The social and political debates on transgender rights in Spain is the focus of this article: it seeks to place current initiatives, claims and policy developments as well as political actors in their social, political and institutional context. It also explores new developments in the cultural, social and political 'trans' agenda. Particular attention is then paid to mapping trans discourses, made possible through theories of frame analysis and problem representation. Also, I discuss the benefits and limits of different kinds of framing strategies and discourses that have been used in the struggle for transgender rights, in which one of the most relevant criteria that organize the representations is the so-called 'gender dysphoria' frame. As a result, the emphasis on a medical and legal diagnosis has led to a new mobilization: anti-psychiatrization activism, which questions the binary organization of society.In 1977, Photographer Colita captured a historical moment in a country that was just emerging from a long dictatorship: transvestites and homosexuals were marching through the streets of Barcelona, demanding the decriminalization of homosexuality (Figure 1). This picture exemplifies how much current liberties owe to sexual minorities, who remained visible despite the severe repression and who often are not named. Transvestites, masculine women, prostitutes, and lesbians have been made invisible by male narratives and representations of LGBT history. The transvestites participating in the first rally for sexual liberation were doubly criticized: firstly, by organizers, who saw in them a threat to their struggle for
What made current Spanish feminism shift toward transfeminism? Based on in-depth interviews and literature reviews, we explore what factors facilitated the participation of trans* women in Spanish feminism. Tracing the history through relevant events such as the National Feminist Conferences, it becomes clear that trans* women participated in the 1993, 2000, and 2009 conferences, posing relevant issues regarding prostitution, transgenderism, and the political subject of feminism. Our research allows a break with global oppositional narratives, in which these movements are in conflict, and highlights the importance of understanding the vernacular nuances that take place in a particular geopolitical context.
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