- The senator warns that, compared to those who believe that progress is consolidated, the reality in Madrid and Valencia demonstrates the opposite.
- Antonelli defines the attack on the LGTBIQ+ group as a “zero cost” strategy to hide cuts in health and education.
- He describes the exclusion of trans women in competitions where they have never won a medal as “absolute scandal” and “preventive war.”
Carla Antonelli, first trans senator of Spain and undisputed reference of the LGTBIQ+ struggle, receives Rainbow Magazine to analyze a current situation marked by legislative involution in communities such as Madrid and Valencia. With the firmness of someone who knows the sewers of politics well, Antonelli warns that what was thought to be “tied and well tied” today runs a real risk of disappearance. In this talk, he dissects how the targeting of trans people functions as “the magician’s trick”: a screen to hide the enrichment of a few and the dismantling of public services, while launching a message of resistance to a youth who “always face to face” must defend their right to exist in freedom.
During the meeting, the senator does not hesitate to describe “insult to intelligence” sentences that minimize hatred, pointing out the urgent need to protect these rights in the Constitution for those judges who “they need to be drawn with machanguitos”. Carla also addresses the “absolute scandal” of the trans exclusion in sport, a measure that she calls a “preventive war” against a non-existent reality, since no trans woman has ever won an Olympic medal. With an eye toward the future, he demands a youth that “always face to face” must occupy all the spaces of this plural society.
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Rainbow Magazine: Thank you very much for receiving Rainbow Magazine; We are very happy to be able to do an interview with you.
C: It is a pleasure, a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you so much.
Rainbow Magazine: What are the priorities of the struggle and political movement to defend the trans community and, in general, the LGTBIQ+ community?
C: Well, I can tell you that many at this moment. That is, a star does not only have one point, but it has many. Right now we find ourselves in a situation that requires us to continue moving forward, of course. The horizon is there; In terms of rights, full and real equality needs to be achieved. But, at the same time, we are also seeing that what was thought to be “tied and well tied”—as a dictator in this country said a few years ago—is not so well tied.
We are verifying this in autonomous communities such as Madrid, which has repealed part of the Comprehensive Trans Law and the LGTBIQ+; It has been seen in Valencia as well, but with other regulations, and with the Democratic Memory Law, which has been repealed and changed by one called “Concord Law”. The Law of Concordia equates the coup plotters and multiple murderers with the victims; that is, perpetrators with victims. Therefore, it is a real insult. So, at this moment, we find ourselves in the task of continuing to defend and advance, but, at the same time, grasping these rights that we had already achieved.
Rainbow Magazine: Why do you think it is so difficult for society to empathize with the human rights of trans people or the collective, taking into account the context of hate crimes and that it continues to be a very vulnerable group in general, both here in Europe and in Latin American countries?
C: Yes, because we must recognize that both the right and the extreme right have done a great job; a task that has really arrived, has made an impact and has worked. There is a maxim that is: point out, focus and direct hate at a group of people. In this case, we have been especially the LGTBIQ+ group and, even more especially, trans people. In some way, you can bring together a group of the population and there you already have a certain series of votes.
It should be noted, at the same time, that this is nothing more than a smokescreen; a smoke screen to cover their own shame and their own misery. In reality, we are not the target in itself of the extreme right, nor of the right, nor of the ultra-radical Catholics. If only we were their target! This smokescreen covers their true and important interests, such as the dismantling of public health, public education or the massive layoffs that are being seen in the United States and Argentina. In Argentina you can see the enrichment of Milei, those around him and his family.
In reality, when news comes that they are taking away rights from the LGTBIQ+ community, they get zero-cost headlines. For a political organization this is super interesting: your campaign will have practically free dissemination because it attracts media attention. This has also happened here in Spain with the implementation of the Comprehensive Trans Law. Some also radical ladies—the “terf”—even pointed out those people who were against the law and the way to make fraudulent use of it.
What happened? That the media (some public and open television) paraded a series of military gentlemen who told how to defraud that law itself in order, from that message, to try to say that the law should be repealed. Imagine that all the laws that were used fraudulently were repealed: there would simply not be a single law in place. What justice has to do is pursue and punish those who make fraudulent use of the rules. In the gender violence law there are 0.01% of false complaints, is that why are we going to repeal it? Obviously not; What needs to be pursued is the people who make fraudulent use of them.
In short, we are a very sweet target in the sense that a screen is created. This is like the magician’s trick: a magician is doing a trick with his left hand and you are seeing that hand, but really the other hand—the one you haven’t noticed—is where he is doing the magic itself. And the “magic” of the indecency of this mob is precisely everything I mentioned above: making the richest richer, changing public healthcare and education for private… Here only those who have money will survive; Those who don’t will stay at the door of the hospital and die due to the impassiveness of those inside because the law does not allow them to care for them.
Rainbow Magazine: You are a reference in the fight for rights. After so many years occupying a place in formal politics, what is your message to youth in this context?
C: Always straight ahead. We fell and we get up again; This has been so for ever and ever. We have not come here for anything, not even to take steps backwards. The task has been arduous and the fight very intense. We have managed to occupy all the spaces—or practically all—of this society. Precisely, what the other party does not want is this visibility, because visibility has been our greatest and most powerful tool.
They want to intimidate us, they want to put us back inside the closets, because “normality” is nothing other than what is repeated many times on a daily basis; When this happens, there is social acceptance. That is why, since the dawn of time, they have tried to prevent any awareness of our existence, because that would lead to respect and coexistence. Let us never forget: they live by focusing hatred on other people and by having their boots on other people’s necks. The day this society is plural, diverse and the differences are respected (which should enrich us and not distance us), that day they will run out of the real beach bar.
Rainbow Magazine: I consult you about the bill to include the crime of hate and protect it in the Constitution. What is your position on this?
C: I think that everything that makes discrimination even more explicit is necessary. Technically, our Constitution—like the majority—already guarantees it, but it seems that there are ideologically not very convinced judges who need it spelled out for them so that they can understand it better. We are encountering sentences where insulting you or calling you a “faggot” seems not to be a hate crime.
There have even been sentences appealed before higher courts that have called to order judges who implemented rulings that were an insult to intelligence. See the case of one of the guys from “All Impress Abogados” who suffered an attack, insults and humiliation in Valencia; The judge ruled that it was not a hate crime based on sexual orientation. They elevated it and the Superior Court’s reprimand of that judge was monumental. Therefore, are these laws necessary? Yeah.
Rainbow Magazine: Regarding the decision to eliminate trans people from the Olympic competitions, what is your opinion?
C: It seems like an absolute scandal to me. It’s not just me; The Minister of Education of Spain and also France have spoken. This has been a complete reversal due to opportunism by the new president of the IOC to address a political agenda of exclusion and discrimination of the “terf” movement.
Why are you going to make a rule of “preventive war” – like that of Aznar, Bush and Blair – towards something that has never happened? Throughout the entire history of the Olympic Games, no trans woman has ever won an Olympic medal. Not one. How are you going to make a rule for something that hasn’t happened? The target is trans women because there is a lot of misogyny; They don’t talk about trans men. The only trans person to have won a medal is a non-binary trans girl who was in the Australian football club and who was forced to compete as a woman with the sex assigned at birth.
On Spanish Television, from time to time, some “terf” sneaks in and they put images saying: “This image will never be repeated again; no trans woman will be able to win a medal.” But the image they put up was of a non-binary trans girl. There has never been a trans woman winning a medal.
In Cantabria a rule was approved (thanks to the PP and Vox) to prevent trans women from competing in elite sports. Do you know how many elite trans women there are in Cantabria? Zero. They make rules for something that doesn’t exist. They are smoke policies to point out a group. Fortunately, right-thinking minds have spoken out, such as very interesting articles by professors in El País. It is a regression that will also affect many non-trans women: intersex and cis women who have nothing to do with trans women. It’s a setback. Before, testosterone levels were monitored and it worked well. As one trans member of the IOC said in 2015: “Trans people can compete in the Olympics as long as we don’t win.”
Rainbow Magazine: Recently, on Trans Visibility Day, RTVE screened Benita’s documentary with very good repercussions. What do you think about visibility in important media?
C: It is absolutely necessary. Visibility has been our great tool since the dawn of time. We are here because we were visible; “today” is a product of what was created “yesterday”, and what happens today will be the future of tomorrow.
I would like to make a point about Spanish Radio Television and its director, José Pablo López. I don’t doubt your commitment; I know it reliably. What happens is that, in all places, people end up entering who try to send messages that harm the group. But RTVE’s general line is absolutely “friendly.” We have seen it with Benita’s documentary, with other documentaries, on the news and in the annual Pride broadcast.
This seems to outrage other forces, such as Telemadrid. When José Pablo López was director there, there was a small sliver of freedom until Mrs. Ayuso arrived, fired the director, changed the network and turned it into an absolute “No-Do” pamphlet. They no longer broadcast Pride even as a joke.
