| Felix Alvarez | |
| Honorific Suffix: | OBE |
| Birth Name: | Felix Alvarez |
| Birth Date: | 11 October 1951 |
| Birth Place: | Gibraltar |
| Nationality: | British |
| Alma Mater: | Goldsmiths, University of London |
| Occupation: | activist |
| Known For: | Founder of the Equality Rights Group |
| Parents: | Felix Alvarez Laura Parody |
| Relations: | Emilio Alvarez |
Felix Alvarez OBE (11 October 1951) is a Gibraltarian human, civil rights, democracy and LGBT activist.
Felix Alvarez was born at Old St. Bernard's Hospital, Gibraltar, to Felix and Laura Alvarez (née Parody). As a young boy, he attended St. Anne's Middle School in Gibraltar. Alvarez's maternal grandfather was cousin to Emilio Alvarez, founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR), a political party instrumental in granting the Gibraltarians greater civil rights.
Alvarez's family moved to London in 1959, living first near the Dalston/Hoxton area of the East End of London but spending the majority of his life in the South London areas of Clapham and Tulse Hill. Alvarez grew up bilingual in English and Spanish as do most Gibraltarians. Yet the experience of being "foreign" in 1960s London was not easy for him or his family. He has vivid memories of tobacconist notice boards full of accommodation "to let" signs saying "no coloureds or dogs".
The experience of being different in an unaccepting society alerted him from an early age to the situation of the marginalised. As a teenager, Alvarez attended Wandsworth Comprehensive School, a progressive post-grammar school model, famous for its choir and close work with Benjamin Britten. It was during this period of his formative teenage years that, through personal contact, Alvarez joined Peter Hain in his Anti-Apartheid campaigns, work which he continued later at university as a young student in the early 1970s.
See also: LGBT rights in the United Kingdom. Returning to London after 3 years in a northern university, Alvarez discovered the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), recently imported from the Stonewall riots of New York in the late 1960s. Becoming immediately involved in its activities, Alvarez was one of the founders of Britain's first Gay Community Centres, where pioneering work was undertaken to establish phone counselling, information and advice, and weekly community meetings to raise self-esteem and channel gay and lesbian anger towards change rather than towards self-damage. At this time, Felix Alvarez worked with the Lambeth Community Law Centre and the Brixton Housing Advice Centre in Railton Road.
Alvarez went on to qualify in community and social work at Goldsmiths, University of London in 1978. Disillusioned with the downturn of fascist trends in London (with the rise of the British National Front), Alvarez took up the possibility of work in the Middle East, on what he considered to be an adventure, for 6 months. The adventure lasted 16 years, during which time Alvarez learnt Arabic and travelled the world.
See main article: LGBT rights in Gibraltar. In 1997, Alvarez returned to Gibraltar. One of his first undertakings on The Rock was to produce an in-depth study and MA thesis on bilingualism in the Gibraltar educational system from nursery schools all the way through to adult vocational training. This was entitled Primary Code and Private Space: Choice in the Host Classroom. A copy was deposited with the John Mackintosh Hall and has become a reference point for international researchers regarding the impact of bilingualism in a community. The research contained implications for Gibraltar's educational policies which, to date, have not been taken note of.
Experiencing difficulties as a result of insurmountable bureaucracy and prejudice regarding his non-EU same-sex partner, Alvarez determined to start challenging discrimination of sexual minorities in Gibraltar. By this time Deputy Leader of a political party (the now defunct Independent Liberal Forum (ILF)), he persuaded his party to back him in the establishment of what was to be known as Gib Gay Rights (GGR). In a GBC television news broadcast on 4 September 2000, Alvarez announced that "the fear factor" was over as far as gay citizens were concerned. From then on, gay citizens would be demanding equal rights as full citizens of Gibraltar. As the work of the group expanded over the years, GGR has since become Gibraltar's foremost Human & Civil Rights organisation, and is currently known as Equality Rights Group (GGR). This is often abbreviated to ERG or ERG-GGR.
Under his Chairmanship, ERG has achieved important changes in Gibraltarian society, prompting important debate on a range of social political issues, but in particular the following:
Alvarez's vision has always been the establishment of comprehensive links across other areas of discrimination – whether disability, age, children's rights or any other area of social concern. This was clear from the start, even before his setting up of GGR, when he actively held meetings with lawyers and other individuals to create interest in the setting up of a Gibraltar branch of British human rights organisation Liberty. Whilst that project did not prosper, Alvarez's vision has been comprehensive and unitary throughout. This has meant that GGR now considers itself a gay and human rights organisation. "Not only is a position of only fighting one's own corner fundamentally flawed from a human rights perspective,' says Alvarez, 'since human rights are indivisible in and of themselves, the issue of multiple discrimination is a very real one and no one can convince me, for example, that there are no gay people who are not disabled, nor of different ethnicities or migrant status, nor any other variety of elements. For the simple reason that human beings do not come in neat and exclusive packages: we are diverse. To lose sight of that is to lose sight of the core of what working in human rights is all about!'.
Alvarez continues to steer the development of human and civil rights in Gibraltar - to include the rights of sexual minorities without exception. To do so, and in addition to his already strong academic background (a B.A. and M.A. as well as qualifications in social and community work, in addition to in the teaching of English as a Second or Other Language) he undertook a law degree (LLB).
Committed to widening democracy, Alvarez continues to seek means by which more open and participative involvement of citizens concerned for human and civil rights can be furthered in the community of Gibraltar. In this, he says, 'my mind is constantly employed to avoid the possibility of satisfaction at what we have and what we have achieved - and to remain open at all times to change and improvement. Even if that should mean my being asked to leave at some point. It's the way it has to be! Clinging whether to power or to anything else is not the key to a dignified life whether at an individual or collective level!'
Alvarez's Honouring Gibraltar campaign:
Encompassing his vision of 'Rights for people - as well as The People', Alvarez has put forward a vision for Gibraltar which recognises the interconnection between Gibraltar's on-going political struggle for self-determination and identity and the applicability of a just society based on human and civil rights.
Alvarez was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to the advancement of equality and human rights in Gibraltar in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours.[1]
The OBE investiture by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace took place on 10 October 2013.
Alvarez was also awarded the Gulf War Medal in late 1991 for his civilian services at the time of the first Gulf War in Iraq.