In recent decades we have begun to enrich the discourses regarding ourselves and our way of being and of being with others. In this assumption of diversity, we have introduced concepts such as biological sex, adding other possibilities to the traditional male-female binarism, including gender, sets of traits, roles and functions socially attributed to the sexes and sexual orientation, subjects towards which affinity and attraction are directed.

Combinations of body, behaviour and desire are, of course, infinite. From this point of view, dissent in gender expression constitutes one of the most obvious statements to others. From historical figures such as Anne Lister, a 19^th-century British lesbian who in many ways lived and expressed as a man –the television series Gentleman Jack (created by Sally Wainwright, 2019-2022) was inspired by her diaries– to militant artists from the LGTBIQ+ collective, such as Cassils, who in performance finds a way to work on their body as a sculptural material through which to question conventional limits.

“Trans-” is a prefix of Latin origin used to form adjectives with the meaning of “beyond” and to indicate the opposite position. Substantively, by “trans” we mean, like Gerard Coll-Planas in La voluntada i el desig (The Will and the Desire), a term “that encompasses all those whose sex does not correspond to their gender: transsexuals, transvestites, transgenders, etc.”. Each “beyond” is a story, figures as diverse as Andreu Sala – when praying to preserve her chastity, God made Princess Liberada grow a beard, who ended up being crucified by her father – and Ismael Smith, reproduced here, or the Transvestites of José Luis Cuevas (1981), preserved in the Girona Museum of Art collection, that, in their apparent undefinition, claim the right to any redefinition. For their part, the artists Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller delve into the story of the real case of Elena/Eleno de Céspedes, a 16^th-century character who, despite being born a mulatto woman and a slave, lived as man. Finally, the trans photographer Mar C. Llop revindicates what is personal and political, doing so from the celebration of her own experiences.

We can read into the historical and political reality a special reluctance to talk about dissident erotic practices among women and, over the centuries, these have tended to remain invisible. Desire between women has therefore often been represented under more or less subtle pretexts: the caresses of Diana’s entourage of nymphs, intimacy requested with an affectionate gesture, or the complicit embrace. The history of art has bequeathed us exceptional examples of the play between the insinuated, the seen and the lesbian. They include the paintings Gabrielle d’Estrées and the Duchess of Villars (1594) by the Fontainebleau School, Gustave Courbet’s The Dream (1886), Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Sofa (1893) and Lovis Corinth’s Group of Women (1904). However, love and seduction between women has been articulated to please a certain heteropatriarchal voyeurism, eager –as Julia Kristeva tells us in Powers of Perversion– to satisfy their curiosity about what women do when they are alone, whether in the domestic space –the instigator of “particular friendships” as in Aragay’s work– or in a moment of rest, as in Iturrino’s trio.

Regarding couples like the emperor Hadrian and the handsome Antinous –here depicted by Apel·les Fenosa– in the queer itinerary at the Museo del Prado The Look of the Other: Scenes for the Difference, Carlos G. Navarro and Álvaro Perdices point out both their “exceptional historical importance” and their “homosocial significance”. Always adapted to the conditions of each place and each era, presences such: the passionate (the gay artist Néstor portrays the flame of lovers who may well be two men); the courageous (Fenosa, a friend of the couple Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais, makes a small bust of the former so that the latter can take it to war); the inspiring (the couple Paco and Manolo defend the magic of real stories); and the optimistic (“I’m not afraid of the future”, sings Carles Congost’s protagonist having come out of the closet in the video Un mystique determinado (2003)) from the Jaume Morera Museum (Lleida), with their firm visibility pave the way for “we are who we are, we are how we are”.

Academies often imposed modernity –natural nude studies– as part of the learning process and development of the artist’s skills. While in schools they were taught in groups, as seen with Rossend Nobas, professionals undertook them in their studies. This allowed a complicity –especially appreciable in Julio Antonio’s sanguine art– that could certainly stimulate the imagination of observers too used to not seeing the kind of intimacy between men they desired. In the same way, the homoerotic view could be satisfied in the final result of so many academies. In Kenneth Clark’s classic distinction between the “naked” and the “undressed” figure, the former, divine and heroic, does not require covering, while the latter, mortal and mundane, does. Although most academies had a “naked” vocation, in practice they could be appreciated as undressed, familiar and desirable bodies.

Saint Sebastian was a Roman soldier condemned to death by torture for defending his faith. The saint’s body, with its sensual and ambiguous image, is a good example of how hagiography offers pretexts for dissident contemplations; those Saint Sebastian by Josep Tramulles and Joaquim Juncosa, the focus of so many gazes, and in the same vein, this one preserved in Vic or those of Andrea Bregno (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya) and the Alejo de Vahía workshop (Museu Frederic Marès), becomes an ideal of beauty not greatly distanced from that described by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress in the film Sebastiane (1976). Oscar Wilde and Tennessee Williams also praised the erotic sensations associated with this historical-literary character, and Yukio Mishima, in Confessions of a Mask (1949), wrote: “It is not the pain that emanates from his smooth chest, from his tense abdomen, from his slightly inclined hips, but a flame of melancholy pleasure, like that produced by music”. Seventeen years later, Mishima posed for the photographer Kishin Shinoyama, emulating the queer sexuality of Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastian (1615-1616).

The emergence of AIDS in the 1980s was undoubtedly a fundamental episode when we talk about contemporary sexuality. In light of the homophobic stigma that surrounded the appearance of the virus, reviving the social persecution of “risk groups” such as homosexuals, Susan Sontag, among others, denounced this in the essay AIDS and its metaphors, and Nazario with scathing and openly critical comics; creators, photographers and writers stood up for the dignity of those affected by AIDS. In the most difficult moments of the contagion, and before the configuration of campaigns to promote knowledge and prevention of the disease, such as the educational programme AIDS. Knowing Helps, promoted by the La Caixa Foundation, different artists turned their physical agony not only into a document of the struggle against AIDS and gender discrimination, but also into the principal motif of their work. Convinced artistic expression can be an agent of change and social transformation, cases such as those of Pepe Espaliú, Derek Jarman and Keith Haring, the last of whom was the artist responsible for the mural Together we can stop AIDS in Barcelona’s Raval district and was an activist for sexual liberation; as well as with the depiction in a political key of their affections –as in the untitled piece (Ross & Harry) by Félix González Torres, starring Ross Laycock, his partner (also an AIDS victim) and the dog they shared.

In The Division of the Sensitive, Jacques Rancière makes it clear that “politics and art, like knowledge, build ‘fictions’, i.e. material rearrangements of signs and images, of the relationships between what is done and what can be done”. That is why it is so important to pay attention to what artists and museums show us about ourselves, and also what they don’t. Because we have to continue to fight for freedom and diversity; isn’t that the foundation of a true democracy, such as that demanded by the piece Design for Protest? The reason is that we must continue to enjoy who we are and how we are –‍that is the invitation proffered by the sensual ornamented body of Ignasi Esteve–‍ and also because we must continue to promote initiatives that give visibility to the wealth of a group that, ultimately, embraces us all: actions such as the realisation of the work by Randomagus, created ex professo for the XMAC on the occasion of LGTBIQ+ Liberation Day 2022.