Introduction¹

As of 1997, year of the first demonstration of homosexual liberation of the Spanish State, and up to the present day, LGTB activism in our country has been experiencing important changes, many of them as a consequence of legislative changes, namely: legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005. These changes can be outlined from the study of demonstrations in favor of homosexual liberation / gay pride, since they are the LGTB collective’s greatest and best visibility expressions, in addition to be “the par excellence LGTB activist acts” (Toni Poveda ² ).

Gay pride demonstrations take place yearly in more than 26 Spanish cities as a commemoration of Stonewall riots (New York, 1969). Among them, distinguishable are the State demonstration in favor of Gay Pride in Madrid (a turnover of 1 200 000 million people in 2014, according to the organizers) and the Barcelona Pride (a turnover of 50 000 people, according to the organizers), as they are the most multitudinous.

Even if the Catalonian demonstration is organized by the Catalonian Enterprise Association for LGTB (ACEGAL) in collaboration with activist associations, Madrid’s demonstration is organized by the Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Madrid (COGAM) supported by the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals (SFLGTB), both activist collectives.

Demonstrations in Barcelona and Madrid are the central acts of other festive and cultural events programmed to celebrate gay pride. In Madrid, for example “the neighbor festivities are organized hand in hand by COGAM and AEGAL (Entrepreneurial association for Madrid LGTB), being the later in charge of producing and programming the scenarios” (^{OrgulloLGTB, 2016}).

These are demonstrations turned into spectacles (^{Debord, 2010}), where sculptural bodies parade next to commercial floats. However, differences in organization affect the structure, since in Madrid there are two different sections, one that clearly declares itself advocating (in which some LGTB State associations —most sponsored by SFLGTB— some critical collectives, NGO’s, political parties and union organizations participate), and the other more ludic-festive where floats of political parties LGTB associations or sponsored by business somewhat related to LGTB participate. By contrast, Barcelona Pride Parade is eminently commercial (^{Enguix, 2013}) and there is no separation between sections.

Madrid’s demonstration is this article’s fundamental object of analysis due to several reasons: it is the most important demonstration in the country (if we compare it with any other public demonstration, either that on May 1^st or on March 8^th) and is the largest Gay pride parade in Europe. It is summoned by the most numerous LGTB association in Spain, COGAM, which accounts for approximately 400 members. In collaboration with Federación LGTB, it takes more than a million people out to the streets, according to some militant sources that may be slightly exaggerated. ³ The mismatch of the number of members and demonstrators cast doubt on the strategies utilized to accomplish such large mobilization.

In our opinion, these strategies fundamentally consist in turning the event and the participation of sponsored floats into a spectacle, as it was since 1996 —the first year when a float paraded— that the demonstration began to grow (^{Villaamil, 2004}). Therefore, Madrid is an ideal case to analyze how (LGTB) identities articulate with the parade (subject to the event’s activist control) and commercialization.

Demonstrations in favor of gay pride are considered a showcase for LGTB realities and are the object of multiple criticisms. Activists, LGTB citizens and other social actors consider that the way LGTB identities are depicted there represents neither the contemporary LGTB reality, nor is it generalizable, it neither can be nor should it be.

This way, it is common to find on the internet forums and in comments on news items that refer to this topic, in which the participants defend the event and the representational diversity it propitiates or attack the “clichés” that they deem counterproductive and/or contradictory for the struggle to assert their rights (^{Feijoo, 2013}). This discussion on representation is intimately related with the critique to the event’s commercialization.

Such commercialization is denounced in alternative manifestations —the one organized by Comisión Unitaria 28 de junio [June 28^th Unitary Commission] in Barcelona, and that of Orgullo “Crítico” [“Critical” Pride], in Madrid, particularly— which start from queer and anticapitalistic stances and take place around June 28^th. In 2014, Madrid’s critical demonstration walked under the motto: “Orgullo es Decisión” [Pride is Decision] and gathered 500 people. From the assembly “Orgullo Madrid 2014”, organizer of the manifestation, it is pointed out: “we went out on the streets to shout that Pride is struggle, it is decision, it is protest, pride is ours, it is not a business, it is not in the hands of politicians nor entrepreneurs and it will never be” (^{García, 2014}). In Barcelona, the demonstration on June 28^th gathered 5 000 people.

There are not many texts to refer to on Gay pride parades, as it is an incipient field of studies; albeit, we do have texts that partially approach issues related to these festivities. The bulk of texts on Pride study it from the perspective of tourism (^{Johnston, 2005}; ^{Murray, 2007}; ^{Puar et al., 2002}; ^{Binnie and Klesse, 2011}).

The relation between LGTB identities and markets has been analyzed among other by ^{Kates and Belk (2001)}, ^{Johnston (2005)}, ^{Sender (2004)}, ^{Binnie and Skeggs (2004)} and ^{Chasin (2000 a} and ^b). Lesbians and gays have been frequently represented as the pioneers of gentrification (^{Knopp, 1990}; ^{Lauria and Knopp, 1985}) and model citizens for consumption (^{Bell and Binnie, 2004}). While some authors criticize the commercialization of LGTB struggles (^{Bell and Binnie, 2004}; ^{Duggan, 2003}), others such as Hoggart and Woltersdorff (cited in ^{Binnie, 2014: 245}) offer a more ambivalent perspective regarding the relation between LGTB policy and neoliberalism. Among the effects of such relation one finds that of exclusion of determined LGTB sectors, as a consequence of the prevalence of consumption (^{Zukin, 2008}; ^{Peñaloza and Venkatesh, 2006}; ^{Binnie, 2014}). The construction of a LGTB market niche generally excludes lesbians and poor people, thereby it is heavily intersected by gender and class.

The borders between “normalization” (wielded as an argument by some informants as the Pride’s ultimate goal) and “standardization” (regulation) are unclear: the construction of LGTB identities by and for the consumption and touristification of urban celebrations implies for some authors such as ^{Eribon (2000)}, ^{Chasin (2000 a} and ^b) and ^{Hubbard (2001)} the definition of a sort of standardized gay (assimilated, middle class, white and with purchasing power), which imposes a homo-standardization that conveys spirals of discrimination of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals.

This standardized (or politically correct) gay is a prevailing figure in the Pride parade and opposes to the primeval sexual liberation. ^{Markwell (2002)} also pays attention to how LGTB identities can be included by means of tourism and marketing into the cities, and how such inclusion is linked to a very narrow construction of a gay identity that excludes those who do not identify with the commercial sphere. We also have to bear in mind that the conversion of gays and lesbian into a market niche makes them citizens in equal conditions through consumerist practices (^{Chasin, 2000a}).

The articulation between neoliberalism, identity and protest is to be found in more general (and generalized) transformation processes of the cities into spaces for consumerism, leisure and entertainment. ^{Fox-Gotham (2005} and ^{2012: 118)} states that it is conflictive to turn cities into touristic spectacles, for festivities and touristic spectacles are a source of “chaos” and “chronical discontinuity”.

Other texts focus on Pride to produce the concept of “shame” (^{Johnston, 2007}) in order to influence on its politically ambiguous, polemical and of ritualized resistance nature as “festivities for tourism” (^{Markwell and Waitt, 2009: 143}) or to define it as a peculiar combination of popular and political culture that uses humor (^{Lundberg, 2007}). ^{Blidon (2009: 2)}, for example, considers it an urban coming-out mass phenomenon, whose subversive origin has been lost to the festivity.

In Spain, some authors who have worked on gay activism and queer culture deal with aspects related to what we debate here. ^{4 Calvo and Trujillo (2011)} describe the tensions between mainstream and more radical activism; while ^{Vidarte (2010)} harshly criticizes the processes of homo-standardization.

This work is based on an ethnographic research (thereby qualitative) started in 2008. Its central analysis units are Gay pride celebrations in Spain (and their relation with public institutions, politics and enterprises), LGTB activism in Spain and the contemporary conceptualization of LGTB identities, understanding these three elements as closely linked. The research is fundamentally centered on Madrid, owing to its importance, even though it has also been developed in Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.

Ever since 2008 all Gay pride demonstrations in Madrid were attended, and in function of their dates and compatibility between them, also to parades (“officialist” and “critical” if any) in Barcelona, Seville and Valencia. ⁵ The present work is mainly based on such parades and on in-depth interviews to selected informants, as fundamental research techniques.

In the participant observation of the parades, the recording, analysis and interpretation of data has been carried out keeping a field diary, recording the activity by means of visual (photographs) and audiovisual methods (video) proper to visual anthropology. The photographs taken during the parades have been, for their part, utilized in the interviews as a research method (^{Collier and Collier, 1986}).

The observation is complemented with semi-structured in-depth interviews to informants selected by means of snowball sampling. A total of 44 people were interviewed: LGTB activists, politicians, entrepreneurs and participants in the parades (demonstrators and owners of floats). ⁶ The access to the interviewees has been facilitated by the author’s previous research trajectory (^{Enguix, 1996} and ²⁰¹⁴).

Digital ethnography has been an important source of information as well: as of 2009 there is tracking, classification and analysis of news on the web, digital newspapers and various blogs, forums and other digital sources detected by means of Google alerts in order to study the news, comments and opinions about these events.

At present, digital data are unavoidable in the analysis of social reality. However, selecting and organizing them implies a challenge in social research, due to their numbers: in this work we have resorted to information from he respondents and elements derived from the observation to undertake this selection task.

This way, the data obtained through on-site ethnographic procedures have been the base to organize digital data. The crossing between on-site and digital ethnographies, the analysis of specialized bibliography and face-to-face interviews with informants placed at various social spaces have favored a diffractive reading (^{Mazzei, 2014}) and data triangulation.

Demonstration and/or business

Gay pride celebrations are a privileged space to analyze the tension between activism and market (^{Sender, 2004}; ^{Chasin, 2000a}), and the tension between protest and party (^{Debord, 2010}). Such tensions are neither exclusive nor circumscribe to the Gay pride, but also go across Chueca neighborhood, Madrid’s gay zone. During the week of Gay Pride, Madrid receives about two million tourists, who spend some 11 million Euro (^{Agencia EFE, 2012}). Locals in Chueca and hostellers in the city seem to be the most benefitted. AEGAL, the association of enterprises for LGTB people, is accused of monopolizing the events by controlling supplies for bars and street stalls (^{Lily, 2013}). But it is the State demonstration where tensions between protest and business, which are the focus of this work, clearly emerge.

Although the first demonstration in favor of homosexual liberation in Madrid took place in 1978 it was in the 1990’s when, following the foreign models (fundamentally Anglo-Saxon), the parade started to become a somewhat carnivalesque spectacle. In 1996, the first sponsored float appeared, the one of Shangay Magazine (directed by Alfonso Llopart). ⁷ Ever since, the number of attendees largely increased to reach a million participants from 2007 (years in which Madrid held Europride), a figure that nowadays still remains.

Even so, activists have always aspired to retain the event control, unlike in other places such as New York and San Francisco, where Gay pride events have been “outsourced” and are undertaken by organization created with that end (NYCPride and SFPride) (San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Celebration Committee). COGAM as an organizing collective, is in charge of choosing the participating floats and classify them according to various criteria (^{OrgulloLGTB, 2016a}).

The participation of floats sponsored by enterprises overtly opposed to LGTB collectives is forbidden. Floats are classified in groups with differential participation fees. In the first group, floats from COGAM, FELGTB and LGTB associations open the parade, unions and LGTB sections of political parties (fee A) ensue.

From that moment on, the order of appearance is drawn from the following groups: LGTB business that have previously participated (fee A); business related to the LGTB world which parade for the first time (fee B) and business not strictly related to LGTB spheres (fee C), up to reach the limit of 40 floats imposed by Madrid’s town council and the Governmental delegation due to safety reasons.

Being classified in one or another group is not trivial: it affects the place for the parade and also conditions the fee the floats pay to COGAM (between 500 —fee A— and 6000 Euro —fee C—) and which is destined for the organization of the event and other campaigns (M. Brox ⁸ ). COGAM intends to control publicity and in its regulations for the floats it establishes that “enterprises whose participation fee is reduced (fees A and B) will take no more than 10% of the space available in the float for publicity of other brand or from a sponsor other than the same enterprise”.

Over the years, the number of floats has varied: from 35 in 2010 to 18 in 2013, 13 in 2013 or 28 in 2014. Some activists’ decisions, such as allowing the participation of enterprises as Fiat, Google or Turismo de Fuerteventura, have been thoroughly discussed:

For me the float is also an act of visibility, pride is visibility and it is the assertion of dignity, and it is politics. Is it difficult? Indeed. Have we sold out to the capital as the most radical claim? It isn’t true, but we stand our ground ⁹ (T. Poveda).

Regulations for participation are strict: publicity (except for Fee C) is limited and the float shall carry symbols related to the LGTB community and display the official slogan of the parade. They should not look like floats in a horse ride:

It is reminded that the floats appear in the LGTB Pride State Demonstration, this way, it will be demanded that the decoration bears references to the topic (rainbow flags, pink triangles, etc.). In like manner, it is compulsory to carry the motto of the 2014 Parade (^{OrgulloLGTB, 2016a}).

These regulations are usually fulfilled (at least regarding the slogan, as in 2014 only two floats did not exhibit it), even though floats, by and large, rather resemble ambulant discotheques (with music, dancers, disguises and bright colors) than assertive elements.

The presence of floats in the gay pride shows the centrality of consumerism in contemporary queer culture (^{Valentine, 2002}) and its role as identity backbone. ¹⁰ It is a consequence of the conversion of part of the LGTB collective (basically gays) in a market niche attractive for many: Nike, for example, showed interest in sponsoring the first high-performance athlete that came out accompanied by the company. LGTB-friendly commercial strategies attract these consumers and are frequently referred as a “normalization” element, as these comments on Nike show:

Making coming out a business might take the plus from the overcoming, but thinking it twice I believe it is the most “profitable” for normalization. If there is something everyone respects is money (^{Mañana, 2013}).

Conclusion: nowadays if you’re a sports idol and are gay it is much better, much more profitable… everything necessary to “normalize” gays [i.e., impose a single politically and socially correct thinking] (^{Mañana, 2013}).

Gays, to a larger extent than lesbians, transsexuals, and bisexuals, are still considered a segment with an important purchasing power. Even if this is not the place to debate this issue, we are indeed interested in underscoring how the “segment” is produced in opposition to the “collective”, closer to identity and community. Juan Pedro Tudela, founder of Diversity Consulting, adviser to Madrid’s Town Council and promoter of Fitur LGTB (the LGTB corner in Madrid Tourism Fair, created in 2011) states:

Hotel chains do not universalize, normalize, we are a segment not a collective… and I’m talking about gays and lesbians, because bisexuals and transsexuals are not a segment… in the occidental world they have gained their rights, activist assertions don’t make sense and neither the way they do it (half-naked guys dancing on a speaker or with a tutu, high heels and a nun’s bonnet) (interview held in Madrid, February 3^rd, 2013). ¹¹

Juan Carlos Alonso, president of the organizing committee of World Pride 2017 —held in Madrid that year— and AEGAL secretary general, considers these affirmations are antiquated:

I think this discourse that the “gay segment has a lot of money and it’s a very interesting business opportunity” is a simplistic and antiquated one and I give a clear example. There is a discourse we have to change. Large studies at tourism level, for example, always place the gay collective as DINK (double income no kids), ok, perfect, but what happens? In Spain and in other countries, advanced legislations allow marriages, not only a couple, as he is my partner, she is my girlfriend, with thechildren they adopt, then this changes (interview held in EAGAL seat, Madrid, February 4^th, 2013).

In spite of this, the festive environment perceived on the street during the Pride parade (which lasts between four and five hours) and the varied numerous activities held in Madrid during these days have a great power as touristic assertion. The brand “Orgullo de Madrid” —a non-explicit strategy of city branding— has turned the city into the Mecca of LGTB tourism. ¹² The LGTB reality as business opportunity (^{Chasin, 2000a}; ^{Peñaloza and Ventakesh, 2006}) does not escape from public institutions and entrepreneurs which both hindered the yearly negotiations to organize the parade and associated with AEGAL to represent (and obtain) the candidacy for Madrid to hold World Pride in 2017. ¹³

This way, Madrid’s gay pride, and in particular the discourse around its most self-assertive element, the state manifestation, exemplifies the change from a capitalism centered on production, labor and coercion to consumption capitalism based on leisure, market seduction and spectacle (^{Fox-Gotham, 2002}; ^{Ritzer, 2008}), which turns local customs, rituals and festivities into attractions for the consumption of tourists and markets, while they are “tools to pacify, depoliticize and a generalization that ‘distracts’ and ‘seduces’ people by means of the mechanisms of leisure, consumption and entertainment” (^{Fox-Gotham, 2002: 1737}).

The contraposition of assertion and business, protest and market, can be paradoxical, but not necessarily contradictory: even considering that consumption opposes the “true” meanings Gay pride should have, such as Fox-Gotham points out, and some narratives suggest, it is indubitable that gay consumption also acts as a reinforcement element of the community, generating ways of doing and showing that are identifiable and in which one can recognize.

As Fiske (cited in ^{Kates and Belk, 2001: 422}) pointed out, entertainment and pleasure are not incompatible with political sentiments and opposition to the systems; as a matter of fact “conspicuous consumption on the day of Gay Pride can be a politically dubious activity… but the exhibition and display of the market power can in fact lead to the social legitimization of gay and lesbian communities” (^{Kates, 2002}; ^{Kates and Belk, 2001: 392}).

Moreover, the separation between activism and business (entrepreneurs) shall be problematized and not only because of what has been exposed so far: most of the interviewed entrepreneurs that participate with a float in the parade stated they do as activists. Even though Alfonso Llopart, founder of Shangay magazine and promoter of the first float that paraded, declared:

Entrepreneurs do not have political consciousness, I have a grim opinion of collectives, I have never been a militant, 90% of the attendees go to party. If the first part of the parade disappeared, nothing would be lost, if the second disappeared there would be four again. I proposed to separate them and COGAM denied, because they know what they’ll lose… after marriage (2005), Gay pride should be a celebration and other claims should look for a forum. None goes to the parade out of assertiveness… commoditized pride? Well yeah... (Interview in the seat of Shangay magazine, Madrid, February 28^th, 2013).

In like manner, Brox ¹⁴ considers there is a division between the LGTB entrepreneurs of the 1980’s and 90’s and those of today, whom he refers to with the term of “merchants” whose activist motivation he denies.

Madrid’s parade, with an assertive and identity origin, has to dodge the mercantile impulses represented by its touristic potential and the floats. Hence, there are some who flaunting bravery speak of “gay pride” (sic) as a mercantile activity.

Activism influences its assertive nature by maintaining the control of the organization and participant floats (and bearing the motto) and by means of “activist markers” such as numerous banners and placards that prevail in the first section of the parade and also in some floats (such as 100 lesbianas visibles), the symbols associated with LGTB realities (rainbow flags and pink triangles), the mottos sung by the people, the use of associative t-shirts (^{Enguix, 2012a} and ^2012b), volunteers (mainly from COGAM and FELGTB) that monitor the parade and the existence of an initial placard with the slogan of the parade and the reading of a final manifesto. These elements aspire to remember at all times that we witness a self-assertive act.

Even so, in the bosom of activism frequent are the debates on the limits of market and protests produced by a contested demonstration, but it also provides them with a powerful argumentation: that of visibility, mediated by its convening power

Toward new demonstration models

Sponsored floats started to appear in Madrid’s pride parade in 1996. About four or five years later —the information received is not conclusive— it was proposed to turn such parade into a State Demonstration in which activist collectives from all over Spain participated. The event’s growing spectacular nature, together with a thriving and liberal Chueca neighborhood, turned the city into the mecca of LGTB tourism back then.

In 2004, AEGAL was created; in 2008, ACEGAL; in 2009, ASEMGAL (Andalusian Association of enterprises for LGTB). Not the only associations. Many entrepreneurs were and are activists, others not. Even though in many cases the impetus to create these associations has come from activism —to facilitate interlocution between these spheres that work close to one another not only in the Pride parade, but in other sensitization campaigns, information on HIV, among others—, the tensions between them are on the rise.

Intersections between activism (assertion and authenticity of the Pride), business (identities vs market niche) and city branding do not allow easy solutions and question how we build nowadays identity categories and also which the present and future strategies and alliances of the grassroots identity social movements are and will be.

Diverse are the questions stated: can activism and enterprise still be presented in dichotomous terms? Is it possible to conjugate assertion and market? In many of the interviews, mainly with activists but also entrepreneurs, the role of LGTB bars and discos —the environment— in the gathering of “LGTB communities” has been underscored as well as the historic provision of meeting places for such communities when social stigmatization condemned them to ostracism. In words by Pedro Zerolo, gay activist and councilor of Madrid Town Council, deceased in 2015:

We gradually added wills in Madrid and not only LGTB, but men and women from all over Spain… So important have been the collectives in many parts of Spain and as the meeting places because while we fought we had to socialize… by the way, gay and lesbian entrepreneurs which for years put their shoulder to the wheel when there was not a single collective and it was the only place where you could socialize and in which the entrepreneurial intension was more activism than profitability. How won’t they be represented in the Pride, those gay, lesbian, transsexual or bisexual or heterosexual entrepreneurs who devoted their businesses? What is the problem? Everyone in the Pride, even entrepreneurs, whoever they are, small and large companies have to sign the adherence protocols on equality, the recognition of labor agreements on LGTB rights, I think it’s important (interview held in the Madrid’s Town Council, November 13^th, 2011).

Activism supported by SFLGTB thus advocates for the complex articulation between activism and entrepreneurship, and justifies it because it has produced a formula for assertiveness, that of demonstration in Madrid, whose success and turnover is unique, giving great visibility to the LGTB cause, at the same time that it equalizes visibility and social power (Toni Poveda, SFLGTB former president). ¹⁵ Poveda states that the model generated is serving as an example:

I lived the time when we were outsiders and 40 people went into the street. We have surpassed it and many social movements are imitating the Pride model. Maybe it is not floats, but are imitating the Pride model. Ever since there is Pride, 15M, unions, try to enliven the festivities, make them more vivid. I have no complex, but even if we speak of the identity and essence of this revolution, this revolution starts in a bar, and from there it comes, but it does not start in bar by chance, it was there where LGTB people socialized in a clandestine manner, illegal or whatever you call it, but it begins there (interview held in SFLGTB seat, Madrid, February 5^th, 2013).

Many interviewed activist leaders distinguished that it is added value that an enterprise participates in the Pride, because with it they seem to be close to the LGTB assertion.

The discourses that oppose this articulation —individual or in critical expressions— follow an authenticity logic that faces the assertive logic with commercial logic. They drink from a tradition in which militancy was considered contradictory with going out to bars and other places of the scene, which were considered ghettos, not spaces for liberation (^{Eribon, 2000}). ¹⁶ From critical activism, it is sought that the struggle for the right to one’s own sexuality does not difference from the struggle for housing or education (E. Rodríguez, FAGC spokesperson).

In a similar vein, also from critical activism, Gracia Trujillo states:

Why do enterprises have to participate in a demonstration? I go to many others such as May 1^st, or March 8^th and there are no companies benefitting from nothing. It seems to me like an invasion to the space of protest by neoliberalism and of “I’ll put up with you as long as you consume”, this is something intolerable. The rights of lesbians and gays, trans, bisexuals, intersexual, queers are not business, and neither are those of any discriminated group. If we distract, in this context of privatizations of the public space, they will privatize the demonstration!... nowadays it is still necessary to be visible, but I think visibility has to be something strategic on which each one decides (Gracia Trujillo, sociology professor and queer activist, personal communication, ^{February 2013}).

Between both stances, which seem incompatible, it is worth wondering if commoditization and publicity are the only means to be visible nowadays, since visibility is outlined as a key element regarding a large turnover:

For me the objective is the celebration of an assertive date to continue with our self-assertion. If the formula of the Pride we seek does not appear anywhere, we would be celebrating that in 1969, the Stonewall thing happened and that’s it, if it was all I’d make a party at home, don’t know. Collaboration with entrepreneurs, at present, seems unpredictable to me. In this sphere, purism takes us nowhere because if we have reached where we are is because we have assumed many contradictions as well, a lot of things have been left on the way, in the end there’re negotiations and now we continue asserting what’s missing… some people love being outsiders, but in the end, my experience, after so many years, what people ask from us is to live free, not being an outsider (interview to José de Lamo, president of Col·lectiu Lambda, at the time of the interview [January 2013] and then secretary of SFLGTB. Translated from Catalan by the author)

The spectacle that has gobbled LGTB manifestations to a much larger extent than other political-assertive demonstrations makes room for a specific model with great participation and turnover success: the “manifiesta”, a term coined by Ruth Toledano. We have but to compare the turnover of “critical” and “officialist” demonstrations. Indubitably, it has to do with the constitution of gays and lesbians (mainly the former) as a market niche and the tradition of collaboration between activism and enterprises which has been referred. However, this collaboration has to remit, according to the most critical people. Eugeni Rodríguez, spokesperson of Front d’Alliberament Gai de Catalunya (FAGC), which organizes with other collectives Barcelona’s “critical” Pride, states:

March 8^th is convened by Evax? No, and it does nothing impressive for women. It is the same to me that an enterprise that serves gays is convening. They’re brands… rights are produced by the people who struggle for them, the associative fabric of organizations, not an enterprise (interview held in FAGC seat, Barcelona, May 5^th, 2014).

Hybrid identities: final considerations

This case exposes the difficult articulation between identity, protest and market. Such tension is found in the various self-assertive strategies adopted by identity grassroots movements, which oscillate between assimilation —“normalization of the sexual fact” (^{Coll-Planas, 2008: 51} appealing to identity/classification— and radical positions, liberal or of “social transformation” (^{Coll-Planas, 2008: 51}) that call for the struggle in favor of the recognition of the difference (^{Calvo and Trujillo, 2011}; ^{Arditi and Hequembourg, 1999}; ^{Bernstein, 1997}; ^{Rimmerman, 2008}). ¹⁷

The tension between identity and difference is intrinsic to these social movements (^{Bourdieu, 2005: 145}), being LGTB movement the quintessence of identity movements owing to its implication in the cultural transformation of society, and the acquisition of rights and its identity consequences. The contradictions, tensions and difficulties of identity movements are related with what ^{Ghaziani (2008: 8)} calls “false universalism”, the belief in identity and social homogeneity, and in this case it is not an exception.

Market and entrepreneurial relations exemplify the tension between “oficialist”/assimilationist activism (SFLGTB and satellite groups) and critical and anticapitalistic/radical activism (FAGC, Brot Bord, Asamblea Transmaricabollo, and others). Commoditized —and assimilable— identities become (false) universals and aspire to be universalized. Moreover, they are built as opposed and incompatible with protest and self-assertion.

It is urgent to review identity universalization and the opposition between market and protest, as both processes essentialize and give the character of “reality” to the borders between lifestyles, market niches, self-assertion and identities (sketching them in an excluding manner) when at present those borders are blurry, movable, scantly stable and overtly problematic.

We shall incorporate new identity models into our analyses in order to redefine those limits and consider practices, desires, sexual experiences and lifestyles linked by the market or by facing it, as well as their political expressions. All the activist agree on these when appealing to diversity and the integration of every perspective.

The Spanish legislation regarding LGTB reality is more advanced than ever and it is indubitable that assimilation strategies adopted by Spanish (and international) activism have been fruitful. ¹⁸ A sizable part of the social changes come from LGTB mobilizations (^{Calvo and Trujillo, 2011}), but also from a change from radicalism to moderation, which started in the 1980’s (^{Calvo and Trujillo, 2011: 575}).

In the current crisis context, however, those victories can be considered “tenuous and fragile” (^{D’ Emilio, 1993: 467}). Because of that, we have to bear in mind that gays, lesbians, transsexual and bisexual are historic beings whose identity was only possible in relation to capitalist relationships (^{D’ Emilio, 1993: 468}) and in virtue of the new organization of labor, family and the disengagement between sexuality and procreation, which capitalism forged.

The structure of capitalism made the emergence of gay identities and the creation of urban gay communities possible (^{D’ Emilio, 1993: 473}) and it is that same structure the one that can gobble and dilute both identity and its political expression. Even if capitalist globalization supposes the adoption of new demonstration models —much more commoditized than in Spain— in many places, it also favors emancipation in places where otherwise would not be possible, such as Poland (^{Binnie and Klesse, 2011: 165}).

Criminalizing the entrepreneurs seems to be a dead end, not only because of its historical and recognized role, but also because in virtue of the floats the parade summons a large amount of people. It is as well to oppose protest and market or diluting the self-assertive content into the entrepreneurial, as it has occurred in many places. Opposing protest and market is sterile.

The limits of identities, assertions and identity issues shall be redefined in a non-excluding nor exclusive, but inclusive manner. The very definition of LGTB nowadays is hybrid (^{Hall, 1992}; ^{García-Canclini, 2001}), sexual practice not only produces identities —practices, desires, experiences— but bodies of consumption, for consumption and bodies of consumers.

The challenge for LGTB activism (which still works as cohesive medium and spokesperson of LGTB identities and as a depositary of identity self-assertion) consists in producing integrating discourses without losing assertive “authenticity” that may remain hidden, for bedazzled by the floats we do not pay attention to the placards; it consists in overcoming the interest that aspire to depoliticize the event denying the relevance of the demonstrators to only distinguish those who dance. ¹⁹

The challenge is to remain depositary of LGTB assertive discourses in a context where many consider that it does not make sense any longer, in spite of the advance; while many others consider that “there is much to do in favor of effective equality”. The challenge is to position in this new and complex context, maintaining as political associations besides assistance ones (NGO’s). The celebration of the Pride —as an act of visibility and protest— is the central event that provides LGTB associations with legitimacy, therefore, its evolution will influence our definition of LGTB identities, activism and political action.

This case reveals the urgency of questioning how we build identities nowadays and problematize the idea that market leads to their disappearance. We know that identities are multiple, unfinished and contextually sociohistorically built (^{Foucault, 1984}; ^{Butler, 1990}; ^{Enguix, 2000}), that gays and lesbians are not “a fixed social minority composed of certain percentage of people and durable and stable over time” (^{D’ Emilio, 1993: 473}).

We know that multiple expressions and identities sociohistorically forged cannot be understood as fixed and stagnated structures, nor can they be applied various levels of “authenticity”. Even so, we keep on building new dichotomous and excluding models. Nowadays, it is possible to think of hybrid identities that conjugate elements related to the market without the groups being solely and exclusively constituted by market niches and for the market. We need new identity models that face such complexity from modularity and transformation.

Mobilization, visibility and power are closely linked nowadays with the capitalist logic and collective and political action. Tensions and conflict are inherent to LGTB parades and are crucial to define both the identities and strategies of the movement (^{Ghaziani, 2008}). Conflicts and dissidence can be productive, produce new ways of organization and protest. The Spanish case is peculiar in a global context in which Pride parades are totally commoditized or else are forbidden: Madrid has the chance to find the intermediate road, a hybrid model that overcomes the old essentialisms which are not useful any more. ²⁰

The challenge is to redefine identities and protest so that the latter does not restrict the former, nor it disappears, while clear alliances are established with entrepreneurs and institutions so as not to turn identities into a mere spectacle without a content.