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After winning the civil war in 1939, with help from Hitler, Generalissimo Francisco Franco ran Spain until 1975. Some of today's middle-aged Spanish gay activists got their start organizing illegal homosexual cells under a fascist dictatorship. As a new sexual fascism rears up around the West, does Spain's gay movement-- the thud of jackboots still echoing in its ears-- have a leg up on what's happening?

So it seemed in Barcelona after Christmas, as activists from two continents and six nationalities-- four of them within Spain-- gathered for a conference on the global sex hysteria and what to do about it. The meeting was hosted by two Catalan groups: Casal Lambda, which runs Barcelona's gay and lesbian community center, and the Catalonian Gay Liberation Front (FAGC), whose roots go back to the Franco era. Conferees decided to form a new, radical international homosexual confederation to correct what they claimed was the gay movement's rightward drift.

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Participants from the US, where the noose has pulled tightest, recounted recent developments: public registries of sex criminals, indefinite confinement for those deemed "likely" to break sex laws, large-scale imprisonment of people for consensual sex, forcible chemical castration, lifetime parole for victimless sex offenses, youth curfews, and criminalization of unsolicited conversations between adults and minors. In each case, crusaders successfully fired up fears about dangers to youngsters. Gay groups haven't rushed to oppose these measures, since they don't seem to single out homosexuality. Nonetheless, on the rosters of registered sex offenders are thousands of gay men caught cruising in parks. And for owning gay books, films, and magazines freely available a few years ago, many risk years in prison.

The 25 people meeting in Barcelona represented a variety of gay groups, from an anarchist youth club from Andalusia to a league of gay Catholics. But all were committed to the idea sexual freedom. Some of the groups from Spain resigned from the International Lesbian and Gay Association in 1994, when ILGA turned against member groups that focused on sex with minors, in a failed bid to gain entry to a United Nations committee.

For now, the confederation hatched in Barcelona is setting its sights low. Rather than campaigning or lobbying, organizers hope to create mainly a forum for discussion. To help jump-start the new coalition, the groups in Spain will issue a declaration about the danger of the growing movements worldwide to monitor and regulate sex and youth.

This being Spain-- home to a number of regional independence movements-- one of the conference themes was the relation of sexual freedom to a distinct and vigorous local culture. The two often go together, conferees noted, particularly when a local culture fights for autonomy in the face of a dominant neighbor. Quebec is far more easygoing sexually than Canada or the US, for example, and the hallmarks of the current sexual panic are less pronounced. The same is true for the Basque and Catalan regions in Spain. Like Quebec, these also have their own languages and strong movements for autonomy and independence.

"The number of Catalan youth who are pro-independence and pro-sexual freedom is growing, and the two are linked: those who are pro-independence are pro-sexual freedom," says Roger, a 16-year-old activist with FAGC. "Many Catalan kids are still seduced by the US dream, the products and the music. But there is a larger and larger group who prefer a militant image and program."

More room to wiggle

Why this connection between sexual tolerance and regionalism? Much of the current panic mongering over sex and youth is based on media manipulation of disembodied images and ideas. Rare and vicious sex crimes from halfway around the world light up TVs incessantly. The lurid and exceptional gets played as typical. Abstract terms of demonization-- such as "pedophile," "perpetrator," and "sex offender"-- are pushed by experts hoping to win money and power to fight invisible dangers. But these manipulations are better seen for what they are when people's lives are rooted in a concrete local context and tradition. It's harder to demonize a neighbor you've known for years than a stranger conjured up on the TV news. Stable social institutions rooted in local communities also give people wiggle-room to create their own arrangements. The Catholic Church is notoriously homophobic, but its very fixity over the centuries has often protected nests of homo- sex and love.

Spain was a natural place for this discussion. The Spanish left has a unique history. It was the only place where anarchists, not communists, predominated in many areas. Anarchists emphasize freedom from state control and respect for local arrangements. Franco forced the Spanish left deep underground. Where the left did prevail elsewhere in the 20th century, it was communist. True to their centralizing beliefs and emphasis on matters economic, Soviet and Chinese communists demonstrated little regard for personal freedom. Now with communism dead and an increasingly totalitarian neo-liberalism sweeping the world unchallenged, the ideas of Spanish queer radicals may have fresh resonance.