Spanish Matador Mario Alcalde Comes Out as 'Pansexual'
Meet Spain's first out matador. In an interview with Il Mundo (behind a firewall), Madrid-born Mario Alcalde said, ""I'm pansexual. I identify strongly with the LGBTI+ flag."
He added that: "Every person has their taste. I fall in love with the person inside, not their gender."
According to the Spanish-language site Levante, an injury last year likely prompted his announcement. "He had to be admitted to a hospital with a fractured clavicle and a dislocated right shoulder. The doctor who entered the room where he was recovering discovered him wrapped in a rainbow flag of the LGTBI community that had a written motto: Peña Bullfighting LGTBI Mario Alcalde," the outlet reports.
The 31-year-old lives with his parents in the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca. Now he wants to organize a bullfighting club there where he hopes to change gay about their negative associations with the sport.
"The truth is that all gays are anti-bullfighting. But how nice it is when you confess who you are and, after meeting you, they see it differently. 'I am a bullfighter,' I tell them and they change their opinion," he told El Mundo.
Levante added that he is usually accompanied by Leo, the wolf dog he adopted. He smokes rolling cigarettes. He uses his own ponytail to fight bullfights, and he works at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport in cargo and unloading suitcases. "In his free time he also works at the Motocine pub, the bar run by his father. His mother, as he tells it, had a chicken shop," the outlet reports.
He learned the sport at the "Marcial Lalanda" bullfighting school in Madrid and first performed in public as a teenager in 2006. Next, Levante took the sport to the next level when he "donned a silk and gold suit on August 27, 2008 in Alcocén (Guadalajara)." Then in 2016, he was gored in two locations in one fight.
More recently he has had success in the ring and looks to compete for the Chenel Cup, the celebration circuit prize organized by a number of Spanish bullfighting organizations.