The PSOE grabs hold of the LGTBI collective due to the multiplier effect of its vote against Vox

I'm Loving You Madly is one of those films that moviegoers call sleepers, that is to say, it is moderately successful and more than expected after a modest start.. The portrait of the first movements in defense of LGTBI rights in the Seville of the Transition has a lot to do with the relationship that the people of the group have with their family. And the PSOE clings to these ties and their electoral effect in this final stretch of the campaign, as María Jesús Montero herself revealed in an interview on Lebrija TV. The number two of the party refers in it to the gays and lesbians who will opt for the ballot of the fist and the rose after the pacts that PP and Vox have reached after the regional and municipal elections. But what is striking is that Montero is not only referring to these people, but also to their families and their closest circle.. The objective is to take advantage of this multiplier effect, as confirmed by experts, to improve their expectations in the days before the general elections this Sunday, July 23.

“It makes perfect sense,” explains political scientist Alberto López, one of the leading experts on LGTBI voting in Spain.. This man from Cádiz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam and alludes to the so-called contact hypothesis, formulated by Gordon Allport, which has to do with the influence on opinion caused by knowing someone with a specific condition. “What most predicts support for the LGTBI collective is meeting someone who is, support can triple,” López details.. And that has electoral consequences if one takes into account that the studies on the collective vote have as “main consensus” that it is a social group that votes more to the left..

These studies, according to López, have been carried out in Europe for five years and have traveled in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France and the United Kingdom.. The researcher also points out that it is more correct to refer to the vote of lesbians, gays and bisexuals, since the questions are usually directed more to sexual orientation or sexual behavior than to gender orientation. “The little that there is about the trans collective reveals that their bias is even more to the left,” qualifies the political scientist, who reveals that the LGTBI collective is more prone to political participation because, due to their socialization processes, they consider that their rights depend on “what happens in politics.”.

This is how the commitment of the socialists to involve this group in their attempt to overcome the polls is understood. Especially with the trickle of news such as the removal of LGTBI flags in town halls governed by the PP with the support of Vox or the elimination of the rainbow flag benches in the Madrid town of Galapagar. In Ferraz they assure that they have tracking with a good positioning of the socialists among the group in recent weeks. It was an issue that appeared in the 3-way debate between Pedro Sánchez, Yolanda Díaz and Santiago Abascal. And it is also related to the media tour of the socialist leader, who in his foray into the La pija y la quinqui podcast earned the following nickname from Carlos Peguer: “you have the musical taste of a depressed homosexual”.

Mr. Abascal's speech on the Trans Law says it all.
It is not possible for someone from the LGTBI collective or the people who love them to vote for the PP or VOX…#DebateFinalRTVE

— María Jesús Montero (@mjmonteroc) July 19, 2023

The future of the PSOE campaign has also played in favor of this objective of mobilizing the LGTBI collective. With Sánchez focused on the media, the star of the socialist rallies is José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, rehabilitated as a benchmark for the party and precisely valued for the advances in civil rights that occurred during his mandates. “Sometimes leftist voters become loyal to the parties that have won them rights, but the normal thing is that this effect fades over time,” says Alberto López. The PSOE has been the main beneficiary of this phenomenon and the approval of the equal marriage law was very influential in the significance of the group with the Leonese politician. But the political scientist recalls that studies on the LGTBI vote indicate “the vote is more social democratic or rather green” depending on the country. In Western Europe, the bias is usually towards social democracy, but the people from Cádiz focus on the role of the forces of the “new left”, where Sumar and Unidas Podemos are framed..

The PSOE-Sumar struggle

In this legislature, the witness of Rodríguez Zapatero has been received by Unidas Podemos, with Irene Montero at the head for her promotion of the trans law. The role of the classic feminists of the PSOE also influences here, with Carmen Calvo and her criticisms of the norm as the best example.. But the disappearance of the Minister of Equality from the Sumar cartels has returned the focus to the Socialists thanks to the relevance that Rodríguez Zapatero has acquired. And it is striking that the former socialist president has vindicated the purple leader after being left out of Yolanda Díaz's project. The coalition headed by the vice president has tried to cover this leak with the appointment of Elizabeth Duval as spokesperson for Equality and LGTBI. “I am not so sure that voters see Yolanda Díaz ahead of Pedro Sánchez in defense of the collective,” says López, who thus explains the rise of the writer and her role alongside the Galician, who performs better in economic matters or that are related to her ministry.

“In Italy, legal and legal rights are already being withdrawn from non-pregnant lesbian mothers,” warns Duval. The Sumar Equality spokesperson shows her concern about the decisions that are already being made, but above all with “the installation of a social climate that is more permissive with hatred and violence”. “There are pronouncements that are beginning to go unpunished with this emboldened right,” criticizes Duval, who is “firmly convinced that the majority of society is not like that.”. What he does reject is appealing to fear and is committed to turning “rage into hope” after admitting how he spent a large part of the footage of I'm loving you madly with a “lump in my throat” thinking “what would the loss of the rights won since the 70s mean”.

The role of the right

The preponderance of the leftist vote in the LGTBI collective does not mean that there are no gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual people who do not opt for PP and Vox. Alberto López even points to a phenomenon called “homonationalism” that has “some penetration” among gay men in Germany or the Netherlands. In these countries, the researcher points out, the ultra-right associates LGTBI and women's rights with European and Western values, which is why they “associate immigration with the danger for these groups”.

“Vox has played this card a bit,” admits the man from Cádiz, who is about to publish a paper in the American Political Science Review where he investigates this phenomenon. Together with his colleague Stuart J. Turnbull, have verified that citizens show more support for policies in favor of the LGTBI collective when they are exposed to the rejection of non-Western people to the rights of gays, lesbians, transsexuals, bisexuals or intersex.

López defends that Santiago Abascal's party is aware that the LGTBI or feminism debate “divides” the center-right voter. And that in this niche of votes the aforementioned hypothesis of contact influences more. “On the right, it matters much more if you know someone from the group to become proLGTBI,” settles this researcher from the Free University of Amsterdam, who admits that center-right voters are likely to reconsider their vote for options from that ideological spectrum if they believe that a government of that political color can promote setbacks for the group.