Emotion and nostalgia. These are the feelings that dominate Carla Antonelli (Güímar, 1959) when assessing the news that the Cabildo de Tenerife has started the process to award him the Gold Medal of his Island. “I receive it with pride, emotion and the memory of many things, experiences that now come back to me,” he values, immediately afterwards showing his deep gratitude to all those who have supported the initiative. In the first place to David Carballo, director of Sí Podemos Canary Islands, who presented the initiative, supported by the plenary last Thursday. “It didn’t even cross my mind, it’s like a chimera that comes true,” he sums up.
This month he will be in Tenerife to announce a popular festival as he did in his day in his town for San Pedro. It was, he says, “reconcile with my roots and with my people.” Because Carla Antonelli had to leave Güímar in 1977 when it was unthinkable that a transsexual person could develop her gender identity in a rural environment. Established in Madrid, she has developed an intense activity in defense of all people but especially the LGTBI + collective. She was the first and so far the only transsexual woman to gain a seat as a deputy in Spain and the third in the world to obtain parliamentary representation. But if there is one word that defines Carla Antonelli, she is an activist. And so, active, she remains. On the 13th, she will once again take possession of her seat in the Madrid Assembly, where she will continue to raise her voice in defense of her ideas.
David Carballo stated in his explanatory statement that this recognition means “complying with a historical debt that Tenerife owes Carla Antonelli for her tireless fight for the rights and freedoms of all, especially trans people, and for her commitment to democracy and with equality.”
Antonelli recalls that “it was hard to spend 32 years without being able to attend the Baja del Socorro (traditional Güimarera festival that is celebrated every September 8). The last one was in 1976 and I did not participate in the pilgrimage again until 2014”. He mentions this party or the odd or even party on the patron saint’s day, San Pedro. Carla is already recognized in her homeland where she even has a street named after her, she received the Cardón Award or proclaimed the festivities. She emphasizes: “I always take Güímar, Tenerife and the Canary Islands with me”.
He summarizes: “I have never renounced my origins because that would be like casting off your future in advance. We are what we are because of what we were. I reconciled with my people and my people with me.”
Carla Antonelli lived through the blows of the Franco dictatorship and the post-Franco regime, in addition to police persecution and the terrible beatings they were subjected to in police stations. In Spain, until 1979, transsexual and homosexual people were imprisoned arbitrarily under the Law of Social Dangerousness and until 1988 under the figure of Public Scandal. Currently, Güímar, her hometown, has a street named after her, inaugurated on May 15, 2021.
risk of involution
Questioned about the current moment when social conquests and rights seem to be questioned, she is very clear: “Human beings are the only ones who involute within their own evolution. I say that it is possible to go back. You only have to listen to politicians of certain colors when They talk about repealing laws even if they are the first to take advantage of them. Tell that to (Javier) Maroto – a senator from the Popular Party – or to Cascos who led demonstrations against divorce and has had five divorces.”
Antonelli breaks down the reality of societies where far-right ideas are imposed: “There is the Italy of Meloni, Poland and Hungary in the middle of the European Union. Or the Trump phenomenon in the United States. It is something real and tangible, a real threat”
He delves into the speech: “They denied abortion to women here, but they sent their daughters to have an abortion in London. Pure hypocrisy. And there are their descendants today.” But she is not willing to take a step back and names one of her great political and personal references, a Tenerife like her: “Pedro Zerolo said that rights are pursued, achieved and defended. This is the moment to defend them more than never because they are threatened”.
Carla does not give up: “We are not going to allow it and they will find us head-on in this battle. We already did it in the midst of the dictatorship and now we will fight again. We must keep alive the memory of so many, many who fought for the rights of all”.
He gives the formula for living in an increasingly tense society: “Education and respect for others in difference”. He gets wet when he talks about the collective and those of its members who support discriminatory policies towards LGTBI+ people: “There are right-wing gays who also raise their voices and are consistent with their identity even though they have been educated in a macho environment and have not seen another thing; but it is evident that there is a separation, a gap with those who have a comfortable habitation in their comfort zone”.
The activist figuratively returns to the Güímar of her childhood and adolescence to reiterate from memory her gratitude for the distinction of the Cabildo. She concludes with a message that she considers “subliminal” but cannot be more straight. “It is the time to add”.
