another to form, say, a homosexual partnership with one’s compatriot. The first might be winked at even though the latter may be altogether unacceptable.
Since the whole concept of a “Mediterranean homosexuality” denies the possibility of a gay identity, and, so it seems, the pursuit of identity politics, only a closer look at the sociopolitical situation of Spain can explain how Spain did develop a gay rights movement. The evolution of modern legislation on gay issues can only be understood in the context of the transition to democracy in the 1970’s. Underpinning this transition is the fact that a person’s identity in Spain is not primarily shaped by race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation as it is in the U.S.—after all, the vast majority of Spaniards are white and formally Catholic—but instead by territorial ascription and by the language or dialect one speaks (Spanish, Catalan, Galician, or Basque). In such a setting, to create a separate gay identity would be problematical, because it would seem to deny these other sources of identity and create a class of individuals whose primary social links have been severed.
“Coming out,” which is considered in the U.S. the condition for the existence of a gay community, is viewed as a disruption of the social order, and the adoption of a permanent “gay persona” that must accompany the person in every situation is an alien notion. It is also problematical because it somehow goes against social etiquette in Spain, where sex is not part of public discourse. Perhaps this is rooted in the Catholic idea of private confession, wherein sex belongs to the realm of the private and the personal. This silence, which can be found in the absence of a scholarly tradition of discussing sexual matters, does not mean that homosexual desire is not acted upon, or even that it’s carried out only in private. It means that this desire is not readily turned into political arguments or proposals for society-wide solutions.
The lack of a gay public identity and a gay community in Spain has been seen as a problem by outsiders; but I wonder if these elements have been necessary in Spain. The strategy here has been quite a different one and, as we can see from its legal outcome, it has proven to be quite successful. This strategy has been the pursuit of legal reform within the larger context of democratization, and the creation of personal spaces within given territorial or linguistic identities. Shaping the transition to democracy was the idea that the country could get into a new civil war if it wasn’t careful, something to be avoided at all costs. For this reason, politicians and social organizations kept away from confrontational politics and went for broad expansions of rights that encompassed large swaths of Spanish society.
Since public expressions of a gay identity as such are rare, one might wonder if and when homosexual desire is expressed in public. In Spain there has been a gay subculture for a long time, as in every European country. There are gay organizations, community centers, bars and clubs, even some heavily gay neighborhoods (for instance, Chueca in Madrid or the so called “Gaixample” in Barcelona)—spaces where gay people get together, relate to each other, and have sex.
Nevertheless, the presence of individuals in such spaces does not necessarily imply that they see themselves as “gay” in other aspects of their lives. By the same token, expressions of homosexual desire in literature, especially in poetry—in Lorca, Gil de Biedma, Mesquida, and especially Cernuda and Gil-Albert—have coded and represented homosexual desire in their work, while, in the realm of popular culture, homosexual desire has expressed itself mainly in “camp” or, in Spanish, “pluma.” (There is a bird metaphor to describe gay people in many Hispanic countries: palomo cojo, pájaro, etc. The pluma or feather is part of that image.)
Some academics have criticized this indirect form of expression as a surrender to straight values and “heteronormativity.” What this misses is that the key concept in Spain is the balance between a private self and a public political discourse. The 1990’s saw an eruption of gay themes in literature, cinema, and even on TV,* as well as the implementation of laws that protect the human rights of gay people. But most gay Spaniards still abstain from living a public gay identity. Nevertheless, it would seem that the widespread adoption of a public gay identity was not necessary to get to where we are today.
* Movies such as Más que amor, frenesí by Albacete, Bardem, and Menkes (1996), Perdona, bonita, pero Lucas me quería a mí by Ayaso and Sabroso (1997), Amor de hombre by García Serrano and Iborra (1997), and Almejas y mejillones by Carne-vale (2000) take gay and transgender characters for granted, as they would do with any other character, and have been huge commercial successes.
Iñaki Tofiño, currently working on his dissertation on African literatures in Spanish, is a leader of Inclou, a group devoted to making Catalonia’s educational system safer for GLBT students.
