Given the recent events occurred after the 16th Conference of the Feminist School Rosario de Acuña, and as a reply to the different baseless articles and manifestos which are currently being spread, we want to make a statement based upon the following reasons:
- During the conference, several women set forth the pragmatic, political and legal consequences derived from the institutionalization of queer theory. Queer theory, as it can be seen in different countries, is trying to make us believe that men can be women just by stating they are women. This erases women’s reality and denies the fact that we are oppressed on the basis of our female sex; being sold, raped, forced to pregnancy, or killed just for being women. It erases us from the laws made to protect us, they are invading our spaces, and even forbids us to speak about our own anatomy, referring to it as “a hate crime”. One of the outcomes of this theory is the passing of sex self-ID, which attacks women’s rights and legal safety. This affirmation is further explained in the following video by our sisters “Somos la mitad” (We are the other half): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdcluY1D98&t=5s
- The debate revolved around whether queer postulates were feminist or not. The speakers, based on different motives, explained why they do not consider queer theory to be feminist. It is an obligation of the feminist movement, as a sign of respect for our ideology and our history, to discuss and conclude whether the ideas that claim to be feminist are feminist, and this is what has been done at the conference. As one of our great feminist theorists puts it: “Feminism cannot be the only theory where both a statement and its opposite truth can be accepted”.
- The speakers defended the classic feminist concept of the analytical category “gender” as a social and cultural construct that establishes the roles according to sex and constructs the sexual hierarchy, opposite to the postmodern queer concept that defines gender as identity or a personality category.
- At the Conference of the Feminist School Rosario de Acuña, both the speakers and the attendants discussed, argued and contrasted different ideas. There was no humiliation or scorn towards transsexual people. They acknowledged the discrimination against transsexual people and rejected it straightforwardly, establishing a difference between this discrimination and the structural inequality suffered by women, for a proper conceptualization is not hate speech. Hate speech has no place in the feminist movement. We fight the ideas we do not share, but we do not fight people.
Due to all this:
- We reaffirm our support to every speaker at the conference: Amelia Valcárcel, Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, Anna Prats, Ángeles Álvarez, Xabier Arakistain, Elena de la Vara, María José Guerra Palmero and Alicia Miyares¸as well as the general manger of the Asturian Institute of Women Almudena Cueyo and Gijon’s mayor, Ana González. Our support is a response against the harassment, insults and threats addressed to our sisters just because they took part in this conference.
- We will defend a gender-critical and gender-abolitionist feminism, since gender is the cornerstone upon which women’s and girls’ sexual oppression is built, a method of the patriarchal politics to be eradicated. To consider it as a category to be defended, as the queer theory does, is an antifeminist practice. If this theory is applied from childhood and puberty, as it is being currently done at schools, we will be putting at risk the physical and mental health of a very vulnerable population with irreversible consequences.
- From Women for Abolition we want to show our support to the speakers at the 16th Conference of the Feminist School Rosario de Acuña. Furthermore, we encourage other groups and people to join us in this support. Please, sign and spread the following manifesto, for our sisters and for all of us, to stop this silencing. We have a right to debate and we want to do it without fear.
According to LO 3/2018 on Personal Data Protection and guarantee of digital rights and according to the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 by the European Parliament and Council, the signatory allows Women for Abolition to use the personal data reflected on this form. This data will be registered in the file called “Abolitionist Manifesto” under Women for Abolition’s responsibility, with the aim of counting the number of signatures in this manifesto.

Original manifesto here: https://forms.gle/PqUWSacXN6sqoiKd8