EPOA’s visit, far from being an excuse for celebration, is a motive for mobilisation.

EPOA is an organising association of EuroPride, closely linked to several private companies, with a highly mercantilist idea of Pride. They will meet in Bilbao to decide where to carry out the 2022 EuroPride. Bilbao was presented to pick up and organise the meeting – the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the City Council of Bilbao have allocated over € 70,000 for holding it – but it is not the candidate. We see it as a strategic move. “Bilbao is gay-friendly.” Because it coincides with the wager and the waste of money that has been made this year for Bilbao Bizkaia Pride. The Bilbao Basket studies how to access this circuit, which has a lot to do with the model of destructive tourism that is being implemented in the Biscayan capital.

We have called a demonstration to say that we don't want that Pride model here. To point out from the outset that here the popular movement, the transmaribollo movement, the LGBT+ movement are not in that code.

This tourism model, moreover, does not include the LGBT+ movement in its entirety.

Linked to tourism, the term gay-friendly is aimed at white, European and gay millionaires who comply with bodily canons. They do not take into account, for example, transsexuals. Trans people suffer an 85% unemployment rate, and trans people may not be able to pay the equivalent of one night at one of these gay-friendly hotels. Axel Hotels has opened a hotel of this kind in Donostia-San Sebastian, and has also planned another one in Bilbao.

The meeting has been understood as a strategy for the PNV to carry out its neoliberal project.

Yes, because there are direct links between the PNV and LGBT Ortzadar+ [ Bilbao Bizkaia Harro Organization]. Ortzadar seems to have been fighting and activating for many years, but it is a partnership recently created with the objective of incorporating a Pride model such as the one mentioned in the Basque Country and channeling the funds of the institutions. Here, behind Pride is just the Rainbow, and the LGBT+ movement against it. They are the parliamentarians and parliamentarians of that association, they are the councillors and councillors in the City Hall of Bilbao… There is a direct link, and well, we know what the PNV drives in this town, what kind of city it wants.

In other words, the Pride is perfectly on the road to the neoliberal city model that is being promoted through macro-initiatives. To do so, they need to assimilate the LGBT+ struggle.

They're making a powerful assimilation, and that's where Harro is born. They do pinkwashing. “We’re interested in LGBT+ issues,” they say, but what do they care about? To assimilate, fully institutionalize, some associations that may be part of the movement, to submit them to the money of the institutions, so that they can somehow lead the cleaning of the faces of the institutions. However, the institutions remain LGBT fobas. From the movement, we ask that the money be spent on the necessary things, because the data show that the weekend of the Pride is spent more money than in the formations to work diversity with the students.

The assimilation of struggles implies their emptying of content. Have you seen the rebellious and anti-capitalist bases of the LGBT+ collective in danger?

We were busy. Somehow, we've been forgotten to do the memory exercise. And memory is important to remember where the transmaribolloa struggle comes from. Don't forget, for example, that Stonewall's revolt was a fight against police abuses. If we remember that, we will know that we cannot welcome an association like Gaylespol [Gay and Lesbian Police Association]. Because we know what the police are: the capital, this system. “But there are also gay and lesbian policemen,” OK, all right, but they are cops. I think this mindset is spreading within the LGBT+ community “if LGBT+ is enough,” so it’s important to go to the roots and remember where we came from. However, I believe that most of us are clear that we have to act from intersectionality.

You give memory its importance on the platform. In this sense, the pink brick used as an emblem contains many meanings, isn't it?

We use the brick as a symbol, because it is said that in the Stonewall revolt they responded with bricks to police violence. And it's pink, because it's the color of the triangle that the Nazis used to distinguish the LGBT+ community in the concentration camps. We have also given him other meanings: while it is something for aggression, defense or destruction, it is also useful for construction. And that joins another goal of Harro: to join forces and networks to defend itself against neoliberal and fascist attacks.

You wanted to remember that the Basque Country has its own Stonewall.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the murder of the marica and the travesti by a Spanish National Police in Orereta (Gipuzkoa). We wanted to give the event the character of a Stonewall in the Basque Country, because it can be said that there it began to take hold in the Basque Country what at that time was called the gay movement, which would then take other forms. Two or three days very animated by the assassination of Francisco, a strike was called, Orereta stopped, made an extraordinary plenary in the city hall, was charged by the police, the smoke boats came in… We wanted to recover this story.