Spanish Senator Carla Antonelli on trans liberation: ‘We have to go back to where we started, to the streets’ (EXCLUSIVE)

We will not be lambs led to the slaughter.” These are the words that echo around the gilded walls of the opulent Spanish Senate on a fine April morning. It is within this setting, beneath ornate ceilings and surrounded by historical tapestries, that Attitude speaks to the formidable Spanish Senator Carla Antonelli, as her advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community is celebrated with an award at the PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe, supported by British Airways.

However, just as she is denouncing the “wave of hate” being generated by trans-exclusionary radical feminists, the room, and later we learn nearly the whole of Spain, is plunged into darkness in a power outage that would last nearly 24 hours. (The cause is unknown, but the Attitude team considers it plausible that Antonelli’s fury may have brought down electric grids across the entire Iberian Peninsula.)

“Magic”, Antonelli tells me, pre-blackout, “is something that floats in the air” back in her native Tenerife. Born in 1959, Antonelli’s childhood was defined by Francoist censorship. She describes “a brutal, iron grip on information”. “When it came to anything trans-related, I had no awareness whatsoever,” she says, though literature proved to be the gateway to Antonelli’s self-discovery.

In reading her way through almost the entire local library, it was Orlando Hernández’s queer-spirited Catalina Park that made escaping her family and Tenerife seem possible. Gran Canaria’s Santa Catalina Park promised “a world full of different nocturnal species”, and in 1977 that was exactly where she escaped to, selling her body there to make a living. Some years later, she would become the first ever publicly trans woman in Spain to be cast in a soap opera.

“I learnt to be resilient without even knowing the concept of resilience” – Carla Antonelli

“I always say, I learnt to be resilient without even knowing the concept of resilience,” she explains, referring to suffering police beatings, rejection by her family, and not being welcome to attend her own father’s funeral. “These are my experiences,” she reflects. “It all adds up. Everything is useful, whether you like it or not.”

She references her time studying the dramatic arts and how it taught her to project her voice and cry “without shame or embarrassment”. These are the skills she uses to land points with brutal force in the Senate, and even to catch the attention of the world, as evidenced by a video of Antonelli that went viral in February this year.

The three-minute clip captures Antonelli fearlessly calling out the extreme right for requesting to repeal the country’s Ley Trans, a law allowing trans people to self-identify and the very law she was instrumental in delivering in 2023. After her mic is cut, she bellows “We will not return to the margins!”, before an explosion of applause and emotional hugs of support from her colleagues. It has been subtitled in more than seven languages, and she has since received messages of support from all over the globe.

“Our existence is being used to cover up what should really matter to the world” – Carla Antonelli

Astonished at how far it has travelled, she recounts, “I just gave free rein to the thoughts I’ve had so many times. And not just my thoughts — all of our thoughts. Why is everyone talking about us? Why are they desperate to know what we have in between our legs, whether we’ve been operated on or not? Even in a parliamentary debate, wanting to know whether we have orgasms or not?” Exasperated, she repeats a guttural cry of “Enough! Leave us alone. Leave us alone!”

She adds: “The reality is, our existence is being used to cover up what should really matter to the world… We, as trans people, are the perfect smokescreen.” She demands the world “open its eyes”.

“While they talk about us and we appear in all the headlines, it is all free political propaganda. Because it doesn’t cost them a thing: [Giorgia] Meloni [Italy’s prime minister], [Javier] Milei [Argentina’s president], Trump, the delirious people of Scotland, nor JK Rowling. It doesn’t cost them a single penny. It is completely free advertising.” She points out that this is not a problem specific to Spain or the UK; rather, “It’s about our planet completely embracing hate.”

Acknowledging the recent court ruling in the UK on the legal definition of ‘woman’ and the fear and hopelessness felt by many trans people worldwide, Antonelli emphasises the multiple times in history that the community has risen like a phoenix. “We have to go back to where we started, to the streets. We will shout. We will shout until their ears burst! For everything that has cost us so much, we will defend tooth and nail. We will not be led willingly to the slaughterhouse… If they knew us, they’d know that we grow in the face of adversity. We become giants in the face of adversity.”

“Even if they heckle me, they’re just going to have to get over it. Because I’m not going anywhere” – Carla Antonelli

In May this year, Antonelli received the Gold Medal of Tenerife in recognition of her significant advocacy for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. And for the foreseeable future, she will be sitting comfortably in the Madrid Senate boiling the blood of the right and ultra-right political parties. “Even if they heckle me, they’re just going to have to get over it. Because I’m not going anywhere. And they have to call me ‘Your Excellency’ now,” she says.

She then delivers a final salvo: “A quien le pique que se rasque!” While this translates inadequately as “Like it or lump it,” this does not do justice to Antonelli’s mischievous personality and wicked sense of humour. In this case, the literal translation works better: “Whoever’s itchy, go and scratch yourself.” Indeed.