It’s our birthday: 50 years of queer carnival!

In the last years of the so-called “dictablanda“, the most resounding intervention by the authorities took place during the 1973 Carnival and showed that the Caudillo and repression were still very much alive. We refer to the famous “redata de violetas“, now in its fiftieth year. Ten disguised/travestied gentlemen were arrested and identified as they left the discotheque Los Tarantos in Carrer de les Parellades.

The humiliation experienced and suffered by the ten detainees was notorious. Under each photograph published, the name and surname, origin and profession (waiter, cook, mechanic, hairdresser, dressmaker, clerk, student, etc.) were given.

The person who perhaps knew the most and had written the most on this subject, Antonio Viqueira Hinojosa, professor of criminal investigation techniques at the police academy, made this assessment: “For national modesty, the continuous growth of homosexuality in Spain is not known in its realism. The causes are very diverse: proselytising among young people of humble condition, who derive in the type of male prostitute, known by the police as “Wanted”: it is usually exercised by foreigners, by wealthy investors and by certain artistic celebrities, protectors of those who aspire to triumph in these branches”…

We agreed that fashion plays a very important role in the progress of the effeminate. The prevailing narcissism of youth, with transvestite manifestations even, favoured by the progressive feminisation of male clothing, with its parades and models, its exhibitions of hairstyles, including ponytails, its high-heeled shoes, its cosmetic jewellery and coloured clothing. All of this has come to favour homosexuals enormously, giving them a continuous opportunity to show off by mingling with women and confusing men. In our streets it is not yet common to see a couple of ‘primroses’ in a scandalous way; but we are already beginning to register attempts at expansion, crazy eagerness to be seen and accepted“.

A few days later, the same newspaper exposed the legal framework. The journalist, Jaime Martínez Mari, did not refrain from giving his opinion. He said: “Homosexual practices are a vice that deserves to be repudiated but is not punishable if it is carried out in the strictest privacy and no one’s modesty is offended and good morals are not violated. This is the doctrine of the Supreme Court. However, these persons are liable to be declared in a dangerous state and the security measures provided for in the LPRS (1970) can be applied to them”. The journalist concludes, “the human being has the right to make mistakes, to always make mistakes, as long as they do not bother anyone, do not transcend and do not harm. All this without the prejudice of the new trends that consider the homosexual as a ‘third sex’, or the modern politico-criminal theories that consider homosexuality as a hormonal disease that would at least justify an adequate treatment, not only penal, but also re-educational and medical“. This was the reality and morality of the time.

Fortunately, this “redada de violetas” did not have the consequences in Sitges that were suffered in Torremolinos, for example, two years earlier. On the contrary, perhaps with more strength and determination the Sitges Gays occupied the public space of the Carnival that the dictatorship wanted to keep under control. And not only did they occupy it, they wore the most spectacular costumes. They became the undisputed protagonists of the Carnival year after year. The people of the collective decided to make their own the space of transgression that tradition grants before abstinence.

The press that published the news of the arrests exposed the fact that the carnivals of Sitges and Vilanova i la Geltrú attracted homosexuals from the rest of Catalonia and Spain. In 1979, Pascual Maisterra published in the Diario de Barcelona, “Carnival?”: “The absurd transvestite procession in Sitges which, despite the years of prohibition, was – like so many other things – tolerated by the dictatorship as soon as it became a dicttablanda, which was long before it became a dicttafofa“. For Pascual Maisterra, the carnival is neither funny nor meaningful, since in Sitges there are people who dress up all year round, for example an English aristocrat that goes as a Sioux Indian and nobody thinks twice about it.

The fame of the Gay Carnival spread like wildfire and every year had more people and more success, which led two businessmen in the sector to make an innovative proposal, because for the 1983 carnival a significant increase in foreign visitors was expected, more than 1,500 – something that not everyone liked, some frowned upon it. Miguel Salaverri and Giorgio Denti, owners of the El Candil bar, submitted a request to the City Council in August to install a marquee in the Fragata with a stage and catwalk for the better showcasing and comfort of the Gay community that was then triumphing on the carnival stages. They wanted the best Carnival in Europe in Sitges 1983.

On 6 November, the deputy mayor, Jesús Ciré, gave the authorisation. In the plenary session of 12 December, Mr. Olivé made some very homophobic statements and asked for a consultation with the organisations on whether or not the marquee should be erected. Mr Ciré and Mr Mirabent – of the PSC and ERC respectively – were opposed. The referendum/consultation was lost (of the 34 local entities that participated: 20 votes against, 5 in favour, 1 abstention, 8 did not vote) and the authorisation of the marquee was withdrawn. The City Council also had to rescind advertising contracts that had been won with the attraction of the marquee. Those who had defended the marquee argued that it was an improvement that everyone would enjoy, not just the collective; the opponents did not want to institutionalise the Gay Carnival, nor did they want pink tourism, which, they said, diminished heterosexual tourism. Those who defended the legitimacy of homosexuals to officially organise carnival events voted in favour, as they were just another reality in Sitges and to try to silence them would be to fall into flagrant hypocrisy. False morality and narrow-mindedness ruined a great tourist project. Moreover, let’s bear in mind that the 1982 government was socialist but washed its hands of the controversy because it had three months to live and preferred to secure votes than hand over to an illegal referendum the decision that belonged to the Consistory alone. Three months later, a pact between the right-wing parties gave the mayor’s office to CiU and during this mandate everything possible was done to tie up the collective.

The FAGC addressed the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission of the Parliament for the statements of Fermí Olivé “of public and cultural danger“. This lack of democracy, of will to integrate, of vision for the future, made Sitges lose one of its values and potential. And it has still not been restored. Unfortunately, these were also the years of AIDS, which decimated the collective.

It is hard to understand why they were not allowed to set up a marquee in the Fragata (an alternative to the Prado and the Retiro as a space for carnival gatherings), it is hard to understand why a councillor would sully the collective with his homophobic words, It is hard to understand that a proposal to improve the booming Sitges Carnival was scorned by a manipulative and reactionary sector that did not want to share the festival, that did not want to give television space to the collective, that did not want the town to be identified as a “gay town“, always with the excuse that there were those who came to prostitute themselves or made a gay ostentation in bad taste.

Toni Sella said, referring to the controversy of 1982: “They were denied the right to have an institutionally established role, but not to take part“. Perhaps it was not explicitly forbidden, but we have all seen how they gradually disappeared from the parade and could only be seen in their premises.

Now, fortunately or unfortunately, we have experienced the second edition of the Drag Queen Gala. That is to say, forty years later and for the sake of business and tourist attraction, we are incorporating a show that has a very specific audience. A product imported from the Canary Islands and passed through the filter of the institution, suitable for all audiences. Perhaps we should not forget that the essence of Carnival is the subversive play with current moral and social standards.

The FAGC addressed the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission of the Parliament for the statements of Fermí Olivé “of public and cultural danger“. This lack of democracy, of will to integrate, of vision for the future, made Sitges lose one of its values and potential. And it has still not been restored. Unfortunately, these were also the years of AIDS, which decimated the collective.

It is hard to understand why they were not allowed to set up a marquee in the Fragata (an alternative to the Prado and the Retiro as a space for Carnival gatherings), it is hard to understand why a councillor would sully the collective with his homophobic words, It is hard to understand that a proposal to improve the booming Sitges Carnival was scorned by a manipulative and reactionary sector that did not want to share the festival, that did not want to give television space to the collective, that did not want the town to be identified as a “Gay town“, always with the excuse that there were those who came to prostitute themselves or made a Gay ostentation in bad taste.

Toni Sella said, referring to the controversy of 1982: “They were denied the right to have an institutionally established role, but not to take part“. Perhaps it was not explicitly forbidden, but we have all seen how they gradually disappeared from the parade and could only be seen in their local establishments.

Now, fortunately or unfortunately, we have experienced the second edition of the Drag Queen Gala. That is to say, forty years later and for the sake of business and tourist attraction, we are incorporating a show that has a very specific audience. A product imported from the Canary Islands and passed through the filter of the institution, suitable for all audiences. Perhaps we should not forget that the essence of Carnival is that the subversive play with current moral and social standards.

Text by: Isidre Roset // Montserrat Esquerda // Joan Escofet