Oppressive radicalism against LGBTIQ+ groups experience in Madrid

I have been living in Madrid for a year now, since I came to study a master’s degree in clinical psychology. As a good student in such an expensive city I started looking for a job in bars for the weekends and I was lucky enough to find this bar thanks to some friends. I suppose that like all of us who are part of the LGTBIQ+ collective, at first I denied that I belonged to it. Being so few references and examples around me and being a teenager I never had the courage to accept my sexual orientation and embrace a group where I could find support and absolute acceptance. Thanks to finding this space in Madrid, I am in a bubble that consists of a totally safe place where all of us misfits raised in more rural, conservative or backward circles belong. In short, from places where there was a radicalization of a minority supported by a majority complicity of those who said nothing.
I think one of the main reasons why most LGTBIQ+ people have a late adolescence and don’t live it like the rest of society is because of the resistance felt by the rest.

There is a use of language with a lot of weight for LGTBI people, since from a young age we hear and use words referring to sexual orientations and dissident gender identities to use them as derogatory adjectives. We grow up hearing words with which we would like to define ourselves to talk about weak, cowardly people or to ridicule them. In that context, the reaction of the environment, especially in the adolescent period, makes it very difficult to show oneself as oneself. Having grown up surrounded by oppressive and ridiculing language and seeing that the vast majority make unconscious use of that language or even being aware of its seriousness act with indifference, a whole invisible social web is created that binds hands and feet to such a dissident person.

All this context has a clear result: an isolated group is generated. There is a need to escape to an oasis in which to feel freedom, security and respect. But it also feeds a vicious circle. The isolation of the LGTB community in a bubble generates a ghetto effect feeding the ignorance of the rest of society and radicalizing the position of those uncomfortable with “otherness”. The lack of understanding and knowledge of the different ones pushing them away generates a more polarized and more defensive society as we are witnessing today in social networks, for example. And social networks are nothing more than an even more radicalized example of society itself as they have a component of anonymity and impunity as a result.

Gala, 26 years old, a friend of mine and partner in “El 12 Club” suffers like no one else this radicalism on a daily basis for the simple fact of being a transsexual woman. Thanks to small but insufficient advances in society, the street harassment she suffers is not as aggressive as in the past, but in the case of social networks it reaches unsuspected levels. His difficulties in developing affective/romantic relationships are constant and in the anonymity of the networks he has come to suffer very aggressive situations of rejection. She has gone from a friendly and complicit conversation to receiving disgusting insults for the fact of confessing her transsexuality, which she feels obliged to warn and justify because of the reactions she has received throughout her life.

We are facing a somewhat frightening social situation for the future as the polarizing effect of social networks adds fuel to the fire of LGTBIphobic radicalization. There is no doubt that a society that knows and mingles with those who are different is richer in values and respectful of the rights of others. And as long as we are moving towards a more individualistic and distrustful society, the outcome is not the most optimistic.

Irune (Participante)