Does a video of minors in provocative clothes show an LGBT parade in Spain? No, that's not true: It was filmed at a carnival. The marchers' troupe aimed to satirize both the right and the left political parties, according to Spanish news coverage of the event.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on February 13, 2024. It opened:
So is pedophiliå publicly accepted in the LGBT community now?
The entry shared a different post whose caption said:
Children who participate in carnival in Spain dress in girls' clothes and paraded through cheering crowds. What do you think?
This is what it looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Feb 14 16:18:53 2024 UTC)
The video showed a group of people wearing costumes that somewhat obscured their age and gender. But the presence of a taller adult woman in rather formal attire who appeared to be giving snacks to the show's participants indicated that they could be minors.
As the group marched down a street, the partially inaudible voice of an unknown female said in Russian in the background (translation by Lead Stories):
... here is a carnival in Spain. Here is what I have to say: I resent it. These are children. Look! Am I the only person sensing that? What is wrong with me? Because I don't get it ...
In what can be heard in the recording, the Russian voice makes no references to an "LGBT parade" or "pedophilia," and it's unclear whether the woman was a local or a tourist in the Spanish city of Torrevieja.
The video was filmed at the 2024 Torrevieja Carnival (archived here). It took place for three weekends in January and February, and predominantly consisted of various parades organized by different groups.
That was covered by the Spanish media. El Pais (archived here), a Madrid-based national newspaper, specifically addressed the event captured in the video in question. As translated by Chrome, it wrote:
The parade prepared by the Osadía troupe... was a broadside against all political and social ideologies related to feminism and LGTBI groups. The participants wore a costume that simulated a barely covered body with an open colorful jacket, tie, nipple shields, lingerie, fishnet stockings and heels. On their backs, each member carried a type of flag alluding to right-wing and left-wing parties and the opinions that are generated on gender issues from both sides of the political spectrum. The children's section of the same troupe also walked through the streets of Torrevieja with the same outfit.
The newspaper cited a statement made by Torrevieja Mayor Eduardo Dolón:
Carnival is criticism, satire, provocation, fun... and taking out of context and dimensioning an event like the one being criticized is totally out of place.
The statement emphasized:
...the intention of the fathers and mothers of these children was not, at all, to hypersexualize their children with their costumes.
According to El Pais, Dolón added that the city, which covers substantial costs associated with the annual carnival, "does not and will not come in to censor and monitor the costumes" in the future.
The Torrevieja Carnival Cultural Association (archived here), which stood for the participants of the march, described the event as a "carnival," not anything else.
Conservative newspaper La Gaceta (archived here), which reported on the costumes, also referred to the occasion as a carnival, not an LGBT or LGBTQ+ parade -- an event that is very particularly themed to celebrate and advocate for the rights of those minority groups.
A local news website (archived here) noted, as translated by Google:
Somewhat ironically, some people even branded the Mayor, Eduardo Dolón, as a 'queer fanatic', 'sick paedophile' and others, without realising that even within the gay community in the town, Dolon is criticised for promising to support the local community before the elections, but having regained power, is consistently strangely absent from any of their community events.
Other Lead Stories fact checks covering international stories can be found here.
