La Radical Gai & Lesbianas Sin Duda: Spreading Awareness to the AIDS Epidemic in Spain Favorite 

Date: 

Dec 1 1994

Location: 

Madrid Spain

On December 1, 1994 also known as World AIDS day, participating members from LSD (Lesbianas Sin Duda), La Radical Gai, and other allies sought out to protest against the push back of rejection that many of them were receiving from the medical and social perspective. The artistic movement held in their protests involved members of these groups and participating members of the community painting their hands with red paint and placing them on the Spanish Ministry of Health. Additionally, protestors held signs that said, "El Ministerio de Sanidad tiene las manos manchadas de sangre'' which means, “The Ministry of Health has blood on its hands.” Throughout the course of the epidemic, the Spanish Ministry of Health played a significant role in providing medical information, new medications and resources to people who had been diagnosed with the virus. Since people who were typically diagnosed with the virus identified as homosexual, this meant that the Spanish Ministry of Health would describe and refer to the virus as a homosexual related virus. Due to the large influence that the Spanish Ministry of Health had on the communication of information for the virus, people in society began to create false assumptions about AIDS. La Radical Gai and LSD had the goal of deconstructing the perception that AIDS was a virus only transmited by people who were homosexual. It is because of this false representation that members of LSD and La Radical Gai felt the urgent need to educate and spread awareness in their communities that everyone is susceptible to HIV transmission, not only the gay and lesbian communities. The demonstration of red painted hands symbolized that blood is literally on the hands of the Spanish Ministry of Health because of the inequalities homosexual people faced due to the misconceptions.

A Spanish artist known as Andrés Senra took photos of the place where people placed their red painted hands on the Spanish Ministry of Health to display the goal of this movement. With the movement providing a new outlook on AIDS, people of the community were forced to observe how the Spanish Ministry of Health negatively contributed to the perception of AIDS. Once the Spanish Ministry of Health was forced to react to the AIDS epidemic movements, they began to respond with treatments, medical information and prevention programs for the virus. It was thanks to the artistic movements that caused the Spanish Ministry of Health to finally act on what needed to be done, which was the production of resources and accurate medical information. This movement that was organized by LSD and La Radical Gai, might have not fully achieved the goals that the members intended to but they did succeed in one area. Which was minimizing the false representations that people of the queer community faced and still face today.

Posted by Valentinomejia on

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