Classical feminism activists have sent a letter this Wednesday to the new Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, in which they complain about the display of a trans pride flag on the façade of the official headquarters of the Ministry, next to the Spanish and Spanish flags. European, as well as that of the rainbow, which symbolizes, in a more general way, the entire LGTBI community (lesbians, gays, transsexuals, bisexuals, intersex and more).
The Alliance against the Erasure of Women platform calls for the removal of the trans flag because they say that “it is not the official symbology”, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, it is “contradictory to the mission” of the Ministry of defending the rights of women.
It uses as an argument a ruling that the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court issued in June 2020 in which it established as a doctrine that “it is not compatible with the current constitutional and legal framework and, in particular, with the duty of objectivity and “neutrality of public administrations the use, even occasionally, of unofficial flags on the outside of buildings and public spaces, even when they do not replace, but rather compete with, the flag of Spain and the other legally or statutorily instituted flags.”
This ruling indicates that the exterior of official buildings must be limited to displaying official symbols and that is what the Alliance uses to denounce in its letter to Redondo that the Ministry “maintains the display of unofficial flags on its façade in a stable manner.”
The denounced flag has hung on the facade of the Ministry since the time when Irene Montero was minister. Designed by American trans activist Monica Helms in 1999, it consists of five horizontal stripes. Two are light blue, which, according to the author, symbolize the “traditional” color of baby boys. Two others are pink: the “traditional” color of baby girls. The central stripe, white, represents those who are changing gender or consider themselves gender neutral or undefined.
Classical feminists maintain that using this flag “implies ascription to an ideology: one that denies the real existence of sex to replace it with ‘self-perceived gender identity’, which means affirming that the stereotypes socially assigned to men and women are the that determine the sex of people.
That is why they ask the Ministry for “minimum coherence of powers” to “promote equality between women and men.” They do not understand that the flag of “a minority social movement, which demands as rights the imposition of practices opposed to many women’s rights” takes up more space than the symbols referring, for example, to the fight against gender violence.
They consider “absolutely unacceptable that, of the areas of responsibility of said Ministry, only the symbols linked to one of its general directorates are publicly displayed and contempt is given to giving that same space to racial issues, equality between women and men or the struggle against criminal machismo, matters that are within its competence”.
“Although it could be understood that a public institution, within the framework of commemorative dates, makes propagandistic use of the façade of an institutional building to publicize the objectives of said commemoration, when it is the object of a socially shared consensus and aspiration, “It does not seem that the current situation is in accordance with the mandate of the Supreme Court nor with the minimum principle of consensus that would be applicable to the temporary exhibition of symbols other than official ones,” they say.
