Oskar Sada is known by many people as Gomi because in the small Zazpi de Txantrea they have been selling gummy, bread and the like for years. EHGAM has been a member of the Nafarroa group since the age of 16. Student and promoter of the community cultural center Auzotegi, member of the musical groups Koiuntura and FlakUtt, txalaparta and creator of the fanzines Dissidenteak Betiko´for children and youth Pulunpetto and Xomorro. Now the Social Education course is ending at UNED with the objective of articulating new forms of care for the elderly of the LGTBI group.
Why are you studying Social Education now?
I have always been, in one way or another, immersed in community care initiatives, convinced that another world is possible. Now that I am at peace with myself and after many things, I have found the right time to learn, with the intention of addressing these issues professionally. I'm about to finish the career, and my intention is to work with seniors in the LGTBI collective.
What kind of help?
There are many very difficult people. Most of them were aware of the penalties imposed by the laws of Dangerousness or Alfer and Criminals in their youth and the work possibilities have always been very limited. In the group of trans and transvestites, for example, many have had to exercise prostitution illegally and now when they are older they do not receive a pension. They receive only EUR 400 of social aid and their lives are absolutely precarious. On December 26 in Madrid, it has opened the housing units to the LGTBI public, due to the large number of homeless people in the collective.
The opening of such houses in Euskal Herria would not be so urgent due to the sexiliation of many people, the death from AIDS or the hiding in the closet. Here I see the path of training as the most appropriate way to help those who work with older people and users of these services, so that they can see that not everyone is cis-hetero regulatory. My intention is to help these people dignify their lives in a minimal free environment of homophobia, lesbophobia and possible transphobia.
An invisible world for most of society?
Yes, it is. As a Marica and a militant, I noticed a lot, but now I'm seeing that all of that is proven through research and data, and you see a lot of strange things.
One example: you flee from Colombia because you are a dissident gender. You come here and they put you on a floor where there are more people from Colombia. As they have the same vision as always, you will continue to suffer this violent situation. You'll move from hell to hell. This is not legitimate.
"Unfortunately, we have also seen signs of misogyny in gay collectives and we have fought against them, trying to get away from our privileges."
How did he start militating in EHGAM?
I started at EHGAM when I was 16. At the same time, I started participating in popular movements like Auzotegi. I saw that there were a lot of gaps, and I started meeting people like me who claimed that another world was possible. They flipped a lot with me, being a militant marica, but they took care of me and over time I realized that I've always been guarded and protected in the neighborhood by these collectives.
The only way you can move forward as a dissident gender is empowerment, and I got it through EHGAM.
We worked very hidden, but very important. AIDS started in 1984. In the neighborhood, as in all other places, he was very stigmatized and died many people in the area from heroin use and sharing syringes. We had hardly any Marica referents, and those few we had, committed suicide or were monsters. Living this situation in adolescence was very hard. In those hard years, we learned to take care of ourselves in the community. EHGAM was my university. To me, collectivity has given me life.
How is the partnership today?
We have several realities. A process called KOSA has been developed in the CAPV. There's been a reactivation and a change of generation, because in the CAV there were more mature people than here. Here in Navarre, in 2000 we decided to create in Navarre the Kattalingorri Association (transas, bolleras…). EHGAM militants have been fighting for the streets, institutions, autonomously, for sexual liberation and always from a national perspective. Now, 23 years later, we have an official service in Nafarroa Garaia, Kattalingune, managed so far by Kattalingorri. This self-managed service was assumed by the institutions at the time of the change of gobierno.Kattalingun serves the whole of Navarra and the same does the Harrotu Municipal Service in Pamplona. EHGAM in general is strong and we are doing very nice things.
Budget cuts have recently taken place...
We have not understood what has happened there. We have our suspicions. With Trans law, it seems that at first the PSOE carbonized, but then it went ahead, and it seems like something like this happened here too.
Now, changes have taken place within the Navarro Institute for Equality and we hope that Kattalingun will regain its autonomy and its budgets. Recently there have been fewer people working and the counties of Tudela, Tafalla and mountain have run out of service. The service needs to reach everywhere. We're seeing more and more messages of hate, and it's clear that in education, there's a lot of work to do.
How is the empowerment movement in rural Navarre?As in many other places in the state, in
Navarre there are very interesting movements: In the Ribera there is the Somosmarte group in Murchante, in Tudela los Cogollos, in Tafalla and in downtown Laia, the Walls of Lekunberri-Leitza, the Baztan Pride Valley, the Pride of Ansoin… and in other towns commissions are being created when homophobic attacks occur, with the support of many citizens. Today, there is more relationship and visibility through social networks. Before, there was enormous isolation.
Do young people experience gender dissent differently?It's very interesting to
see how they're experiencing this from their empowerment. There are things that remain the same. Since heteronorma is very structural, in 30 years the panorama has not changed so much. This exercise of empowerment is giving a very violent response from different sectors, such as feminism.
At the global level there is a very well-designed retrograde stream and, in many cases, it has an enormous force in the politics of peoples. Evangelist speeches, Trumpians…, for example, have a lot of weight in North America and South America. In the Colombian negotiations, for example, there was an important point of disagreement that FARC wanted to take a step further in LGTBI rights, but the evangelist movement did not want to know about it. These are very fundamentalist speeches.
And how do you see what's going on in the Islamic world?
There we have to learn that you cannot read everything equally from our Western centrism. I mean, from colonization arise poverty and the unfortunate situation of these peoples, and from that they take advantage to strengthen religion. Afghanistan or Lebanon show the decline in human rights in recent years. It is clear to me that all religious fundamentalisms violate our rights. On the contrary, it recalls how in 2017 the TQILA kuir guerrillas were created. group of Kuir people. He went to fight for the Kurds against the Islamic State. There have been answers. We should ask ourselves why religions have so much weight in those places.
"We didn't have just marica referents, and they were the few we had, who committed suicide or monsters. Living this situation in adolescence was very hard"
In the GTBI group, are homosexual men also more visible than other dissidents?
Here are a few things. The first is that many people think that women can't be sexually active. What are two women going to do without grievous men? Without the presence of a man, how is sexual intercourse possible? Alongside this, it is clear that lesbian relations have remained hidden in many cases. This has served, in some way, to protect itself from attacks, but at the same time it has made no reference to them. On the other hand, we can be observed and educated as men, which is a more visible place in society, as in most areas. Unfortunately, we in gay collectives have also seen signs of misogyny and have fought against them, trying to get away from our privileges.
You have just held some interesting days in the Marisolasa margin in October. How were they?
They were very successful. This year we have focused our reflections from the perspective of transfeminism and wanted to make a declaration of solidarity with trans people. We wanted to explain that the transsexuals and transvestites that used to be placed on the street of the Cortes of Navarra in Pamplona are our political signals. We demand the rights of those who practise prostitution. To talk about this, for example, was Juana María Rodríguez, EHGAM in Navarra in the 1990s, and recently Puta life: Seeing Latinas, author of the book Working Sex. We were also present the activists Gracia Trujillo, Manuela Trasovares and Itziar Ziga, as well as the presentation in Basque of the book Mariokerrak, Nola esan/izan bollera euskaraz with June Fernandez, Ana Jaka and Amaia Alvarez in the Laban cafeteria. There were very strong conferences and everything is visible on the internet.
In November you have to return to the Xoka days in Laba. What? The
Basque Kuir community is not very large, especially in Navarra, and is very atomized. That is why we want to talk about the use of Euskera. Some work has been done to name us in Basque and our practices. For example, Aitor Arana once produced the gay dictionary and recently the Mariokerra movement has taken place. We, symbolically, want to propose a new language of rope, neither toka nor noka.
During the month of November we organized two tables in Laba: one with Diskuntza, dissent and language, Ana Jaka and Gatx Eizagirre; and another with the Kuir vision in the contemporary Basque scene, with Aner Peritz, Jüje Idiart Thiry and Eneko García, Albina Stardust. We are now working hard with Laba, because we are also Basques and the Basque world is also Marica, Bollero or Cuir. We want to tell different spaces.
Is it now socially attractive to be LGTBI?
It is true that there is a time for openness and that there are very interesting statements in the Basque community, and it was time. However, I think the life of a cis is quieter. Glamour scores you in a moment, but in everyday life everything is harder.
Much of society has a focus on its heterocentrism. How far will you accept our creative work, for example?For example, last year there was Marux in the txosnas and some violent situations arose. It is clear that among the public there are not just our friends ... The response of the public was to reject aggression.
In the Basque community there has always been a Kuir movement. Now, fortunately, all of this is coming to the surface. After winning the 2021 Bertsolaris Navarra Championship, the Bertso singing Saioa Alkaiza was a milestone: “A big kiss to the body that is a revolution/ nonbinary, -a, transa, marica and bollera/ the world is more beautiful approaching the corner.” We are coming out of the catacombs and that is very good.
When I see high school kids with dissident sex with their friends, with their crew, at the mobilizations on June 28, I find it a very nice thing. The claim is not exclusive to LGTBI members. If you are straight and you add to these messages, you show that there are other ways of living, other codes and that you accept. Our codes emerge and there is greater permeability.
He has also studied Aragonese. And that? His mother and father are from the town of
San Martin de Unx. I was growing up at the popular Ikastola. I've always been in dissent. I have always been weird about one thing or another, and many of those who speak Aragonese are considered rare. If it is a relationship between Aragonese and Spanish spoken in Navarra, some words we use at home are identical in Aragonese. Curiosity came from there, and then I discovered that there was a cultural movement, musical groups and language learning centers. I went to a aragonary in Zaragoza and studied the internet. I got together with another from Pamplona and started doing some sessions as interlocutors. Until recently, we've had eight people in this group. We also created boarding schools, driven from here and following the Basque model. They are very few, only 11,000 speakers, and they are in a very serious situation, as we were in the 1970s. In education it is only taught as a subject outside the hours.
In 2018, the Government of Aragon created the title and achieved the highest level Barbtico. Now I talk to my friends in Aragonese and many times just [laughing].
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LAST WORD
"For most men and women living within cis-heterosis is hard because nobody gets to fulfill everything this model demands. Pressure is for everyone. That is why it is very interesting to establish alliances with heteros because we all suffer the pressure of patriarchy."