Juan Antonio Peinado Marfil, who signs (because that is how he is known) as Juan Planta, has given us this year 2024 a brief but fundamental book, published with the name of the building where he lived during his student years at the University of Granada and which, informally, became a space of freedom, dreams, and, of course, of struggle, also homosexual, and of the struggle for freedom, dreams, and, of course, the struggle for freedom.l.
Planta was an active member of the Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action (FHAR). of Grenada and with this work he opens a window to those years, with the literary elegance of a person accustomed to reading and writing, and with the sincerity of one who has already settled accounts with the past and looks at it with the affection of an old friend.
But this is not the book about the FHAR that I expected (and if I’m honest, need). It is much more than that. It is a testimony of a time seemingly close but emotionally, socially and politically so far away, which makes it essential in times of self-serving revisionisms.
A few days ago I learned of the existence in Seville of WhatsApp groups of gays from Democracia Nacional, an ultra-right party, whose members maintain a delirious discourse about our past and our present.
That’s why I can only thank Planta for telling us about Alejandro, the handsome one, Lola’s dad (her childhood friend) and tailor in his hometown. Or about Paca, her mother’s friend. Remembering them not only makes Planta an act of justice, but also turns them into a beacon that illuminates the terrible past suffered by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people and that many are already rewriting and, what is worse, many more are assuming and internalizing it..
Planta has given us a gift and so I encourage us to respond to his generosity by reading “Giddy-Ups 6”. It has not only not disappointed me, but it has become a breath of fresh air from the mountains, like the one that, in spring, runs through the Albaicín neighborhood in the early hours of the day. I trust it will be for you too.
You can start reading Handrails 6edited by Esdrújula, in this link.