Spain’s first openly LGBTQ+ bullfighter wants others to come out and form a community. (Getty Images)
Spain’s first openly LGBTQ+ bullfighter hopes watching him fight will encourage more people to come out in the notorious bullfighting industry.
Mario Alcalde, 31, shocked those around him last month when he came out as pansexual in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
“I follow my own rhythm. Neither my political preferences nor my sexual preferences are common in the world of bullfighting,” he told the newspaper at the time.
“I am pansexual. I strongly identify with the LGBTQ+ flag. Everyone has their own preferences. I fall in love with the person inside, not the gender.”
Pansexual is a term used to describe people who are attracted to other people regardless of their gender or gender identity.
The decision to come out publicly wasn’t something Alcalde thought long and hard about. In fact, in a new interview with BBC News, Alcalde says it was a spontaneous move.
“This idea came to me… Artists are so spontaneous. It came out of my heart,” he told the press.
The matador, who also works as a baggage handler at Madrid-Barajas Airport, found that coming out unexpectedly increased his profile.
“I expected there to be some opposition, but people have accepted it in the best way possible,” he told the BBC.
Now he wants to inspire other LGBTQ+ bullfighters to follow in his footsteps.
“There have always been homosexuals in bullfighting, but they never said anything.”
Aiming to establish an LGBTQ+ bullfighting community, Alcalde plans to establish a new bullfighting club in Madrid’s LGBTQ+ neighborhood of Chueca.
One thing that could stand in Matador’s way is the controversy surrounding bullfighting as a sport.
Blood sports, which usually end in the death of a bull, are illegal in many regions of Spain.
As a result, bullfighting tends to be seen as a conservative and traditional activity that does not integrate well with modern LGBTQ+ culture.
“Everyone in the LGBTQ+ community is against bullfighting,” Alcalde told El Mundo last month.
To prove his point, BBC News spoke to local LGBTQ+ people to share their thoughts on bullfighting.
An individual named Juan told the news agency: Bullfighting as a whole is very conservative. ”
Another woman, named Fran, suggested that being a supporter of bullfighting and being part of the LGBTQ+ community were contradictory, but acknowledged that “everyone is free to have their own beliefs.”