The collective prejudices that have traditionally considered the LGTBIQ collective a shapeless mass, susceptible to being reduced to a handful of unified, reductionist and dehumanizing stereotypes, are increasingly left behind. And increasingly, society is more aware – as well as a more reliable reflection – of the plurality that characterizes LGTBIQ lives. Also in institutional politics, although this is perhaps one of the spaces that continues to oppose the greatest resistance to the possibility of trans, lesbian and bisexual people achieving high levels of visibility and power. However, it is progressively more common to find gay men who have managed to break their particular glass ceiling in the field of institutions. Such is the case of Gabriel Attal, recently appointed French prime minister and the first openly homosexual person to head the country’s head of government.
Adherence to and compliance with certain regulatory standards continues to be a mandatory mandate for those who, through dissidence, aspire to reach spaces of political power. A phenomenon that operates independently of the will of the citizens and that has its roots in the inertia derived from the inequality that still drags a society that is advancing at significant but, until now, insufficient steps. In this context and through the lens of intersectionality, in the same way that gender, whiteness or social class continue to influence the possibility of LGTBIQ people reaching these positions of responsibility, the aesthetic dimension also plays a fundamental role. when it comes to meeting the symbolic capital expectations required on the arduous path to success.
The new French Prime Minister is fully aware of this, who has always shown to perfectly understand the importance of aesthetics, image and, above all, fashion when it comes to politics. Almost five years before his final appointment, Attal declared in an interview for Le Parisien that, in his opinion, “politics requires appropriate clothing, a suit and, often, a tie.” The then Secretary of State for Communication went so far as to describe as “derogatory” that La France Insoumise had “sent” its deputies to the Chamber “dressed randomly to look like the French.” “To appear close to people, would you have to be disheveled?” He ironized.
At that time, the image of the Frenchman was in line with that of other politicians of his caliber, such as the former leader of Ciudadanos Albert Rivera in Spain. Like the Catalan, Attal’s official outfit for those moments in which he aspired to appear “close to people” consisted of a white shirt, a dark-toned jacket and the absence of a tie. In Attal’s style, the French outlet le Point recently described it as “the uniform of a Science Po graduate who masters the codes of political power”; others, like Libération, have identified it with that of his mentor, President Emmanuelle Macron. Informal, but posh.
In fact, it is striking that one of the issues to which Attal has given the most importance during his period at the head of the French Ministry of Education was, precisely, that linked to student clothing. One of his main battles was the prohibition in schools of the ayaba, a traditional garment in some Muslim countries in the form of a tunic whose elimination Attal considered necessary to promote secularization. And in this process of pointing to fashion as a key element in the consolidation of his political ideology, which has shifted over time from bourgeois-socialist positions towards a declared macronism, he also championed the imposition of uniforms in public schools, which It earned him disagreement with part of the student body and sectors of the left who considered it a limitation in the expression of their own personality.
“I had my Gothic era, many years ago,” Attal acknowledged then to humanize himself before the young people who questioned him, but implying that meaning oneself aesthetically is something typical of tender youth that sooner or later passes.
Faced with the fashion of glitter, brilli-brilli, the explosion of color and the subversion of prohibited garments (especially for men) that valued and claimed ballroom and afro-glam as a free expression of identity coming from the New York neighborhoods – and which still survives today and is associated with LGTBIQ culture -, a strictly protocol aesthetic continues to prevail in institutional policy that rewards that appearance that best conforms to traditional norms and expels those who dare to question them. .
Because, as Anita Dolce Vita explains in the book dapperQ Style: Ungendering Fashion, “fashion is one of the most visible markers of gender constructs and, therefore, of our status in the hierarchies of society. But becoming visible and zigzagging against dominant gender mandates can lead to danger and discrimination.”
In this sense, fashion plays an essential role in showing a performativity that shows that the person, or politician in question, is sufficiently acceptable in normative terms, that is, that their dissidence “is noticed” as little as possible. : for example, that he does not claim to have a pen, that he does not practice cross-dressing… . Something that, in fact, transcends other fields such as “don’t let it show if you come from the working class” or even “don’t let it show if you’re young.” Le Parisiene asked Attal in that 2019 interview, when he had just landed in his thirties, if he was not trying to “look older” so that “they would take him seriously.” It does not seem trivial that the event held at the beginning of January for the transfer of office in which he appeared alongside his predecessor, Élisabeth Borne (62 years old), the youngest prime minister in the history of France at 34 years old, attended showing his hair proudly veined with silver lines.
But there are, even so, some exceptions to the rule, such as the case of Ana Brnabic, Serbian Prime Minister since 2017, a lesbian who usually dresses in the purest butch style, with garçon hairstyle and tailored suits. male. Brnabic has bravely displayed her orientation on multiple occasions, showing himself, of course, with her wife as a traditional couple even though it is made up of two women. In 2019, a photograph went around the world in which the couple appeared with another iconic couple, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg for a decade, until last year, Xavier Bettel, and her husband, Gauthier Destenay. Destenay, in 2017, had posed smiling in the photo of first ladies in which he was the only man with Melania Trump. For his part, Bettel has also been seen on more than one occasion with clothing associated with the feminine, such as handkerchiefs, scarves or colorful jackets.
And perhaps one of the most disruptive, even if it was a detail, was Elio di Rupo, who held the position of Belgian Prime Minister between 2011 and 2014. One of the symbols that, without a doubt, contributed to the consecration of his media profile It was the continued use of red bow ties, sometimes with polka dot prints and other fantasy patterns, with which he claimed his personality without fear of criticism. “Legend says that I was born with a bow tie,” said di Rupo himself on one occasion, saying that he started wearing it by chance and that some time later, he discovered a photo from when he was just a child in which he was also wearing a bow tie.
In Spain, it is worth highlighting the former Minister of Culture and Sports Miquel Iceta, not so much for his textile attire but for the image transmitted through his performance. And the man from Barcelona has always shown off his pen, to the point of going viral during the 2015 Catalan election campaign for going out to dance at the close of each event to Don’t stop me now, by Freddy Mercury. . Quite a declaration of intentions that earned him criticism from opposition representatives such as Andrea Levy and Xavier García Albiol, who accused him of “making a fool of himself.” “Joy should not be contradictory to the rigor of a campaign. It is compatible to dance and speak truths like fists,” Iceta responded to the criticism.
Apart from him, two other LGTBIQ people have managed to become part of the Council of Ministers, two gay men. Maxim Huerta, who barely lasted a week in charge of the Culture portfolio, and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, currently in charge of the Ministry of the Interior. Marlaska, who almost always chooses sober, fitted, black suits for his public appearances, usually allows transgression through ties. Who attends an event of the Civil Guard? He winks wearing a green tie. European Union? Blue tie. And, in his daily life, it is common to see him with printed ties, especially striped ones, which give a certain contrast to his straight image.
And while it is true that in the wide range of LGTBIQ realities there are gays with and without pens, butch lesbians and femme lesbians, trans people with or without cispassing… in the same way that there are LGTBIQ people with diverse political ideologies – and even some who are not interested in politics at all, exactly as happens with those who correspond to normative sexual orientations and gender identities – the truth is that it is more difficult to access these positions of power for those who do not correspond with certain requirements. For white cis men of bourgeois origin who “are not noticed”, the hammer that shatters those glassy vaults is somewhat closer at hand.
