A group of trans women momentarily head a protest on Barcelona's Rambla. Fists raised, shouts immortalized in the expression on their faces, and a banner with the slogan "We are not afraid, we are us"just behind you. It is one of the images that captured the photographer Isabel Steva Hernández, known as Colita (1940-2023)"At first I wasn't aware of the danger, but we did attract attention," explains Sofia, who was walking in the group of "the transvestites, as we were called then," and ended up being hit, in addition to the insults and mockery from some pedestrians. The Government delegate in Madrid, Núria Marín, recalled that "the law on dangerousness and social rehabilitation" was still in force and highlighted that Colita put "her camera at the service of the cultural, social, and political transformation of our country." The exhibition's curator, Rafael Doctor, insisted that it is "100% pertinent" for the exhibition to take place now, in full swing of a far-right that endangers conquered rights and "freedom with a capital F." After its stop in Madrid, the exhibition will move to the old Model prison in the Catalan capital, which is precisely where some of the people who participated in the protest photographed by Colita ended up, and which is relived almost fifty years later.

"If a woman decides to be one, she must choose the path of responsibility or that of submission. It wasn't like that before; before, everything was done for a woman. Not anymore. Now she must choose her attitude toward life." This statement by the writer and politician Maria Aurèlia Capmany is surprising. What does it mean to decide to be a woman? It's a warning. We must consider the context of that time, not just today. Capmany wrote this in 1977. for the photobook Antifemina —the origin of the exhibition at the Disseny Hub Barcelona (Dhub), open until January 25, which prompted this article—, women were just beginning to believe they had rights, that is, that they were people who could decide for themselves what they wanted to do in life. Adultery was punishable, as was abortion, and feminism was demanding things so basic that they would now make us ashamed.