LGBTQI+ in the Basque Country by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Gender Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, General
ISBN: 9781949805253
Google: 0CuOzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno
Published: 2020-08-14T22:00:00+00:00

6

Lesbianism and the Political Subject of the Feminist

Movement in the Basque Country (1977–1994)

Maialen Aranguren

Experiencia Moderna Research Group (UPV/EHU)

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays the feminist movement is strong. Te celebrations of International Women’s Day (March 8) the last two years, the #MeToo movement, the extended #YoTeCreo (“Believe women”) or # Cuéntalo campaigns are just some signifcant examples of that strength. One of the reasons of the success of the current feminist movement is the nature of its political subject. According to the words published in the dossier developed by the Basque Feminist Movement for the strike of March 2019, the political subjects of today’s movement are:

“Women, lesbians, and trans, that is, the subjects oppressed by the heteropatriarchy.1 (. . .) When we use the word woman*, we are referring to the subjects oppressed by the heteropatriarchy. We are non-salaried and salaried workers, unemployed, students, and pensioners. (. . .) We are diverse and diferent oppression axes cross among us (. . .). We claim lesbian and trans identities as political positions, as ways to stand against the heteronormativity.”2

Te woman that the current Basque feminist movement has as its political subject, we can conclude from this quote, has a diverse identity and body, which is understood in a plural and not-excluding way.

Tat is where the most novel key of contemporary feminism lies, the qualitative jump given in the theoretical feld and the ability to carry it to the streets.Te atomization that prevailed in the postmodern context and which was considered as a weakness in the 1990s, has now become a unifying force. Recognizing the diversity of oppression axes and their complex intersections, the meaning of the category of woman was questioned.

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LGBTQI+ IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Besides deconstructing and extending it, the sexed body that is supposed to correspond to it, is not taken for granted and it has been situated in the center of the debate. But it has not always been that way. What is considered the success of the current feminist movement—the making of a deep and radical deconstruction of the bodies, which drove us to recognize an identity category constituted by diferent subjectivities—has its basis in a previous period, and that is what I will study.

In this text, I will focus on the discursive frameworks of the Basque Feminist movement and Emakumearen Sexual Askatasunerako

Mugimendua (ESAM)3 and lesbian collectives (they cannot be understood separately) that materialized from the second half of the 1970s.

I will take into account the political meaning given to the woman and lesbian identities constituted by those discourses. I will precisely examine the evolution of the subject of the feminist movement created in those years of the Transition and the great infuence that the fgure of the lesbian had on it.4

Te femininity ideal that originated from Francoism was the starting point of the feminist movement created in the second half of the 1970s. Te Francoist regime, through diferent means, imposed a rigid and monolithic model of being woman and man. As in the case of other felds, gender relationships experienced changes during the Francoist dictatorship.

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