Interweaving #27 - Skylar Bergeron on Queer Liberation, Fascism, and Antifascism in Spain

Demonstration in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol in support of the victims of Francoism. (Photo courtesy of Ayla Schnier)

In this episode of Interweaving, host John Collins speaks with Skylar Bergeron, author of three recent Weave News articles about the Chueca neighborhood in Madrid, Spain, a point of intersection for numerous political and cultural struggles. In addition to exploring the tensions between pinkwashing and queer liberation, they explore the increasing presence of fascism in the US and Spain and the importance of coalition building for resisting far-right attacks on “gender ideology.”

Featured in this episode:

Skylar Bergeron articles for “Weaving the Streets” series
https://www.weavenews.org/stories/2021/12/8/chueca-between-rainbow-capitalism-and-fascism
https://www.weavenews.org/stories/2022/1/28/chueca-looking-beyond-left-vs-right
https://www.weavenews.org/stories/2022/3/30/chueca-a-complex-site-of-struggle 

Skylar Bergeron on Twitter
@sky_bergeron 

Chueca neighborhood (Madrid, Spain)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chueca

Far-right march in Chueca (September 2021)
https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-09-20/neo-nazi-march-against-lgbtq-community-in-madrid-raises-alarm-over-growing-homophobia.html

UGT (Spanish trade union) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni%C3%B3n_General_de_Trabajadores

Orgullo Crítico
https://twitter.com/orgcriticomad?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/orgullocriticomadrid/

La Pluma
https://lapluma.noblogs.org/?fbclid=IwAR1kBfdxXm93tjGQOpkTCw_cm8uiO41a63tnHtjpCFoBoXd-GMPmNVg7K-c
https://twitter.com/CSOTLaPluma

Berkana Bookstore (Madrid, Spain)
https://www.libreriaberkana.com/

Mary Read bookstore (Madrid, Spain)
https://maryread.es/ 

Umberto Eco on the 14 characteristics of “Ur-Fascism”
https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html

Proposed law on trans identity
https://english.elpais.com/news/2021-06-30/spain-takes-giant-step-towards-gender-self-identification.htmlhttps://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/ley-trans-reconoce-derecho-autodeterminacion-genero-camino-congreso_1_9120781.html 

AP report on Spanish government approval of Trans Law (6/27/2022)
https://apnews.com/article/spain-gay-rights-madrid-government-and-politics-0eeb5b9fba7c78a458326bcfbe871222 

Apoyo Nestor
https://absolucionnestor.wordpress.com/acerca-de/

Transcript

John Collins: Welcome to Interweaving! I'm John Collins. You can find me on Twitter @djleftover and you can find Weave News on Twitter @weavenews and on Instagram @weavenewsnow. June is Pride Month, and alongside the usual celebrations and other events, we're also seeing more public debate about how corporations are seeking to leverage Pride for profit. Even more ominously, we're living through a political moment when far-right groups around the world are increasingly targeting LGBTQ+ communities with discrimination, threats, and violence. In the recent elections in the Spanish province of Andalucía, the far-right party Vox increased its number of seats in the regional parliament from 14 to 16 - not the victory its supporters had hoped for and its detractors had feared, but still an indication of how homophobia and transphobia have found their way into mainstream Spanish politics.

To discuss these and other issues, we're very happy to welcome Skylar Bergeron to the program today. Skylar's a contributing author here at Weave News and is also serving as our Editorial Coordinator intern this summer, working with us on a range of exciting grassroots journalism projects. Skylar, welcome to the program!

Skylar Bergeron: Hi, thanks! Thanks for having me.

So for our listeners, just a bit of background here. Skylar wrote a set of three articles about Madrid, Spain, for a Weave News series called Weaving the Streets, which focuses on uses of public space and struggles over public space. So can you tell us why you decided to focus your attention on the neighborhood of Chueca and what drew you to look at that neighborhood through a critical lens?

So my interest in Chueca stemmed more than anything from curiosity and just this desire to explore as much of Madrid as possible while I was living there. And so it was sort of a neighborhood that I just stumbled upon in my exploration of the city. But as time went on, I learned more about its history and how it's Madrid's historic gay neighborhood, it's pretty famous, and figured there'd be a lot of history to uncover there.

I had heard or read somewhere about a right-wing march or demonstration that took place in Chueca in September of 2021 where members of different far-right groups, including Vox, marched on Chueca. They wore gear with swastikas on them and hate symbols, chanted homophobic slurs, I think at least one person was physically assaulted during this March. My observations of Chueca as this place that's really colorful and a space for celebration and pride, in contrast with this pretty shocking instance of violence, was really interesting to me.

And that stood out as needing deeper analysis to explain that sort of disconnect. And I also was taking a class during my time in Madrid about Spanish politics and history. And so that sort of peaked my interest about Spain's multiparty system and their role in these sort of cultural phenomena.

So you mentioned in your articles that Chueca is a major tourist attraction, which means that it's a big source of revenue for Spain, especially during Pride Month. But you also noted that many people are critical of the way that queerness is being commodified. Even the New York Times recently hosted an event to discuss the issue of what activists have sometimes called "pinkwashing." Can you say more about the idea of pinkwashing and why it's so important to talk about it these days?

Yeah so pinkwashing, which is also known as rainbow capitalism, represents basically the commercialization of queerness, and especially of Pride, and the co-optation of queerness by mostly corporations. So corporations or even political groups or parties will produce, for example, Pride themed merchandise like clothing or they will change their logo to a rainbow flag during the month of June, which is Pride Month, to demonstrate that they're progressive, inclusive, and that they support LGBTQ+ rights.

But then there's the question of, do they actually support LGBTQ+ organizations, legislation, etc., do they actually, you know, donate money or back progressive legislation? In terms of Madrid and Chueca specifically, Madrid Pride is actually the largest Pride celebration in Europe. So it draws in a lot of people, as well as millions of euros every single year. And it's associated with fun, rainbows, you know, sort of these cliche ideas about "love is love" and this more commercialized idea of pride. But as many activist groups have pointed out, Pride was not intended to be a profitable event or a spectacle. It was rooted in transgression and finding agency under severe oppression.

So clearly there are some contradictions built into this idea of pinkwashing, and people are beginning to notice those contradictions. We're recording during Pride Month. What have you been seeing on social media, during this year's Pride Month, in terms of discussions and debates about this idea of pinkwashing?

So I had previously learned about what pinkwashing was through my undergraduate courses. And I had only really heard about it being discussed in academia. I'm pretty active on social media. And during this Pride Month in 2022, I've noticed an increase in infographics and memes and just social media posts in general, addressing this idea of pinkwashing. And that's something that I hadn't really seen much of before. Even more mainstream media outlets, such as the New York Times and others, are publishing stories or podcast episodes about this concept, which I think is really interesting and speaks to the idea that maybe there is sort of a sea change occurring. But that's not to say that just because people are recognizing pinkwashing is happening means that these other issues like actual violence are going to stop right away.

Yeah, there's clearly some change in public discourse, and that's true transnationally on social media and clearly from what you reported on, it's also true in Spain. There have been critiques of the way that capitalism has tried to leverage Pride for its own purposes. And when it comes to the broader politics surrounding queerness, one of the hot button issues in Spain recently has been a proposed law addressing trans identities. I wanted to ask you, what's your reading of the debate in Spain surrounding that particular law?

So for those who don't know, the new "Ley Trans," or trans law, which was proposed last year in 2021, would allow Spaniards to change their sex on government issued identification documents without first having to be diagnosed with, for example, gender dysphoria, or go through hormonal treatment. So Spain already has a law addressing trans identity, which was passed in 2007. So currently trans folks are allowed to change their sex on their IDs, but only if they jump through a bunch of hoops first. In other words, under the current law, trans people's gender identities are only recognized by the government if they conform to certain expectations of what that gender identity looks like in terms of their appearance and how they present themselves in society.

So this new law would give all individuals true autonomy over expressing their gender identity, which could potentially lead to the government recognizing under law those who don't necessarily conform to those expectations. For example, those who don't pass as their gender, which is to say that someone who identifies as a woman might not conform aesthetically to the dominant expectations of what a woman looks like.

This is why Ley Trans is so controversial, but also so progressive. Because it demonstrates how a democratic and progressive society like Spain does have the power to uphold dominant and often harmful power structures like patriarchy and heteronormativity by having the power to recognize people's identities only if they conform to certain expectations or understandings.

And there's been a strong debate in Spain over this proposed law. And so I wanted to zoom out a little bit for a moment and ask what these debates over gender and sexuality say about current Spanish politics in general. Because Spain is going through a pretty interesting and dynamic period politically with different kinds of left wing and right wing movements, changes in the dominant parties, and all of that. So how do you read how these debates over gender and sexuality fit into those larger dynamics?

I think one takeaway is that looking into these kinds of questions helps uncover how mainstream politics are invested in and heavily influenced by capitalism. So Spain has a multi-party system, the two oldest and most popular parties are el Partido Popular, or the PP, and PSOE, which is the socialist party. And then Spain's far-right party, which is more recent, Vox, as we mentioned, those three are pretty popular at the moment. So Spain's conservative parties, like the Partido Popular and Vox, declined to back this new draft of this new Ley Trans law, which isn't really surprising given their history of voting.

The PSOE, however, which is traditionally a center-left party, socially progressive, and has supported LGBTQ+ legislation in the past, initially declined to back this draft. And they eventually changed their minds, which was coincidentally right before 2021's Pride celebration began. And that drew a lot of criticism from groups who called them out for backing the queer community only performatively when it affected their image.

And this is especially significant, given that along with the Young Socialist Center, one of Spain's largest unions closely associated with PSOE also has a location in Chueca. Then on the other end of the spectrum, parties like Vox have really capitalized on this controversy as a way to build their platform around what you could call anti-gender ideology and framing trans rights and similar issues as being antithetical to the far-right agenda and as being dangerous.

Right, they frame these things as being a threat to what they view as traditional Spanish values, the traditional Spanish family. So they've seized upon this idea of gender ideology as something that they think can win them a lot of votes.

Yeah, this debate really calls back to the era of the Franco dictatorship under Francisco Franco when queer folks, particularly gay men, homosexual men, were violently persecuted under the fascist regime, under law. Vox's agenda is very reminiscent of this dynamic where persecuting those who don't fit heteronormative standards is a core element of fascist ideology. I think it's telling of the way that identity continues to be policed over time and along different lines.

So how is this all playing out on the streets of Madrid and the streets of the Chueca neighborhood in particular?

So it's true that the sort of rainbow colored, glittery, commercialized version of queer representation is what I first noticed in Chueca. But that is not the only version of it that I observed during my time there, nor is that the only version that exists. I was really struck by a lot of the images that I saw in Chueca in terms of posters and flyers and things portrayed in different businesses and storefronts. In general, observation I made is that queerness in Chueca and spaces like Chueca are often portrayed as something enigmatic or mysterious that actually appeals more to the straight imagination or the consumer's imagination than anything else.

So for example, all throughout Chueca and other spaces, there's a lot of imagery of men who are depicted as presumably gay, typically wearing very little clothing, and they're upholding Western beauty standards in terms of being really tan and muscled. And this kind of glossy aesthetic is everywhere in Chueca, including the many bars and shops that are there. And while this sort of representation can certainly be a sign of celebration and a positive outlook on sexuality, in this sort of setting, it becomes a way of distracting from actual concrete, political issues and questions like why don't we talk about queer sex and what that looks like? Why are we focusing on a white, gay male as the general representative of the queer community? Or even why is blatant violence still occurring in these spaces, even in a society that's supposedly really progressive and inclusive?

And that's not to say that there is no important work happening in these spaces and that everything is just a facade or just a corporate ploy. There are a lot of individuals and groups who are doing important work and asking important questions. And for that reason, Chueca has radical roots, the same way that Pride does, the same way Pride was originally all about transgression and resistance. I observed a few examples of street art that were really interesting to me, calling for passing the new trans law, promoting anti-fascism, and equating that with queer resistance, as well as examples of promoting radical queer art and literature.

So there are several organizations doing really important work. One that I've researched more extensively is Orgullo Critico, which is an anti-capitalist queer collective that has been doing this kind of work for over a decade now, as well as another organization called La Pluma. And there are other organizations and even establishments like bookstores that are really important to maintaining these radical roots, such as Berkana bookstore and Mary Read or Mary Read. I'm not sure which way that is pronounced. And so they all do really important intersectional and very often anti-fascist and anti-capitalist work. So all of those things are happening at the same time, which makes Chueca such an interesting space in such an important site of struggle.

It is super interesting. And I'm grateful to you for bringing that perspective to us because I think most people, if they've had the chance to travel in Spain, have noticed something in Madrid of the glitzy aesthetic that you described of Chueca, but may not know as much about those radical roots and the other things that are going on that may be a little bit less visible to the immediate eye in the neighborhood.

So it's really important to understand those tensions that exist because the larger tensions in Spanish politics are really intense right now. And it would make sense also, as you were saying, that if Vox and the fascists are anti-queer, it would make sense that queer liberation people would be antifascist.

[BREAK]

We're talking here with Skylar Bergeron, who is a contributing author at Weave News, and also the Editorial Coordinator intern with our organization this summer. We're talking about some articles that she wrote recently for our series called Weaving the Streets, and the articles explore a particular neighborhood called Chueca in the Spanish capital, Madrid, which is the site of some pretty contradictory forces in terms of celebrating queerness either in grassroots ways or more corporate endorsed ways, but also forces seeking to repress queerness and police people's identities in quite often violent ways.

Skylar, given the dynamics that you've been describing and analyzing, it's kind of hard to avoid thinking about parallels between Spain and the US here. Do you think that those parallels make sense in terms of diagnosing what's going on politically and culturally in those two places right now?

I think they do make sense. And I think these connections are actually becoming more transparent as time goes on. So if we think about, for example, the ongoing movement to restrict access to reproductive healthcare, as well as the introduction of these so called "don't say gay" bills in states like Florida and Texas, we can point out a lot of similarities. But I think it's really important to understand that they're more than similarities and that they're actually manifestations of the same kind of oppressive ideology and power that seems to be increasing in Spain, the United States and elsewhere. And so I think making these connections can help uncover larger and actual global processes.

So in my research about Spain, I focus specifically on fascism and antifascist movements. And so, briefly, we can think about fascism as the colonization and violent subjugation by a state of its own people and through its own infrastructure. So the fascism of the Franco regime violently repressed homosexuality, as I've mentioned before, as well as controlled women and reproductive rights, allied itself with the Catholic Church and Catholic values, promoted extreme ideas of nationalism, and persecuted all dissenters.

I think it's important to understand that the Franco regime doesn't represent just one isolated event in history in one country, but actually serves an example of what happens when fascist ideology in general becomes dominant. For that reason, it can manifest anywhere, including in contemporary Spain or even the United States. So I argue that this extreme policing of identity, specifically gender identity, by the far right in both Spain and the US and elsewhere, is a fascist strategy and a direct manifestation of fascist ideology.

And I think it's easier a lot of times to recognize fascism in Europe because there were fascist regimes in Europe in the not so distant past, such as in Spain and in Italy and in Germany. And according to dominant discourse, the United States has never been a fascist country or has had a fascist regime. But many scholars have been arguing for a long time that fascism is not just a threat, but it is something that is already here and has roots here. I would agree with this idea especially when thinking about the timing of all these events that I've mentioned and how they're all sort of happening at the same time, and if we think about it, actually influence each other.

It also seems like the fascist groups in all of these different locations use some pretty similar strategies, both in terms of mobilizing people around particular issues, like opposing gender ideology, but also the ways they get their message out using social media in particular ways and so forth.

So I think there's some good reasons to talk about those parallels. do you think fascists are so obsessed with these issues of gender and policing gender and repressing certain expressions of gender and sexuality? Why are they so obsessed with it?

I think a lot of it has to do with maintaining control, because things like trans rights legislation and other things like I mentioned before, [are] framed as threats to the social order, to the family, as a structure, as a unit in the same way that limiting abortion access is a way to control bodies and uphold patriarchy. And so, just referencing the Franco era, because that's what we've been talking about, in that time the traditional, heterosexual Catholic family was recognized as being the only legitimate family structure, and that was upheld through controlling reproductive rights, through persecuting queer folks, and reinforcing traditional gender roles. That was also occurring alongside these really extreme notions of patriotism and nationalism. And so thinking about those processes together in a fascist regime, that is a strategy for creating unification and basically eliminating any sort of dissent or difference. And that makes a population easier to control and easier to establish as a patriotic nation.

And so even though this is obviously not the same exact situation, these dynamics are really similar in that targeting issues of gender identity and expression sort of serves as a way to explain change and place blame on a certain group or ideology.

So when you talk about fascism in Spain and in the US, I can't help but think about Umberto Eco's famous discussion of fascism, where he lays out what he calls the 14 characteristics of "Ur-Fascism," the kind of core idea of fascism in any location. And there are a couple of those that jump out at me right away in this context, one of which is selective populism. That's a term that Eco uses to describe he calls emotional responses of a selected group of citizens that are then presented as the voice of the people. And that strikes me as being quite connected to Vox.

Vox actually means voice in Latin. So there's a very literal connection there. And I would say Vox is definitely invested in populism. They don't necessarily have majority in government or in parliament, but they are very quickly accelerating in terms of their influence over popular discourse and over the political right in Spain in general.

They seem to be seeking to amplify particular kinds of grievances and appeal to certain populations that feel some sense of grievance or some sense of being threatened, but then present that as if that's the voice of all Spanish people, as if that's a mainstream position. And so the way that the far right in Spain talks about issues of gender and sexuality maybe is an example of this, because how many Spaniards actually feel like that Spanish culture and society and tradition are dangerously threatened right now compared to the rhetoric that Vox would make you think everybody is concerned about that. Is that consistent with what you saw and heard when you were in Spain?

I don't think their rhetoric exemplifies the majority of Spaniards and their opinions about these issues. I think that Vox purposefully over exaggerates some these issues, if you will, in order to create a sense of urgency and to create this idea of a common enemy that can easily be blamed for all of these different issues. And I think that that's why it seems to them that they're the voice of Spain because they want to come across that way in order to unify those who are feeling disenfranchised in some way.

And the attempt to define a common enemy is also one of the classic characteristics of many definitions of fascism, right, that fascist movements will attempt to identify some group within the population as being threatening to the social order, threatening to the nation and so forth, and then encourage discrimination against them, encourage violence against them.

And Umberto Eco tells us that often those enemies are seen as both strong and weak in fascist discourse. And that also strikes me as relevant to the discussion of anti LGBTQ+ attitudes in Spain. Because on the one hand, queer people are defined in fascist discourse as being weak, and on the other hand, they're defined as being so strong that they're threatening the entire social order. And so there seems to be that contradiction that's built into Vox's discourse, for example, that meets that particular characteristic of fascism.

Exactly. So when you pull it apart, it reveals how that logic is a rhetorical strategy, and it's not really sound logic. Especially when Vox is very obsessed with this idea of machismo and traditional masculinity, which is also an element of fascism. So queer folks are seen as being completely antithetical to machismo, as representing this sort of undermining of traditional masculine values and traditional family values. And so that's viewed as weakness because it's viewed as the opposite of machismo, but then at the same time, like you mentioned, those very same people are being viewed as this common enemy that is seeking to completely undermine Spanish society as it exists.

So just to tie this back to Chueca for a little bit, the tensions that you saw in that neighborhood, in the different forms of representation that you saw there, whether it was on the street or in storefronts or in the kinds of events that happened during Pride and so forth, those tensions between right-wing politics and capitalism and social movements, really tell us something important about what's at stake politically in that country right now. Is Spain going to go down a path that is a fascist path, or is it going to go down a path that is more explicitly anti-fascist, that embraces difference, that embraces the very groups that the fascists would define as the common enemy? And when we think about how to respond to that, I'm thinking about the third article in your series on Chueca, where you talk a little bit about coalition building and the importance of that. Can you elaborate a little bit on what examples of coalition building, or lack thereof maybe, that you observed in Madrid?

So I think that's sort of the million dollar question is, which path is Spain going to go down ultimately. And that's a really complex question to answer, especially because from what I've observed in research, Spain is at this sort of very critical crossroads, politically and culturally. And coalition building is one way to make progress and sort of reveal these different connections and these grids of power that maybe are otherwise unnoticed. During my time in Madrid and the research I did there, I was really impressed by how intersectional many of Spain's activist movements and collectives are and how they sort of speak to multiple issues oftentimes.

And so this also allowed me to think about where other points of solidarity are needed. And so I think it's important to understand that coalitions aren't just about finding common ground or finding similarities, but realizing how the same power structures are affecting different groups that may or may not realize that there are points of solidarity to be made. So a lot of that work is recognizing that we are fighting the same forces and that these examples of oppression and these examples of fascist ideology, they're basically manifestations of the same agenda.

So just to provide an example of this that I observed, when I was in Chueca, on one of the days I was walking there, I found a sticker on a wall that read "Grupo de Apoyo Nestor,", which means Nestor support group, basically. And so I just did some basic Googling and found out that this was a group that was in support of a young protestor who was wrongfully arrested during anti-austerity protests.

Then I also around that same time heard about these demonstrations that were happening in Madrid by other groups who also fight against impunity and corruption in law enforcement by specifically calling for justice for the many victims of Franquismo and the Franco era, which happened almost 40 years ago now. And so at first that might seem like those two movements are not really connected, don't have much in common because they focus on different groups during different time periods. But when you think, for example, about how queer folks were persecuted during the Franco era, many of the victims of the Franco regime were LGBTQ+ identifying. And then if you're thinking about modern day, and I mentioned this sort of homophobic march on Chueca that happened in September of last year, a lot of those people were Franco sympathizers that carried the flag of that regime.

And so making those connections with these concrete events and groups sort of makes it clear how important questions of identity actually are in this larger struggle against far-right ideology and violent, oppressive ideology, and how this idea of identity politics is actually part of a much larger and really important struggle, which in many cases is against fascism.

That makes a lot of sense, trying to understand both fascism itself, how it works, and then what are the strategies that can actually work in pushing back against that and building a different kind of society. And I think that the work that you've been doing in highlighting that particular neighborhood, but also looking at the bigger picture, really helps us see what's at stake there. So again, I appreciate your work and your willingness to come and talk about these issues on the podcast today. Skylar Bergeron, thank you for being our guest on Interweaving today, and we look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.

It was my pleasure, thanks so much for having me..

Thanks a lot.