With a crochet mural sporting a portrait and quote from famed Spanish writer Federico García Lorca and walking alongside the EU Delegation at the Parade, the Embassy honors Pride Month, as well as Spain’s commitment to LGBTQI+ rights and the community’s contributions to Spanish society.
The 10-foot wide mural, created by Los Angeles-based artist London Kaye, is displayed for the second year in a row at the entrance of the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain in Columbia Heights. For this Pride project, LGBTQI+ members of Kaye's public art collective, Love Across the USA, crocheted individual pieces of the mural, which will remain on display throughout the month of June.
Complementing the Embassy's participation in the Capital Pride Parade on June 11, together with the Delegation of the European Union, the Embassy of Ukraine, and other European partners, the installation adds to a variety of outdoor exhibitions organized by the Embassy's Cultural Office as part of its cultural program, SPAIN arts & culture. The Embassy chose to reprise this piece as a public display of support of the LGBTQI+ community, as well as its intersection with the arts.
A pioneer in LGBTQI+ rights, in 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage for all citizens and the first to establish equality in regard to adoption by same-sex couples. Today, LGBTQI+ rights are a key part of Spain's foreign policy agenda, taking a human rights-based approach. A member of the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, Spain actively contributed to the EU Guidelines on the rights of LGBT+ people, adopted in 2013.
Domestically, Spanish society has also demonstrated its support for inclusion and equality:
- 89% of Spaniards believe that LGBT+ people should have the same rights as heterosexuals, the 3rd highest in the EU
- 83% believe that transgender people should be able to change their civil documentation to adapt it to their identity, the highest in the EU[1]