Lesbians during the government of José María Aznar
Lesbians during the conservative government of José María Aznar in Spain (1996–2004), experienced and participated in a variety of political and cultural happenings.
[2] Starting in 1997, political activism began to occur within the lesbian and gay rights movement to effect change on the regional level.
[4] Lesbian rights in this period were often defined by policy makers around family, as Spanish citizenship has traditionally placed a huge value on this.
[2] De facto relationships of same-sex couples were allowed to be registered in Aragon starting in 1999, in Navarra in 2000 and in Valencia in 2001.
COGAM spokesperson Beatriz Gimeno said of the passage of the law, "It is a great step forward because it breaks with the last social taboo that exists towards homosexuals.
[6][9] By 2003, all other autonomous communities considering de facto same-sex relationship registries all included adoption rights as part of such legislation.
[3] The Catholic Church and Partido Popular argued that lesbians and gays are unequal citizens, existing in a special other category of citizenship.
In 2002, one member of the couple died and in December of that year, she filed a claim with Spanish Social Security to try to collect a widow's pension.
[12] At the Jornada[note 1] "Right to asylum and persecution on the grounds of gender" on 2 December 2004 organized by the Basque Institute for Women, the topic of being a lesbian or gay man is brought up as a reason people can request asylum in Spain because, in other countries, being a homosexual can lead to social and political persecution.
No matter the reason a person is attracted to someone based on their sex, the European Union said people's sexual orientation must be vigorously protected; a choice to be lesbian or gay cannot factor into discriminatory efforts.
This allowed for the first time for researchers to gain access to valuable materials to begin to write histories of the lesbian community in Spain.
[19][16][20] The Women's Area of the Fundación Triángulo de Madrid has explained the invisibility of lesbians in this and other periods as, "A gay man has always been able to move to another place, seeking to live his identity in freedom.
"[21] According to Mexican feminist Gloria Careaga, feminism often "moves away from aspects such as sexuality and intimate life to focus on the social and the political.
[19] One of the reasons that lesbians continued to be invisible in this period is that they are less easily recognizable than gay men as they are generally first identified as women.
[26] In 2000, Basque writer Lucia Etxebarria became involved in a controversy after she asked all women who were of non-normative sexualities to identify as "no-heterosexual" in line with Anglo-Saxon queer theory.
This occurred at a time when discussing women's sexuality was still not generally acceptable in Basque culture and when a lesbian history of the region had yet to be written.
This change in the reason for Pride, its focus and its heavy commercialization also coincided with the beginnings of a new rift in the European and Spanish LGBT communities.
[36] Queer activists were angry at times because they saw lesbian desire for visibility and recognition as challenging what they saw were more important issues, like trans rights, the AIDS epidemic and homophobia.
[36] Starting in 1994 and lasting until June 1998, the Basque and Spanish language lesbian feminist magazine Sorginak ceased publication.
[37][38] Las Goudous was founded in 1996, with the purpose of trying to make lesbian political and social struggles more visible in Spanish feminist spaces.
[36] In 1999, Ángeles Álvarez joined the Women Foundation where a specific work area for the prevention of gender violence was created.
In the introduction text, they mentioned the need "eliminating additional barriers that many women find due to factors such as their race, language, origin ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation".
The Provincial Council of Bizkaia does support some lesbian groups through grants and awards, including giving the Centro de Estudios y Documentación para las Libertades Sexuales the Berdintasuna prize in 2002.
[13] In this stage, Ángeles Álvarez has been an advisor for the design of indicators in the follow-up systems of Law 5/2001 on the Prevention of Gender Violence of the Junta de Castilla la Mancha, of the Network of Cities against Violence Against Women in Madrid between the years 2000–2005 elaborating contents and framework program of action for said Network and Member of the State Observatory of Violence against Women as well as collaborating in training programs with the Spanish Red Cross and participating as a guest in the Speech on Prostitution in Spain approved in 2007.
[29] Red de Amazonas drew largely from an existing network called La Mar, who had extensive contact with American lesbian activists.
Red de Amazonas drew largely from an existing network called La Mar, who had extensive contact with American lesbian activists.
Her partner Dolors Majoral donated her unpublished feminist works to Documentation Center of Ca la Dona.
The book received large amounts of attention from the mainstream press and also made it possible for all Etxebarría's subsequent works, even if not focused on homosexual characters, to be prominently features in Spain's LGBT bookstores.
[44] Miamor.doc by Concha Garcia was first published in 2001 by Plaza & Janés, and was important in terms of consolidating the lesbian fiction genre inside Spain, and featured homoerotic depictions.
[47][48][46] Diana conformed to heterosexual male stereotypes of lesbianism, through her depiction as being sexy, explosive, less intelligent and dressed in such a way to show off her body.
